I'd like to call to order the City of Brunswick Planning Commission Meeting for May 2020-24. Mr. Del, would you call a roll? Yes, sir. Mr. Jones. Mr. St. John. Here. Mr. Crusoe. Here. Mr. Minor. Here. Mr. Bedano. Here. All presently. I don't know for. Thank you, Bruce. First item of business is the minutes from our March 5th.
I have, I will move to approve the minutes.
Okay.
I would like to have one sentence at it.
And the next last paragraph is the discussion continued with Mr.
Jones stating he thought the density at 16 units was too much.
But I also said that there was no legal basis to oppose.
I'm happy to amend with that change.
Second stands.
All in favor?
Aye.
Opposed?
Minutes are passed.
Let's see, under the heading of old business, nothing under new business.
There is a collection of ten items all brought across in section 4, which I think will treat
as a group, Bruce, would you like to review your report?
Yes, but first I'd like to kind of give a little bit of background, because tonight is a
very nice crowd here this evening, and we don't get this very often, so we want to take advantage of it.
So tonight is a little unique, all the topics that we're going to be dealing with are in
First item that's on the agenda are our plans for Section 4, which is the next section coming past the infield house and heading to the back to the east.
Those will be looked at collectively.
We also have the second item on the agenda is a clarification modification to the Phase 3 plan.
It's only for the land block number three, which is directly encompassed as the infield farmhouse, the existing farmhouse.
And then the third item, which I imagine a lot of you are aware of, is the pad site that is behind the white market.
It is a site plan for a medical center approval.
and that is the order in which we're going to be going forward.
Just to give you an idea, Brunswick Crossing has been going on for a very long time since
2021.
In that time we've had probably 50 slow meetings, public meetings in this board with this
board to learn.
That doesn't even count what we've done with the mayor and council.
And I wanted to kind of just give a little bit of a briefing as to how we got to where we are with the two items.
And I'll go more in depth when we get to those agenda items.
But on the phase three revision, back some 20 years ago when the concept plan,
which is called the phase two plan, there was a designation put on the infield house
of a community office and recreation park area.
At that time, we didn't know what that community office would be.
We do have a couple possibilities and we want to clarify that it will be
some type of professional office.
A professional office would be something like an attorney,
Any realtor, lawyers, lawyers and attorneys, same thing, sort of.
And it can only be something that the whole community could use, not just burns across them, but the community as a whole.
So, that is the direction we want, the reason we want to do that, and we want to conserve that house.
The historic nature of the infield house and the fact that it's been being remodeled.
It's a high visibility lot, it's going to be expensive to maintain that property.
So, that is why we want to keep that professional office designation to it so that they can maintain it, because if it went to a private homeowner, it could be very expensive to maintain.
The second piece of the Phase III plan was back in October, some of you may remember,
some of you may not remember, the developer had come to us with market studies that were
staying with the assisted living.
We just couldn't get that in to come to the Brunswick area because of the numbers that we were
getting from the market study.
So, this board actually heard that back in October of 2022, but their solution back then was to go to age restricted housing on that parcel.
This board did not want that, neither did the mayor and council, we wanted to maintain the commercial integrity of the property either being assisted living or some other type of quasi public use such as a medical center.
As we define it in our ordinance,
a quasi-public lease could be a church, could be a daycare, could be a medical center,
could be senior, a senior center, but it has to be in that realm of use.
That subsequently went to two hearings in the beginning of 23, and
then in December was approved to be a medical center slash,
the living is still still still in there.
We, as a city, have worked that whole year trying to get a medical facility.
The needs of this community, especially as we age, was an immediate need to have more
medical facilities located right here in Brunswick.
That could be a lab, it could be X-rays, it could be physical therapy, it could be all of those
those types of units all in one building, but it's also could be specialty doctors.
Doctors that could come in from Frederick and actually come to this location and
actually have office hours for our community so that we don't have to drive that for.
So that's what we did, we do go out and try to, I guess, I don't want to say panhandle, but we do kind of panhandle the city.
We want uses that we need, and we have an immediate need, and as our community ages, we want to be able to provide those needs here.
Do you want to add anything to that, Julie?
From an economic development standpoint.
Julie Marta Rana, City Administrator for the City of Brunswick, and thank you all for coming out.
I just wanted to add that there are times when the city has to look at what the community needs.
And knowing that medical, just for the growing population that we have, medical is a big need within this city.
And then with the addition of age restricted houses, we thought that that need was even more so.
So the current medical center that we have just is not going to sustain our growing population.
So that was one reason that the city was helping to try to make this marriage of this space that was already designated for something like that as well as the growing need that we have.
So it's not that the city gets involved in every single commercial deal that goes down.
But when it comes to providing services like that for the community, that kind of is our role to make sure that those services are here.
So I just wanted to make that clear.
Do you want to make an announcement about the sign-ins and some more people?
I
apologize that some of you have to stay in so we'll try to go quickly.
But if any of you wish to speak this evening that we're going to swear people in,
And there's a sign-up sheet back there if you have something that strikes you in the middle, you can still get on the list to come up and speak, and there's a sign-up sheet up here as well.
Okay. Any questions from the board or on any of that background?
I have a question about the end of the order, as well as the original intentions of that.
You can ask that question, but wait till we get to the project, okay?
So the procedure of the meeting is that if you do have a question at the public comment
portion, you would come up to the podium.
We won't be addressing questions from the audience because we need it on record.
Yeah, we can't hear you if you're not at the microphone.
It doesn't record it.
And, again, you can sign up at podium at that time if that's what you want.
You good, Chris?
I'm great if you ready to start. We'll go into plets.
Well, before we do that, I would like to remind everyone that we're being audio and video recorded tonight on Channel 99 and streamed on the web through Granitas.
Now, for anyone who is planning to or may come up to offer testimony, could I get you to stand for a swearing-in?
Raise your right hand, very good.
Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, if so say I do.
I do.
Thank you.
We have several plans for Section 4, which are plans 1, 27 through 134 and 134 and 134.
six. This is a total consists of a hundred and five lots of total. These are the next
section of Friendswick Crossing as you head east back east along Monocacy Crossing Parkway
from the infield house. Each one of these plaques was reviewed and prepared and will be recorded
to court house for new construction or in the buildings.
The staff is recommending approval of the final plans with the following conditions that the applicant
addressed all comments from staff from few.
Plants must be notarized, surveyor, my side, and
sealed the plots.
The owners must sign the plans and the applicant is bound by their testimony.
These are the areas that are created in the park.
Sir, if you want to have a question, you need to come up to the microphone so it gets recorded.
We'll get to that in just a minute.
What we'll call for comments in a minute.
Before we do that, amongst the Planning Commission members, is there any discussion on these
flats that Bruce just reviewed?
Anybody want to offer a public comment about section 4?
Come up here, crossing.
Hi, I'm Lynn Broadman, and I want to know are these flats, the lots that are graded and marked, and on which they are in presently building houses, back behind the Enfield, or are these up on the hill where this 55 plus is supposed to go.
But these are neither.
The ones that are being graded right now by the infield house are already mixed in with
other existing houses.
These are all infield
houses right about in here.
Yes.
This is all about in here.
So this area doesn't have any houses in it at all.
The
infield house is kind of over here, being
this area right here.
The
shopper center up here where the lights is, yes, right up here, the wearing 700 up here.
So this just has rough grading in it.
Yeah, these are all graded marked in the utilities are in already.
Yes. But there's no houses. No, I know that, but there's no, no more moving dirt. There's no more other than the build the house. There's no more infrastructure going in. The roads are in already. The utilities are in already. And that's the area behind the infield house. And it runs down to the trail that goes down into the city of runs. Correct?
Yes, it's not entirely there, but you're close and I'll bring pleasant stuff to clarify.
Every section we're talking about is surgical, I'm Dan Fry with pleasant development and runs across.
This section here is probably about 75% paved.
All the utilities are in the ground for the entire submission, but there is a section of Monocs to be about half of Monocs to be a channel in this plan right here.
get to be paid, we're getting ready to do that in the end of June, beginning of July.
That's when the rest will be paid, but all the utilities are in the ground.
The section five that's up over the hill, that's not graded yet, that's not part of this section.
That'll be in the future, so yeah.
Any other comments from the public planning commissioners, any other discussion?
If not, the motion would be in order.
I'll
move to approve the improvement plan section 4.
I
approve the plan.
Well, it said improvement plan on this move.
Second.
All in favor.
Aye.
Opposed?
Motion carries.
Next item of business is
BRPUD REV 2401.
The matter of 1300 Potomacue Parkway, otherwise known as the Enfield House.
the preliminary plan passed through your revision to business or professional office.
Yeah, I just want to make two corrections to the report.
Under the analysis where it says 0.09 acres, that should be 0.9 acres.
And then under the recommendation, the plat, it's looking for that to be coming in as a separate application, that plat is recorded for this lot.
It's under Platt 83, which was book 104, page 101.
Lambay,
all right, nope, here I come down, down, there you go, a slot over.
All right, Lambay number three is the area where the infill house is located.
It is, do we have to know how about thinking,
is that it?
It's this area right here, can everybody see that?
Okay, this area right here, this plan was the one, this is the phase two plan that I mentioned at the summary.
This plan was adopted with the community office and the reactivational facility on this land back.
There's a stormwater management pond here, the house sits right about here.
It has been reconfigured some with the lots over the years, but it's the same concept.
It was always supposed to be a park, always supposed to be the infield house.
What we're doing today is, we're actually designating that office space as a professional office for the house.
It's encompassing the original phase two, but on the phase three, it's just a Zenfield park, which is what they called it.
But we want to designate the house specifically as a professional office.
Like I said, this is a point nine acre piece, article 21.5 F2 of the zoning ordinance.
Allows for commercial uses are permitted by right within the B1 zoning district, as approved by the Playa Commission.
Provided that the development contains 500 or more dwelling units.
The runs of crossing is 1,505 units, one acre of land per 100 dwelling units may be used for commercial purposes.
So to put that in perspective, 15 acres of land could be commercial within the residential component.
The other commercial piece that we have is an MXD overlay, which only allows for commercial uses and also office research.
So, this piece to give you an idea, where the medical center is, that piece of property is about 2.4 acres.
This piece is about 0.9, so we're still about a little more than three acres, and we could do 15.
There is no other property that is going to be commercial.
These were the only two pieces that were designated, let me get to the end.
So the applicant has proposed this designation and we want to conserve the integrity and historical nature of this house.
We do not want it to come down, we want to keep this fight as it is kind of today, do you have the errors that I gave you?
This is how this is a drone shot of the property.
You can see it's very visible.
The park kind of is in the background, and we want to keep this other than landscaping
and probably a monument sign in parking spaces.
We want to keep it relatively like it is today.
We will restore the house.
It's not going to be torn down.
They're renovating the inside as we speak.
And they will have to submit a separate site plan once the user is identified and they purchase the property and come in.
But this will be a, they're required to stay at a small scale commercial use.
They can only use 3500 square feet of the building.
They will have to pay HOA dues just like anything else, but it's based on their square footage.
So they have a multiplier that they would have to deal with.
Those documents have to be revised and
re-recorded to accommodate these commercial identified pieces once those users are ready to move forward.
Does the board have any questions?
I have one.
The State or existing uses community office, what exactly does that entail?
That it can be utilized by anybody in the community, it's not just for an HOA use.
So sort of like a remote office space, free workspace type of thing.
A community workspace for a business to be there, but for it's sort of everybody.
Does, is there another space like that and runs acrossing already?
The only other space that's similar would be the medical center's pads, right?
It's the only other piece that's within the PUD.
What I mean is, is there any other place in the crossing that has that, like, the clubhouse or something like that, or is there anything?
No, this is the only piece that could happen.
And it's because we want to protect that house.
Is the historical trust or people of that nature are they involved in this?
I don't think so, it's not designated through the Maryland Historic Trust, but it doesn't mean we don't want to preserve it.
So Bruce, I'm, what's the change condition here that you're asking it to be re-zoned now, is that?
We're asking it to be specifically designated as a professional office, so that-
not keeping a community office.
Well, because we don't have a designation in our ordinance.
Okay, so it was 20 years ago.
It was designed as a community office,
but we don't have it as in our ordinance.
Well, I can't answer why they called it a community office.
20 years ago, it wasn't here.
So I don't know why.
I don't know what a community office would even be.
We don't even have a definition for a community office, so that's why we needed to get it to be something that is more similar to what we have within our ordinance, which is a professional office, and that helps to keep the scale of that use down.
Is
it, but what's its zone right now, residential?
It's PUD, it has, it has like a residential underlying issue.
It doesn't, it's zone PUD because that's the overlay decimation and within the PUD,
so that the underlying zone, zone goes away, it follows the PUD rules and that section
within the ordinance gives us the criteria that I was speaking of under 21.5 F2.
that says that if they can do these things, they can do what is allowed within the B1 district.
But they can, they have a limit in which they can do it in the development.
So we're in a kind of like a limbo state right now.
It's kind of, it's like establishing a designation within the PUD to allow a B1 use,
or anything within a B1 use, to be on this site specifically.
So the, the park, the baseball diamond that's there right now, does that fulfill the other
statement on here for a park, if I recall it, or what's that?
Yes.
So it was a community park.
The rest of it will still be a park, right?
So the park part of that sentence is that diamond.
I know.
Well, there's, there's, there's, there's other stuff there too, there's a playground.
And the other part of it.
So right now the developer, Pleasant's owns the building, right?
Correct.
And Pleasant's has done work on restoring it.
Correct.
And I don't have access to the meeting notes but I can recall like six months ago or something like that.
There was some statement about what was going to happen with that building and I guess it was just kind of up in the air.
So in the interest of doing something with it, Pleasant's invested in restoring it and it's an historical building.
It makes the definition, it could be designated.
I thought I saw a sign outside saying something has started, no.
I can't hear 20 at once.
So, I mean, I'm a little, from the community office space, it's, it sounds almost romantic
that you want to work and have a quiet space, so a, it isn't a bronzer, could just walk
into that building and just take an office space, was that the intent?
No.
Okay, the intent was that it was going to be a, like a-
there to lease or run a business out of a personal business.
That was the intent.
Right.
Right, fine.
We just didn't know what, or they didn't know what back then.
I'm confused them.
Why did they call it a community office?
Because that sounds just like a regular office.
Dance.
I don't know, but they're asking me something.
I can't answer.
Who answered?
What's your building?
I'm not sure why they called it a community office
I don't know if the definition of it, but we've had to house for, you know, since the beginning of
purchase of the infield property, I don't know if it was exactly back in 2001, a long time,
and we've invested a lot of money into keeping it. We've always made a commitment to the community
that we would keep it, and we've, you know, over the years replaced the roof, replaced all the windows,
as we try to do it, you know, to keep the story.
I will concede the place seems to be well maintained.
I'm just a little mystified as to who came up with this mystery term and
got it inserted into the two lot of documents for us this time.
It was a residential use up until I think 2014.
We actually had a runner in there.
And there was a small residence out near 180, that was tore down.
This one was always envisioned.
We've actually designed the entire community around it.
If you come down Potomac View, we actually turn the road, and it is the focal point of Potomac View.
But I thought Bruce had said that there were supposed to be a, like, swear it off a space type,
you know, work from home space in there.
Did you not say that a few sentences ago?
It actually could have that.
Okay.
So that's not what I heard you said.
So it's going to rest and also use up till about 2014.
We've considered doing different things over the years.
We didn't know what it was going to be.
We decided here over about a year ago to go ahead and just completely renovate the entire inside of the house
and take it back to a resident.
We were approached by the current contract purchaser, and the allowable PUD zone, says that you can use the B1 business uses in the PUD. So it met the use requirements in the zoning code. And that's why we're here tonight to ask if that would be an allowable use for this resident.
And the one thing I'll add as to why we use the B1, it limits the square footage that that building can be.
In other words, poor business, which helps to keep it small impact, which is why we went that direction.
It limits it to 500 square feet.
We put a lot of restrictions in our contract with the contract purchaser as well to maintain the existing look of the house.
We put provisions in there to make sure stays high viz that they do the landscaping and
all the upgrades any one of our residents would have to do on their house and they
cannot make any changes to that unless they need to come back and get that approval from
you and also when we turn it over to the HOA also with the covenants have some control
over that as well.
So Dan, do you have an active party with whom you're negotiating to cook a deal then?
I have a contract purchased for now, interested in it, and that's why we're here.
Okay.
Before that, I was just renovating the house and putting it back to you doing a residential use just to make sure it was done correctly and didn't annoy the residents by me selling it to somebody and taking years to do it, so we're trying to.
I understand, again, I'm glad to see that you have maintained the building, looks to be in good shape.
It might be an artifact of the terminology, which we're not exactly sure where it's from.
But it sounds at first, sounds at first blush when I read the application, like you were going to take what is essentially a community amenity and convert it into commercial space.
So that's-
It sounds like when you look at the application, so I may not be the only person who's made that in state, but it would certainly be of concern to me for a community and amenity to convert into a more profit location when so much of the rest of the shopping center is empty or incomplete.
I just want to try to clear up this community thing, that intent I believe I wasn't here
20 years ago either, but the intent I believe of this building from the very beginning
was that it would be used for a business or service that could serve the community.
Not that it was something under the auspices of the HOA, or that was intended just for
the use of runsway crossing citizens.
It was to be used for a service or business that could be used for the entire community.
I think the unfortunate wording of community was probably not used right, and that's-
Again, it just sounds like it's not that they probably should have just called it that.
Yes.
Well, with that enlightenment, what do you all think, any conversation further from you,
with that understanding that all these folks have collectively-
And this is what I'm interested in hearing with the
revenues I have to say.
Can I ask one thing, Dan, while you're up there?
Yes, sir.
Well, the sentences of the staff report,
the applicant proposes to renovate the existing
integral form of protecting historic and aesthetic
integrity as much as possible and bring the structure
into code compliance.
What does that mean?
We're renovating the house currently
and trying to restore the interior of the house.
The exterior is already finished, essentially,
with exception to some sidewalks.
And if this is a professional office,
I don't know if they would have to put a frame maybe in,
but that would be the only other thing that I could think of.
But we've put a lot of money into the exterior
with replacing the windows and kind,
so it retains the look.
We've pointed up the brick.
We've, you know, made repairs that we put a slate looking roof back in I think 2012 to try to continue the look, you know, that is our main focal point in the community, and we intend to do so in the insides.
And when you go into the main foyer of the house, we're retaining all the existing woodwork and so forth in the foyer area, and some of the other rooms that are just old plaster would be tearing those down.
on putting drywall and trying to retain some of the old wood floors and so forth so renovations of that nature.
The house was abused over the years and we're making all of those repairs, we'll have to mesh with the parent renovation.
Yeah, the contract purchaser is going to continue restoring it back to a residential.
So they're going to continue the work with exception, you know, in the living room, they may have a meeting room, you know, with the bathroom doors may have to be three feet wide for ADA purposes, and they may have to put some exit signs in, but other than that, they're trying to retain the existing look and feel that that's the proposal.
So what changes are you going to need to do from a parking lot perspective?
They'll have to submit a site plan to you guys to, I think, it'll fall under the 2.25 spaces
per whatever use, or whatever square for 1,000 square for 1,000, or really a guesstimate.
Are you looking at it?
It's not going to change the existing parking lot.
It's going to be added onto this piece.
Right, so they'll probably have to have about seven to eight spaces.
That's a handful, yeah, it's just a handful of spaces.
This is $7.8, a building that size, to me, you could put, I don't know, like $10 per mile.
No, it got $0.35 per mile squared.
Yeah, the zoning doesn't allow that to happen.
So, $7.8 basis, so that would include staff and customers.
And customers.
So, it's just a small, like a therapy type of person that's providing therapy services or things like that.
It's just a small.
Okay, so we're clearly up here to to vote on changing this from residential to business.
What's an allowable use by the by the zone and it's allowed not really changing it's just it's identifying where that use is located I was with the zoning code.
Okay, so we're not changing it from it's an allowable use for allowing you, but will that change that plan to be the use will still be PUD.
It's still going to be a PUD, that's the zoning designation.
They're revising the PUD, it doesn't take this as business as part of the overall PUD.
Okay, so if we go back 20 years ago, what, would they have done something 20 years ago to make this more flexible or clear in their intents?
I don't think they knew at the time what other than, you know, the bubble plan that you saw appears is very early on in this page, and they kind of.
But like Mr. St. John and myself, I think when we look at the word community office or at park that implies, I mean, I'm not an expert in this space, but it implies more of a community center or something like that.
So, I could appreciate an anticipation of confusion that the builder would have taken legal precautions to ensure the flexibility of that use.
So, why, I mean, wouldn't this, wouldn't this have happened 20 years ago?
It's a better designate that area.
If they knew, if they had a user at that time, they could have, yeah, I mean.
Well, I don't think there's much argument that it would have been better if this had been more clearly stated 20 years ago, but that's 20 years of history long gone.
We find ourselves now presented with, do we think this is a suitable use and designation for that piece of property in that.
Phil, another example, like the land-based six where we have our current community center
and pool house and pools, and we actually expanded that area.
It's probably double the size that it's found on this land, so things have changed.
This whole concept has come with a preliminary plan, a phase three preliminary plan, come
to life a little differently than what's found on the air that's, this is a really old plan
and just how you start the process.
I guess my only comment is has a vision for a utilization of this building changed over time.
Has the vision vision?
VIS now we're in.
I mean, it went from Mr. and Mrs. Enfield living in there to some of these today but the
But once you're crossing spent, we are nature's ages of the annexation.
Not that I'm aware of,
and we've always tried to take care of the house and we intend
to try to keep it that way.
We don't want it to look any different than what it looks like today with exception of landscaping
and, you know, upgrading it from that perspective.
but we have any more questions for Dan.
So I'll go ahead now.
Yeah, with this designation and the limits to the area, the size of the building, everything that has some means to protect the building itself that has worked building, whether or not it's designated or not, I'm not concerned about the logist,
What are the nitpickiness of that, it is a historic building designated or not.
For the interim, while the presence has control of it, we're relying on them and
their contract for maintaining the property, and then down the road we're relying on the HOA to maintain the planning commission, they have to come back to the planning commission.
We'll plan a commission and we'll have to say over that.
When they have a flight plan, yeah.
Okay, so any modifications down the road that can jeopardize the building itself, we would have.
Yeah, that's not good, okay, and the covenant will be revised to address that.
Okay, yeah, I mean, the designation and the community use thing, it's, I've seen that a while, different ones.
Right, I'm just looking at who has the oversight of the.
The pay of the existing covenants actually have that in their now, that they can't make changes without.
Okay, the community use thing, I've seen that a lot in different plans over time that are really just placeholders, unfortunately.
You know, it is in a way going to be a community use, it's going to be a business, I guess it's not definite but it could be a benefit to the community by whatever professional officer
or whatever comes in there. So,
will we open this up to public comment?
Line up.
I'm the Brunswick-Rosenk neighbor, Paulina Gershon.
Wait. Yes, I already signed. But I'm going to also do for the other lot as well.
But I don't need to address this one, ma'am. Yes, yes.
Yes.
So I just want to say that you guys building such a beautiful community for people to have
raised the needs, you know, to be safe, to become comfortable, but then you decide to
change from the residential to the commercial inside the community which does not make any
sense.
because then it's also hard for kids to play in everything because a lot of different people is going to come in
and it's a huge community and it's keep growing and like we have only one small clubhouse and a pool
but if you look in the summer it's not even space for us to go in because it's too many people
where you're building like over 3000 houses or maybe even more and then you have such a small house
So this one can be like, for example, another clubhouse,
or you can make it something for kids,
because it's nothing there for kids.
You just have playgrounds, and that's it,
but a lot of family have three or four kids,
where you can do a clubhouse, and this is historical,
so you can save it.
And then maybe you can do a little indoor playground
for little kids or something,
and it's also very good for the community, you know?
And you keep an inside and it's also very safe, because you have, I think it's the basketball court or another court, and then kids playing there.
And you bring like for the officers, but it can be also any kind of officers, like how you're going to choose who's going to rent the office.
Like, for example, I work in DC and we have a lot of officers in the building, and some of them, for example, was dispensary officers.
So when you walk in, it smells and everything and for example we have medical office and this
is also just how you're going to choose everything and I think the important part seems
it's a huge community to ask the community what they really want you know I think that's
like more important because that's what kind of you want to do it because it's the money
Which is understandable, but I think we need something else
Announcements, and some more efficient.
Hi, my name is Alexandria Profit, I'm 1206 Potomac View Parkway, actually neighbors to the unfilled house. I just want to thank all of you for your service to the board. I know this is probably a hard job to have, and none of us are up here being the decision makers. So thanks for hearing our comments. I echo her sentiment as well. As some of the community is getting older, we are having children, and I have a small daughter who
who plays at that park every single day.
There is a lot of traffic already in the neighborhood.
I have a concern with the traffic
who would be coming into the neighborhood.
And to me, it does not seem worth it
to change the purpose of it to commercial
for a business that may serve seven customers
or whatever it may look like in terms of parking spots,
whatever that is.
Our community is growing,
whether that is a positive or a negative
to some folks, we are running out of room in our pool, things like that.
I think it would serve greatly as a community space for our residents' views or
even folks inside of the Brunswick community, or outside of the Brunswick
crossing proper, but in the Brunswick community, whether it be something to be able to rent out for birthday parties, things like that.
We've used the clubhouse as well as the one multipurpose room in our neighborhood for
or birthday parties and things like that for our daughter.
I think that need is going to continue to grow.
And I do think that in my opinion,
my one opinion being a direct neighbor to that home,
I don't see many parents being comfortable
with people coming further into the neighborhood,
having businesses in there,
when there is likely going to be a need
for a growing area for community, things like that.
And I will say we were told when we got there,
It was either going to be a snacking clubhouse, and now, obviously, these are salespeople, so whether it's true or not, it was either going to be a snacking clubhouse or a resident, which we were totally fine with.
We thought, what a great use for that beautiful home, I do agree, I don't think it should be torn down, I think it should maintain its historic nature, but I do think it would be better served as a community center, not a commercial property.
Thank you.
Next.
Thank you.
My golden 1314.
Should I view parkway?
Yeah, I would just like to say that, you know, when you think of the community, I kind of
don't know the legal words, but I kind of look at the residential area and I see like a commercial
area.
And in my view, that's kind of like one side of the street is where the working and the streets
and Dunkin' Donuts, I don't think it's commercial, and then kind of when you go to the other
side where the medical building is going to be at, that clubhouse, that seems residential.
Assisted living to me seems like residents living there, even though they need to be
assisted, something for the community.
When I think of community office, it brings to mind churches, or daycare, or these kind
of things, or maybe something that the people say that you mentioned.
But those seem to be, they do seem to be more like community oriented.
Whereas a medical office building seems to me that I've got like a six or eight year old walking school or ten or twelve year old, or one of the kids kicks a fall on the street, and now we have 200 people going to an office building, and we start having people cutting through the neighborhood, and it has to be delayed to work, or something like this, or putting an office building into a playground, let's say for kids, you know, I just from a, you know, that perspective.
I don't know who's in that office building and is it safe to have the kids playing over the baseball by themselves in your community and we start bringing a lot of thoughts on that whether it's a law.
They could come in to see a lawyer and not live in our community.
They can live in town next to us.
But that's just kind of my thoughts on that.
Thank you.
Next,
John Hatcher.
here?
To pick it back on some of the things that's already been said, the one thing we were
actually told the same thing we first got here, that would be more of a could you state
your address please? My address 515 Potomac View Parkway, we were told
that that would be either a clubhouse or residential area. In fact, we actually wanted to put in
and to buy it because we love that house.
That house was so nice for us.
And we were told, oh, we'll get back with you.
Never heard anything else from there.
I understand the financial side of things.
And I see this seems to be more of a financial issue
and not a community issue.
And even with the clubhouse we have, sometimes we can't use it
because it's on loan or on lease or somebody else's
using a pool or, and so we can't use it.
At least we have another place to go to.
I also look at it from the other side.
But it's a long walk for them to have to come to this side to go to the clubhouse, and they could have one right there in their own community.
The other thing is,
whenever you think about a business, it's going to be, it's not, it can't be public, it can't be for the community use also because they're not going to want us coming in there, that's their business.
So that would be a distraction for them if you were to open one and that is a danger when you have an I walked that area all the time
Kids are always over there that would be a danger for them because we don't know who's going to be coming in and out of the community and that that's not a good
Thing for our residents to have a
Center place in the middle of the community instead of I like the way you put it in the area that is already still open
and they could have a business there, so.
Hi, I am Marie Broadman, I live at 1311 Pennington Drive.
And I do have a quick question for you to raise my hand.
When you talked about the acreage that was considered
to be commercial within our Brunswick Crossing community,
do you not include the acreage where the grocery store is
and all those other, what about the fire department
that serves the community?
All of that serves the community and is called Brunswick Crossing, does that not apply to what we're supposed to be having in our community?
It doesn't apply to the PUD portion, because it has a different designation, it's an MXD, which is a mixed commercial.
So when you look at the ordinance, the acreage for just the residential portion is what we're looking at, and I'm quoting the section of the ordinance.
It's that portion of the other commercial that's up and above what could be are you
included in the dog park because everyone in Brownswick used the dog park are you
putting the playgrounds because that area is but it's not that's not a commercial
that's recreational use that's a that's a green space use so it's actually
zone for commercial no it's green space but but we're allowed to actually have
There is a provision for that in the PUD to allow a certain portion of commercial within a PUD.
Well, allow, but not in the liar.
No, it's not required, it's all in the law.
Okay, but I just want to make sure it's allowed, but it's not required.
It's allowed with approval.
Okay, and the only other statement I wanted to make was that when we two purchased our house,
We were told by the, I wouldn't call them a realtor because they're their builders which are agents of the developer.
All of these agents told us specifically, because my house does look at the unfilled old house that it was to be a community use building.
So there are a lot of people in our neighborhood who have been either misinformed or
And it's led about the purpose of the house, which I think is why you're seeing so much a question about here.
Thank you.
All right,
Baker, 1327, Shannon Doyle.
I actually didn't come for this particular plod of land, but I wanted to ask a question.
I had to come up here to ask a question.
the question was, when you're talking about renovating that property back there, are you
talking about selling the property or are you talking about leasing the property to a
business of what is it?
It would be a sale.
Okay.
It's plowed and separate.
If you're selling the, how are you actually going to control the other people using it?
You're saying the same way we would control any other house?
The provisions of the HOA are what dictates what can happen.
Okay, in other words, are you going to put sections in it so that people are not allowed to go to this section but are allowed to go to that section?
I mean, you can't have an open house and say, this is a business here, but you can't walk through here and do that.
I mean, that's what I'm saying.
How is this going to be laid out?
You're saying that it's a business that's going to be occupying the building, right?
And how are you going to manage the other people who use the property?
So I think the answer to your question is that that entire parcel will be sold to a new owner and they would have control of everything inside.
Exactly, exactly, there's no way to sell someone a property and say look, you can only use that much of it.
And everybody else can use your property.
That's an impossible now.
Well, will there be covenants that guide what can and cannot be done?
Yes.
The covenants will dictate what can happen within the lot, just like any other lot.
That's the lot of the building, the building, not the lot, the building.
We didn't incorporate a lot, too.
Exactly.
So it won't be amount to use.
I mean, no one else will be able to use that building.
This is what I'm saying.
Okay.
Playing is simple.
That was my question.
And I had to come here to ask it because it didn't make sense.
If you sell the building to somebody,
you can't tell them where you have to let this guy here use it
from nine to five, and you can use it eight to five.
So that just makes sense.
Like I said, I wasn't here for this anyway.
I'll be back.
Thank you, sir.
Cool.
Yeah?
Cool.
Lisa Wilkinson, Berlin Drive, 1420.
I have a question about the diligence that was put into determining the needs of the community
for the use of that home.
over throwing it out there for sale as a commercial property, which is basically what's being done at this point.
Has have any meetings been happening?
All of the over 55 and aging out type of stuff has been removed from the community from what I can see.
Nothing is going to move forward that was promised from the beginning.
So why couldn't this be like a senior center or some type of a community center that caters towards
that sort of the population, not just in the crossing, but through Outrunswick.
Could be mixed use, daycare, senior center, community center, whatever.
Anything, there are so many rooms in that home that they could be used for different things.
Meeting rooms, daycare, senior care, senior activities,
These children's activities, what have you?
I personally don't see how putting in a title insurance company or an attorney's office is going to further or
even makes sense with what's already existing there.
Ballpark, basketball games, playground, outdoor kitchen.
I just don't see how this integrates well with the community in that spot.
I can totally see it somewhere else, sure.
It's inconvenient going to Oxen Hill or Winburney, or whoever your builder is, and
where they have their title insurance company, but it doesn't need to be there.
That's my feeling on the matter.
Nick,
my name is Jim Brown at 5-11 Potomac View Parkway, Ditto.
I mean, what the last person just said,
I, when I think that they're going to put in lawyers and real estate agents and
title insurance people into that beautiful building, when 90% of us work from home now,
including all of those people I just mentioned, all that types of work.
It doesn't make a lot of sense, and I think the community wasn't asked,
isn't participating enough in these decisions.
What that last person said about daycare and senior center, and all the other things that would benefit our community,
literally benefit our community.
The least thing that would benefit our community in my opinion, and it's the only one I have,
is attorney, real estate agent, title insurance.
I can't think of, I can't think of anything that's less needed in our community at this moment, okay, and I'm not trying to be critical of those professions I'm not, but the truth is, we have great,
There are greater needs than that. And the reality, I mean, I'm over 50. You don't get to know. But I really think that there are tons of kids around this neighborhood. I have grandkids that roam this neighborhood, right?
Right, daycare is a big need in this community, big, big need.
And I see it all the time in the emails and on the postings.
Anybody know a good daycare center, right?
And there's only one that I'm aware of, near here, and that's in Jefferson, right?
And that's limited, I mean, I think they're filled all the time.
So I guess my and I don't want to make one on the point and it's all kind of incorporated when I've just read.
But the community doesn't seem to have enough interface with what the heck is going on in this community.
My wife complained about something to me and I didn't really pay much attention to it until she brought it up.
But off of a told me view there was this big kind of pond that had found in a whole bunch of animals in it.
And then one day, it was all being dug up and they were doing something in there, and I know it's not personal, but it would really not be nice to know what the heck was going on at that moment.
And that's just a small example of what I'm talking about.
And I don't want to, I'm not going to bring this up because it's outside the topic other than to say, there are tons and tons of empty stores in our community right now, lots of them.
If any real estate agent, lawyer, title company, wants to find themselves in this community and rent space, those are great places.
Great places, they would be right there where everybody could use them and
wouldn't take this beautiful home and convert it into a boring, unnecessary business.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir, next.
Good evening, my name is Milo Wyatt, and I live on Janadoa V Parkway 1301.
I'm close to the other parcel, but I wanted to make a comment.
that I want to know what the brush is.
I want to know because the community is continuing to develop and be built out,
what we choose today may not meet the need tomorrow.
Like someone said, daycare, I'm over 55.
I'd like to be able to go to a senior center in my community instead of going to
I don't even know Levittville may have one, but that is a small community, and they are bursting at the seams.
I mean, they come to our community to do grocery shopping.
I mean, they have a small co-op, but I think that if you're talking about serving not just runway crossing, but the greater community.
I think we have, I mean, I leave Brunswick because there's just not a lot of community resources here.
And instead of looking at, and with all due respect, I mean, money can always be made.
You're building houses, you're selling homes.
But what about giving back to the community the people that actually buy those properties and
pay the property tax to maintain the greater community?
So that everyone can have a stake.
I mean, it's a lot of setting to me because we were promised things, and you buy a house in a community, some people their first home, their largest purchase, and then the developer comes back and says, no, no, no, no, we want to do something different now.
I know that's the right, but maybe getting great holders and getting some consensus before you make a decision.
then you wouldn't have people so upset and concerned that this is just going to continue to happen.
You know, what's going to happen, you know, in 20 years when a lot of the people that are 30 now are going to be 50.
They will need a place to go.
And right now the community is growing in terms of household size, but what are the amenities that the developer is putting in to make sure that we have some resources?
for the future.
So, you know, that's really my question.
Why are we rushing to sell the infill house?
How long has it been vacant if someone can answer that question?
I understand that there is a commercial side of this, but this is going to be a 15-hospole, 1500-hospole community with one clubhouse and a pool.
I mean it's frustrating when I want to go swimming, I can't.
I have to go to another community because it is a community center, it serves everyone.
And we just don't have enough resources for the households in my opinion that are planned for this community.
Thank you.
I'm confused because first they said that only part of the bill is going to be leased out with seven or eight parking spaces.
Now they're saying they're going to sell the building.
Help me out here.
It'll be for sale the whole lot.
Okay, so then if you buy the building, who's going to say who gets to move in there?
Just like they're saying, you know, we could get a, you know, a business in there, we don't want in there, you know, that's people running in and out there, 9 to 10 o'clock at night, you don't know what's going on, we've got enough problems in the area now that we have to watch what's going on, and if they're going to own a certain amount of that space, what happens with the rest of the building?
If I understand then, right, you said they weren't going to rent certain square feet of it, right?
It's a full sale.
That's what I said.
The sale is, but-
One house is only using the whole building.
So how are you going to have seven or eight parking spaces in?
It's just a mall that is that type of-
But look how big that building is.
You want to tell me, as big as that building is, you're going to have seven or eight parking spaces.
And then what about- what we're going to do with the ball field then?
You know, people want to come there and park and have the kids play, I've seen kids down the plane now, you know, playing ball and stuff, and the parking lot is half full.
Every time we walk down that way.
But how is it going to be sold? It's going to be sold as commercial, yes or no?
So, yeah, come on up, Dan.
Currently, this law, hold on.
So, hold on.
Dan, go ahead.
Currently, this law has a PED zone.
And only those uses that are allowed in the PUD
are allowed to be used on this property.
This house is going to this law and the house.
Plan unit development, it's a zoning designation for a big community of this type because it's planned early on all together.
That's what the phase two and the phase three plans that we're revising or that we're only revising the phase three in this case, but that's what this, that's what that part is.
If you keep saying there are only the things that are allowed to be in there, what are those things that are in there?
The city has a zoning code, and there is a PUD or a plan unit development, part of that zoning code, and it specifically lists the allowable uses that are allowed.
But this will be sold, this will be sold collectively, it will not be multiple users from my perspective.
I'm going to spell it, if this is approved, not yet, sir.
For, if this is approved for the business use that we're asking for tonight, if not, then we'll go back to the darling board.
Okay, but if I had only a grocery store, if I had to go and put a grocery store in there,
only if it's allowable, and I used to have a lot of it, so what do we know what's allowed?
One at a time.
We can't hear you if you're not at that microphone.
My question is, what is allowed there then?
None of us know what kind of business is allowed.
I'll tell you,
could be a local retail business or service establishes, such as a grocery store.
or drugstore.
Could I finish, please?
Just let me finish.
Drugstore.
Small clients or shoe repair shop.
Hardware store.
Barber.
Beauty.
Shop.
Laundry.
And dry cleaning services.
Flowing and tailoring services.
Pet stores.
Video retail shops.
Business or professional offices.
and others which supply commodities or perform services, primarily for residents of the community but not including automobile service stations, and only under the following conditions.
And that was where we talked about the 3500 square foot.
Now, if you heard me give you all those different uses, did you hear me say professional offices, business and professional offices.
This is what this site will be designated for, which means it can't be any of those other uses.
It can only be, if you have a question, you come up here.
Come on up here.
Now, you can come up here, we got to talk up here.
It can only be the business professional office.
That's it, none of those others.
Does everybody understand that?
Okay.
We're not going to do that. We can't do that. It's only going to be business or professional offices.
A professional office just like there's drug we have.
That's not it now, it's not.
Then how do we know that as?
Because it says it in here, if you had a drug dispensary or something like that, it would fall in that category of like a drug store, okay?
And I can tell you also, we're in the process of rewriting our ordinance, so a lot of this stuff is going to come out.
And I invite some of you, because I can't have you all on one committee, we're going to have to have a very finite number of people on the committee.
I can't have you all because we don't have a room big enough to handle you all, but we will be knowing this and we are looking to have volunteers be on that committee to help us write the ordinance so that we can redo our city ordinance to come and get us into the future.
The last thing is security. Who's going to be responsible for that?
The Brunswick Police Department.
We're talking to him, you got to come up here.
Well, the problem we got, you know, I mean,
the problems with police is very good, they're good organizations, but just like everybody
is saying, 1500 houses, you know, our police department's already strapped, you know, traffic's
already strapped.
All right.
We got red because you're going to have four minutes each and we got like a line.
All right, thank you.
Did we clear up all your questions?
Yes, okay.
Hi everybody, my name is Donovan Fox, I live at 1521 Cranpton Street, right down the street from the infield house.
I do agree with you guys and keeping the house as a beautiful home, it should be preserved.
I totally agree with that.
I did have a few statements to make.
There are a lot of businesses that do support the community,
that do to community type of things.
I don't think a professional, like a law firm is going to really,
it's not going to serve everybody in the community,
but you could have a daycare, a YMCA, you could have, you know,
something that, like we've all been saying, something for children.
I mean, I know we've been talking a lot about having a community center
for all of Runsway, you could do it there.
It's a baseball court right there, but I mean, it's just, I kind of have the feeling that is it's
bronzer crossing versus Brunswick and it shouldn't be like that. We should be one big community,
but I feel like we're not told about a lot of stuff that's happening, and I question is, how do we
get more involved? How do we know what's going on? How do we get our voices heard? How do we get on
on these committees like you guys are on.
How do we do that?
Call us.
Call Julie.
She's our city administrator.
Okay.
Anybody who wants to be on-
Don't tell me that because I'll do it.
I'll do it.
I'll be right here.
I took a call today from somebody that heard that we wanted,
we were trying to get a zoning committee and they called in.
And I'm taking the names down and I'm taking the numbers.
When we actually build that committee,
we're going to contact them back.
It's a commitment.
It's a two-year commitment.
Because it's going to take us that long to re-write it.
I would also add to that that when the city has vacancies on its various commissions and committees we typically advertise them on our Facebook page and our website and our website.
Okay.
which is brought with them.
We are always looking for volunteers. Okay, because I want everyone else to hear that as well. I've been on your website, but I want everyone else to hear that as well, so they can get involved as well. We don't do this for the big pay of the fund. Oh, I know. I can assure you. Trust me. I worked in government for years. I get it. Trust me. Thank you so much.
Anyone else on this topic?
At the March, oh, I'm sorry, my name is Bonnie Duncley.
I live at 307 Brunswick Street, Brunswick, Maryland.
I have lived in Brunswick for over 40 years, so I've watched the many changes happen.
I also grew up just across the river and love it for Virginia.
So as a young child, I always drove 180 to Frederick because it was the closest place to shop.
So I've watched water flow for as long as I can remember, and since I'm 66, I'm going to say 60 years.
So at the March 5, 2004 planning commission meeting, the city attorney, Noel, I'm going to say Milano,
argued that it's done up to the planning commission to determine density, that issues of density are heard by the board of appeals.
However, restrictive soils have been noted at Brunswick Crossing and they should be protected
per the guidelines of their original plan notes.
I brought pictures to show anyone who would like to look that show the environment not
being protected.
I previously tried to show these to Mr. Dell, but he chose not to look as I explained the
gravity exposed to these pictures.
Clay soil, which is documented on the original Brunswick crossing plant, is not permeable.
That's why you have water laying around everywhere after a rain.
It runs from places to come from pressurized zones that they're trying to pack down with concrete and gravel and pop up somewhere else when it rains.
It's whack-a-mole there.
I've been watching it ever since.
I've been driving through the development and noticing it happened because as a former license environmental health specialist,
I was trained by someone who had 40 years' worth of knowledge and she also sent me out to talk with honest contractors.
And since they'd liked me, they told me things.
These pictures show grading, not holding grass or soil capable of growing grass.
The
park beside the Enfield property was having dead nursery trees replaced just today.
How many times has the homeowners association had to replace these trees because they can't thrive in clay soil?
If this is the responsibility of trees thriving in clay soil for the homeowners.
who is responsible if the soil provided by the developer is not capable of growing trees
or grass that you have stated that you have to provide in the original plan in all
of the streets and sidewalks.
Anytime they die, your humbenders' association fees are paying for that.
So if they're placing tree after tree after tree after tree and soil that would never grow
That's what you're looking at. The Brunswick crossings parks are private. How will this be maintained for residents if customers from all areas see them?
Park right beside it while you're conducting business. Yeah, let your kids go run while you're there
Sit on the swings before you go. That's what I do if I was had young kids and I was at a business in the park
was right there, townhouses usually have children.
What was supposed to be a largely residential street will now have business traffic.
You won't be able to let your kid out.
I know we all of you move and you're afraid to do that anyway.
But those of us who have lived somewhere for 40 years, we have trust with certain people.
We know where to have it, and we're not to have it.
The area that's proposed for the Medical Center, what percentage is filled?
What's the composition of the fill?
I have a picture in here of a recent hillside that's supposed to be a park that they recently had to regrade because the current rain calls it to slip and slide.
Are they going to, is this hillside they're going to go in and work on?
It's going to be stabilized, it's right in front of your store mortar management pond.
Thank you, ma'am.
Anybody else?
Good evening.
My name is Brandon Barna, 418, Will's Creek Tribe.
Okay, so my questions are first off with the changing of the zoning.
Does that lock it into, it will perpetually, unless somebody comes back to one of these meetings, perpetually be in office building.
So in other words, if it's sold today as an office building, will it perpetually stay in office building, or can it be zoned something else later on?
Only through a process like this.
Yeah, I would have to come back and go through the same process.
Okay, and then my second question would be, you mentioned there would be a follow-up meeting after somebody purchases it to discuss easements to discuss, okay, not easements, to discuss where trees would go, where fences would go.
It would be a site plan process.
Okay, with that site plan process, how does it go about redirecting?
And like right now, you have all the signs up there telling the kids not to go up in that area.
And you have the playground right next to it.
So other than somebody constantly calling Chief Grunwell and telling his cops to come down there and
tell the kids, stay away from this two feet area and go over to this playground.
How are you going to keep the kids out of that area?
Can they put a fence up?
I don't know.
I'm not going up there.
Well, but you and I can go up there and play kickball.
No, we can't.
Okay.
That's going to be up to the property owner.
Okay.
The next item I'd like to ask is if Pleasants has a desire to sell this property as commercial.
I would like to ask the same thing that the city asked every time Pleasants comes to the table with a new development project.
What is the give back to the community going to be?
So we've already had people here say tonight, we have enough playgrounds, we have enough parks.
What can pleasants give us as an offset?
Can they expand the welcome center, expand the recreation center, expand the pool?
Can they give us anything if we give them less resistance to use this property?
I'm just asking, you have proffers, and you have givebacks, and you have site plans that all require these sorts of items.
Can these be asked for through planning, or is the ship already sailed for that?
You
tell me can, can, can things like that be discussed, it did not come through planning commission, it did not come through city council, can things like that be resident driven to ask, okay, if we're going to accept this as is, what sort of give back to the community or plan?
We can't ask for those types of things because the ordinance doesn't allow that, not at this stage.
Okay,
I mean, I'll be honest with you, I have been told, like the other residents have, not that this was going to be a community center, but
there was an opportunity for this property to be sold to Klegit Enterprises who runs our HOA, who also happened to purchase one of
the property rights to one of your downtown businesses over by the corner store to be able
to lease that out.
I would much rather pleasant and clagget, and I know I can't tell them who to sell to
and who to buy.
I would rather clagget take on that ownership and move out of the welcome center.
I think the welcome center has been handled by the HOA offices in pleasant for over a decade.
We've said it's a sales center constantly.
We want extended room for our community center, and our ability for us to use our amenities.
Thank you, sir.
Is there anyone else?
All right,
so amongst, no?
You can sign right up here.
Paul, husband, 13, 15 volunteer drive.
So I've been in this community for over 10 years now.
I've seen a lot of underutilized space, mainly up where all the commercial stuff is.
We have space up there, this could go up there.
Leave the stuff in the community for the community.
When pleasant is done selling all the property, all the land, they're up and gone.
We're here with what's left over, right?
All right, so let's make it ours, what we would want to help flourish our community as it grows.
All the houses are what, three, four plus bedrooms, there's a lot of kids.
There's no single parents or husband, wife, no kids, buying four, five bedroom houses, realistically.
So we've got a lot of community of a lot of kids and
And we don't have a lot of space for them, right?
And we have a lot of resources that are underdeveloped and not utilized for businesses.
So why not use that space?
It's been there, it's been great, it's several times, and why not utilizing it?
And keep the community stuff down in the community, keep the business stuff up in the business area.
That makes for a safer environment, safer community.
That's all again.
Thanks.
Is that the end of public comment?
At least for the moment.
Thank you all for your thoughtful comments.
Planning commissioners, you've heard this.
Tell me what you're thinking.
And well,
my main concern with that would this would be an isolated commercial property.
We have looked at a lot of commercial stuff around town in the past.
And this would be something that is isolated from other commercial areas, embedded in residential area.
And that gives me pause.
I'm not sure that the security and control issues that have been raised are that serious.
We just don't have too much trouble with that around town.
And it sounds like the types of businesses that we're going to have really aren't going
to attract crime problems or anything like that, but I mean, we are often charged at making
I'm making sure that something fits the neighborhood and I'm not sure that this fits the neighborhood.
Cherry, Allen, Nick, anybody else?
I just have one question, I know it's coming up related to the next topic, but the designation of several people we're talking about daycare centers, senior centers, etc.
Would that have to be going through a rezoning as a quasi-public use as well?
So just for Bruce, would you just, I think it will come up in the next discussion anyway, can you just go over the definition of a quasi-public use?
Please,
I can read it if you want.
I have it right here.
The quasi-public use is a use that provides a necessary service to the community, is available to the general public, and is not wholly commercial in nature.
For example, recreation and community services, churches, child care centers, health care facilities, nursing homes,
seniors, citizens, centers, funeral homes, and schools.
Okay, so before we vote on this, just from, and I also understand I was doing some more research
during the meeting, the definition of a community office, fits with what
presence wants to do, so I was not uneducated, but my interpretation of the work
community and in the word park is more in alignment with the quasi-public youth.
So before we vote here, for the people who are here and you're looking at how to get involved, if for some reason we voted no,
I think you've got a lot of work ahead of you to say okay, well, do you want childcare centers in there?
How do you go about changing the zoning on that?
Do you want the city of Brunswick to buy the building?
I mean there's a lot of wishful thinking out there, it's going to require a lot of community activism out there to do it.
Thank you.
It's not like it's all the same going to turn around like how you wish it happened. That's the only comment I have. Thank you.
Well, got my two cents. Go ahead. And I think I guess several comments. And I think I will offend most people here with one point or the other. But that's the way the process works. I mean, I heard it a lot in NIMBY. Not in my backyard. Okay. Well, I understand that.
but it has to be in somebody's backyard.
So let me comment, I think.
You can move the only one.
I'm going to say what I have spray, okay?
I didn't move you when you make in your comments, okay?
So I think that's the program we're going to use.
I think a lot of the comments could have been well placed
at an HOA meeting.
H.O.A. has some authority, okay, no, no, it's my time, okay.
You had yours, I got mine, okay, thank you.
Contrarily, I think there's been some several iterations on the use of that building all the time.
Notwithstanding what we've heard tonight, I think there's been some iterations.
The owner has a privilege of asking for a change.
Citizens in quarries, citizens participation.
That's a two-way street.
I mean, you go back to our yesterday to the founding fathers.
They didn't say, hey, we're going to go there and knock on every door and tell you what we're doing.
You're going to make some inquiries, you've got to show some energy and some activity to find out what's going on.
I think that to me this comes across as a market decision to enhance the retail value of the property.
And so at this point, looking at those issues and others, I am not in a position to support to change.
I just had one one question more for since I'm not voting but it's more for just my own information in it dovetails off of something Nick asked, which is could they use this property now the way it's designated for a professional office,
whereas that just don't clear, which is why we're
it was unclear enough that we felt like it had to have the designation.
I mean, because part of what I'm thinking about is, I'm
not sure that this, that use, I'm trying to figure out whether that use is prohibited now and whether we're dealing with a hard change or if we're just dealing with something this change would definitely clear that up and let them use it for the professional office, I mean, I'm not sure they couldn't use it for that now, I guess this is my point.
So, again, I'm not voting tonight, but I guess the point and the point that people are concerned about is this change would definitely let them use it for any kind of professional office and including attorney's offices and I'm an attorney.
So it didn't take any offense and not wanting to turn his offices in there, but
okay, that was, it's just a clarifying question.
So the point now is it's just not clear, okay.
Allen, do you have any thoughts?
Okay.
Well, speaking personally, I understand the concerns people have voiced, and
you've been very thoughtful, and we appreciate that.
And I understand what my fellow planning commissioners are discussing, in their points of view.
So I think the notion of an isolated commercial district, as is the requested change, doesn't strike me as a particularly big risk to the community.
I am in favor of making the change.
But I think what we need to do is bring this to a discussion that says, all right, we need to take a vote, some kind of a motion and we either vote it up or down.
Not right now.
No, we do not want to come back up to the board.
It's all public comments over.
We do have another item after this one.
We do have the other item.
So, can we have some kind of emotion that we can either vote up or down about accepting this change that the point?
I'm
familiar with BR-PUD-24-01, preliminary plan phase three revision, and I move that we approve it in accordance with task recommendation and the four conditions of that recommendation.
Any seconds?
All second.
All in favor?
Aye.
Opposed?
Aye.
Opposed?
Is that due?
Three.
So motion does not carry.
Thank you.
No, if you would put up more than a poster on a lot three weeks before the meeting.
Thank you, sir, I appreciate the comment we're done on this item.
Next item,
which is BRFP 2401 Final Plot 125,
Five, Frederick Primary Care and H.D., to his story office in medical building and side improvements.
Roos, would you care to go through that?
Yeah, the plan is basically self-explanatory.
It has to be recorded in order to have this particular use put on the parcel.
The Frederick Primary Care Medical Office building runs with crossing applicant six site plan,
an improvement plan and final plot approval for 135,940 square feet of property,
including a medical facility building located on the Pecambian Parkway and
Shannon down to view the Parkway.
Zoning classifications are two.
Zoning with a PUD overlay.
Water and sewer classifications, W3, Hestory.
This particular use is, as I've mentioned, it was a parcel that was originally
only one of the phase three plan designated as a assisted living, which would have been 100 units of assisted living.
It would have been a multi-story building, and at the October 22,
well, October 2022 meeting the developer had come in and went over some market studies about the fact that the assisted living just wasn't.
No one was willing to do the cost of the construction, the parking underneath of the building.
They got to the point where they just didn't have the scale and
the numbers to make the market numbers work.
They had proposed at that time age restricted housing and
this board was against that they wanted to maintain the commercial compounding somehow.
There were additional meetings in January of 2023 and February of 2023, which continued that process in order to look at other opportunities and other possible users in December of 2023, the designation and the use was established for medical facility, and this application is for that very thing.
The biggest piece of this one, the building, we will continue to work with the applicant on
the architecture of the building.
It will be brickclad on all four sides.
The entrance for the building will be facing the north or the stormwater management panel or the back of the wise store.
the signage, there's two monument signs located at each entrance, the adequate parking requirements
for this are 143 spaces including 8 ADA spaces are provided, it's 145 including 8 ADA and
one loading. So they meet the parking requirements, the lighting fixtures are going to be something
that we want to look at as far as the height of the lighting and the shielding. The lights
hat can be, we're looking to keep the lights at no more than 12 feet and they need to be shielded
from all the residential houses so that they shine internal to the site. The stormwater
The interim management has already been addressed on this property.
It's the pond that's actually right next to it, and there will be storm drain that'll be private on site to direct water into that pond.
The water and sewer has also been located along Potomac View Parkway and is in place, and we have worked with the imp to stub those in to the property on the west side.
The
forest conservation for this site will be approved by Frederick County.
The open space has been addressed in this part of the overall PUD.
Screening is critical on this property.
Screening along the south, west edge along Shun Parkway from the houses to the building needs to be as much of a burn as possible, as well as height of the plan.
that the building can be screened from lighting as well as the visual aspect of the building.
Also, the South East side next to Lot 164 is elevated hill and that needs to be screened as well to protect the visual aspects of that property.
The parking along Shenandoah view parkway toward the rear of the building will be for employees and the patients will enter the building on the front side facing the pond.
The staff is recommending the site improvement plan and final plan approval with the final conditions.
satisfaction, satisfactory address all comments of the tax meaning, address all reviewing
agency comments related to state improvement plans, revise the HOA documents to specifically
address the commercial use being proposed, approval of the recordation and final plat and
the applicant is bound by their testimony.
Any questions?
Fellow commissioners, questions, discussion?
The design looks a little monolithic to me.
I mean, are we trying to be on the trees, although apparently there's been some problem
the trees already, what are we going to do to try to screen that?
Is the architect here? Or is that you? I mean, are you dealing with it or is he dealing with it?
I'm talking about the landscaping.
Do you like anything on the architecture today?
What will have you do the architecture he can do the landscaping?
Or you can do the landscaping, too, if you have one.
No, that's a gal, let him do that.
So, say your name, please, sir.
Yes, sir.
Hi, Ben Bates, Bates Architects.
I'd like to say we're in the preliminary stages of architectural design.
I think today's meeting is really focused on the site plan itself.
We welcome everyone's comments and want to be part of this community engagement process.
I think that's all I'll say.
We've tried to maintain in the material palette that was recommended to us.
We have broken down the building slightly and maybe some more color in tones.
would help break down that. There is a obviously square footage that we want to get to and that also comes with parking requirements as well to develop that piece of property.
Just a couple of questions.
There's road access off of Shenandoah View Parkway. Is that the requirement? I would have to let the civil engineer speak to that?
Hey, good evening, Adam Roof. That means we engineer for the applicant. Can you repeat the question? I would say your name again. Adam Roof. And I'm with MHD engineer for the applicant. So my question is just.
I'm not an expert in here, but to tell me if you part way, I can see it's much more of it in
ingress, egress for the community, but not for Shenandoah with you part way.
So I was just curious why you had a-
I think Potombe would be the primary access, but I think as far as circulation and safety, I think, you know, it's nice to have the access of the other road, Shenandoah.
So I think Potombe would be the primary access.
Right, is that but is there like a legal requirement to have one off of there is a safety requirement.
If there was an accident, if you took me if you park away, you have to give everybody a way to get out of the site.
If there was a fire that was blocking that other entrance, you need to be able to have an emergency access out so there has to be a second access out.
Can that be reserved only for emergency purposes?
I mean, we're going to review with Frederick County for the fire safety in life.
I'm not sure the fire marshal would allow that in this case, for a medical facility.
Because if you have an ambulance coming in or something else, they're probably may not go out.
But that'd be for a marshal.
As soon as the answer's no, that's what he said.
Okay, but we could come back in a later date to clarify that.
Not as far as this plan.
Okay.
All right, I was surprised with the amount of parking in this plan so that that parking is necessary to fit the requirements of the building with the occupancy of that building?
Yeah, we are, I think there's two additional spaces now what's required.
Only two, okay, so the vision would be that, that full capacity, that parking lot would be completely full.
Or minus two spaces.
Well, for the zone requirement, we don't know, you know, potentially, it may not be, depends on, you know, kind of the use of the building.
Right now we're parking, I think five spaces per thousand square feet.
That is a zone requirement.
5.5.
5.5?
4000 square feet.
Okay.
And so from your planning, from your planning process, and this is designed to be a medical
center.
So I'm assuming you've got the staff coming in, I understand that the staff is going
to be encouraged to park near Chimendoa View Parkway.
Is that correct?
And then the-
The back side.
Yes, Chimendo.
And that back side that backs up to the eastern part of the pond.
And then they're going to be a door at the back of the building for the
second.
There's a door at the back for staff.
You can see on the right side of the plan there.
I see the right and the left and the front.
I don't see in the back.
I'm sorry.
All right.
Okay. On the right side.
Yeah, the back is right there.
Oh, that's intended to be the back.
Yeah.
What's the front then?
This is the main, this is the main.
So that's the front.
It's covered, covered.
Okay.
So the definition of a back means the right side.
Say it again.
Okay, so the back will be on the right side of the building, and the front will be the north elevation.
Okay, the front is the one at the top?
Yes.
Okay, so just from a traffic perspective, I would assume that most people are going to be parking for about an hour or so for their appointment, and then leaving after that.
Is that correct?
Like this isn't like an outpatient six hour visit.
I can't speak on that, I'm not sure.
Okay, but this is the intended to be potentially replacement for the medical center that's in Brunswick today.
And more.
Yeah, so some more professional spaces, chiropractor, etc., or whatever, different dollars, whatever.
And then the amount of available land to put up trees, if we could go to the other map.
So there's going to be an embankment on the southwest side, and that's already indicated in one of these,
which is the bottom of the drawing, right?
The bottom right, there's an embankment there, and that's already in place today, and then it's going to be, so the leveling of the ground is where it is today.
There's not going to be any additional excavation or additional.
No, it ties in cleanly over there.
It's mostly just going to be landscaping a little bit Italian for the parking area, but yeah, for the most part, that's pretty much on grade.
So is there any additional Birmingham, is that the right term, is that a word going to be cut in?
No, not there.
So it's just be additional landscaping and trying to mask the building.
Yeah.
And will that landscaping, and it appreciates some time to grow in, is the intent that I'm a house
across the road from Shenandoah or Potomacbe Parkway that I would be able to see the cars in the parking and the building or will eventually be masking it.
I think eventually be masking it. At first you're going to have some shrubs that will cover the headlights and that sort of thing, but you know, it takes some time for the more mature stuff to grow, yes.
But that's your intent, that it would be masking it.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we, it's, it's, it's landscape very, very well over there.
Okay, also, it's Granando and Patavio.
So who would be responsible for maintaining these, these trees that aren't staying in place and
being to be replaced?
Who's responsible for maintaining those trees and replacing those trees?
The owner.
So it's not part of the HOA or anything like that?
No.
Okay, and is there any, just for my, and I think it's my last question, I'm sorry.
Is there any, and they made this more of a brief question and, like, what sort
Is that in the contract, when the buyer buys it, that they have to, within 10 years, ensure that it's fully masked from the public?
Apart from wishful thinking, is there any legal documentation on that?
I mean, they would have to maintain it, and we would obviously look at it from property maintenance standpoint.
I don't know what details are in the HOA documents to do.
So, you know, it says that they, but it would be impossible to sit there and make a statement that they would be, they may not be able to comply with.
As a reference, Nick, if you look at the back of the white building, which was initially a bunch of fairly small plantings, how long has it been in there eight years or something?
Oh, it's probably been in here at least that long to say I mean it's it's come up and it's it's fielded pretty well from the roads and houses behind
No, the white building was great, but there's also a pretty significant burn
But but I know I would agree but I would also take a look at the holiday and express and I know that it's still growing in but I don't think they will ever completely mask
The holiday and express so I'm just trying to I'm trying to use precedent here to understand what the future this will be
So there's no, so going back to the previous one, they were going to fall under the HOA,
they're going to have to pay HOA dues and things like that.
Does this property have to be HOA dues?
Multiple.
And a multiple of that.
And so they're bound by HOA regulations and requirements.
So if this were to be approved, could the homeowners work with the HOA to create more
clarification as to what this property needs to do from a maintenance perspective off of the landscaping.
No, we would be looking at that.
If the plants were dying, we would require them to replace them.
We as the city of Runswood could be part of the property maintenance HOA would be, too.
Okay, all right, great, all right, sorry, great, thank you.
And as a moment for clarification on your parking, the way the ordinance reads,
Heads it reads 5.5 spaces per 1,000 square foot of gross floor area for otherwise permitted by the Planning Commission doing a slight plan review.
This is the site plan review.
If you felt that 5.5 spaces per 1,000 was too many and you wanted a bigger landscape berm, you could make that decision, but I don't think it's too many.
If you're talking about a medical facility, they could have multiple doctors, multiple services.
It's going to need the parking.
Was there any discussion on alternate designs where the building was closer to Shenandoah and the parking?
Yes.
And was there any rationale as to ending up with this design?
I believe the rationale for this particular design was so that they could
Separate mainly the patient
Parking from employee parking and
It's just it's fit their needs better and their design of what they what Frederick primary care builds
They they did shove the building all around
And this was the position that they started doing.
Great, thank you.
Allen.
Is this building in vision to be a single tenant building or multiple suite building?
Multi suite, I think.
Multi suite?
Yep.
Okay.
It's through the zoning booth.
Is there any prohibition of 24 hour services for this type of site?
We can make it, you can make it right now with your approval.
It's good to know.
But there was no discussion about having a 24-hour type service, you know, for any kind
of matter.
Just because facilities like this can, if not done right, create a lot of light pollution
and if there, it's a 24-hour operation can be quite up to some neighbors, given its proximity
to the residential development and that.
And I think it would be totally within your purview to set a time frame as to when?
I acutepco, Mr. and John's comments about the architecture.
I think you guys have a little ways to go, and I know you can do it.
I mean, I appreciate that.
You have a specific recommendation, being that you are an architect yourself.
And I know Ben.
Yes.
So I know you can do better.
This is intended to be a preliminary nature in order to, I take it as such.
Go with this, I plan.
But for those of us who are not architects,
where doing better means what?
So, I mean, you look at the renderings of this building, this looks like it belongs in an office park in Germantown.
Not adjacent to a residential structure here, and I, by no means mean to set the bar here, but
if you look at some of the stuff in the villages of Atlanta, how it's broken down in scale.
Like they are still, there's a lot of square footage in a lot of those buildings, but
some of them are broken down, and I agree there's some that look just like this too there.
But some of those have been successful in breaking down the scale of the building and that's kind of what I would hope you could work towards.
It's the break down of scale because you're going from these, you know, corporate or lots and 10th of an acre of lots that are adjacent to here and you're coming out of this thing and it's a big building.
It's only two stories but it's a big building.
And I think breaking the scale down, I'll lead that up to you.
I mean, give you some license to come with that, but that's what I'm hoping you can achieve is to break down the scale.
What struck me is that while the building is in our commercial area adjacent to the shopping center,
it is on the edge of it hard up against the residential areas.
So I think anything that would let the roof line blend into the residential areas would be much appreciated by the community.
Yeah, I can understand that absolutely and again, we do want community involvement, but we also have a client that we're
They're input as well. So it's blending that making sure that if it's well. Oh, those people. I also noticed on the lower right the
parking areas need to be very close to that house there so anything you guys could do to screen block
Separate that I'm sure would also be appreciated for the person who lives there. Yes
I'm not sure they would like headlights go in their bedroom windows, but I don't want to do that's what's heard going
You got any winners on that side of the house?
Yeah, a low wall might be in order.
Yeah, so you're definitely going to, you're going to
definitely look at the ice, the screening for lighting and all that kind of stuff on
that corner.
In other words, whatever's at the top of that hill is going to have to screen right away,
not wait five or six years to grow up.
Any other comments, gentlemen?
So, shall we have public comment, or if it's orderly? Yes. One at a time. Go ahead, Julie. Thank you, Julie. Thank you, gentlemen.
Before we have public comment, I would just like to remind everybody and planning commission that what is on the agenda is the approval of the site plan.
The zoning, the use for that space has already been, was already decided by this group previously.
So what you're doing is reviewing the site plan right now.
I also want to be very clear that we are talking about this plot of land now, not the previous discussion out yet.
Okay, just to save everybody a lot of heartache.
Okay, the site plan can be changed or you can give your feelings on that the use of the
property has already been decided in a staff.
There was quite a lot at that, yeah, there was.
I'm just stating the fact I'm not, you know, trying to stir up trouble here and I wanted
to make sure that we just stay on topics so this group can get the information they need
And I fully welcome your input and your anything you have to give this group to help them make their decision.
But their decision tonight is not the use of this property, it is whether this site plan is going to be approved or not.
Okay?
Thank you, Julie.
If I could paraphrase what you just said, we're not here to decide whether this will or
There won't be a medical building.
That train is left this occasion.
We're here to discuss.
Given that-
Well, that's a good question, sir, but-
Yeah, and where will be it if it happened?
Yeah, I mean, you know, this high group of commas in that part of the land would even be developed.
Sir, did you buy house in Brunswick Crossing?
Yes.
Well, then I guarantee you got something that looks like a map of all of Brunswick Crossing.
It's set assisted living. That, and you also signed an agreement that that plan would
change from time to time is that, sir, sir, this is not this until now.
You signed something that said that you recognized what was going on in that community.
Well, I differ with you, but you're entitled to your opinion.
So anyone who would like to come up, please.
All right, Brandon Barna, 418, Will's Creek Drive, so a couple of clarifying points.
So members of the community here have been stating that they have not been notified of these things that have been happening.
And we also have had members on your own commission state that this should have been discussed in an HOA meeting.
What I will tell you is the HOA meetings only occur once a year and
the vice president of the HOA is in this room and is also representing the developer.
I'm not going to point out the person or say the person's name, but
they represent a dual role in responsibility to both the company and the HOA.
They only have, once a year, requirement to have a meeting with the residents, the semi-annual meeting, they send out minutes for or hold those minutes till November.
We don't have a meeting until Thanksgiving.
So I appreciate the members of this commission that believe that we should have handled this in an HOA meeting.
but we believe that you as our public representatives and people handling this should have insured that we were notified of all the appropriate changes and when the dates were going to happen, when those were going to occur.
I
appreciate, can I clarify that for you?
Yeah.
What happens when any project is going out, when I mentioned to you before that there's been 50 or so public hearings since the beginning of this project, there are five signs that are posted for every public meeting.
One of them goes at the fire station.
One of them goes at the end of Potomac View Parkway where it hits 17.
One of them goes over on 180 side of the property.
One of them goes down behind where the elementary school is.
And I believe is there is another one on 180?
Is there two over 180?
Or it's two on 17?
I know there's, we fill out five of them all the time.
and we've gone through 250 signs since they are about 3 by 4 feet.
And it says public notice on it and big red letters, there's right on the fence.
Because when anything is going on with runs for crossing, it's the whole community gets
notify. We had to put it all around the perimeter. So it's usually done by all the
answers. We don't, I mean we can't, you can't expect us to notify a thousand people
separately.
I don't remember, but there were, there were many people here. I mean the room wasn't,
I will tell you the room wasn't this full and it was a different group of people for the
most part.
I don't know where they live.
I don't know.
Go ahead.
All right.
So now changing my tune a little bit, I am not opposed to a medical center.
I will tell you since I've moved into this neighborhood, I have talked with said developer,
and I have talked with my City Council representatives, and I've talked with my not so helpful county representatives since I moved here eight years ago, asking for an urgent care, asking for medical facilities, asking for these sorts of things to come in here.
And with the intention that they stated there was originally going to be a nursing or assisted living, I thought that this was going to have either assisted living,
or houses that would be attached to a aged supportive community.
I used to live in a neighborhood where we had that.
We had what was called a continuity of care plan, which was every single section of the neighborhood was planned out for a different age to eventually transition into that.
So I am not opposed to a medical center.
What I am going to say today to this commission is I do not agree with the layout or the way this building looks.
I understand that it is a utilitarian medical building, but I also ask the commission or committee to please consider the same amount of workshops and time that you did for railroad square.
I'd expect you to give that seems sort of level of condition and time for our community members to speak when it comes to building a two story facility in our neighborhood.
And to echo Mr. St. John, I appreciate him saying that things such as HVAC and everything else up on the roof also needs to be screened, not just lighting and not just a hill and not just a wall.
All the people in the houses don't need to be seeing the HVAC units and don't need to be seeing all of the dumpsters and everything else going on in that property.
To the point of the engineering and planning team, can you look at and see if you can put pork chops in,
ingress egress pork chops for some of these roadways so that we don't have a straight in, straight out route for all of these.
That will minimize the traffic flow, it will still allow emergency vehicles.
It still gets the requirements for the fire marshal.
The last thing that I'd like to bring up is, please make sure you widen Potomac View Parkway to support the additional parking.
That you are now saying the staff is going to park on our residents and streets.
Thank you.
Next.
I think the idea of medical facility being there by I think is excellent.
We'll have aging parents and family and things like that, so having something close
free if there's an emergency, if we want to fly there.
A little bit concerned about location, right?
We're building up big.
I mean, if we're saying we're having to dig a hole to make enough parking for that building,
it seems like we're talking about a lot of in-going, out-going traffic, and does that mean it's
going on a Saturday and Sundays and starting at six or seven in the morning and running
to eight o'clock a night. And those 120 spots, even if they're like six or 10 used, you
know, you're still looking at 80, right? And is that 80 people every hour coming in or 80
people, every two hours coming in, we're looking at five or 600 cars a day coming in down
the channel going to the parkway. And also just like noise and things like that, like not
there right next to that, so you should not be expecting like a lot of lights or ambulance
of noise coming in at night, or we'll be a close medical facility, so as actual 3.40
should we expect people to be coming in at 10 p.m. because we have a facility there and
bring with people in from emergency things like that.
When we moved here, I understood there was going to be a assisted living, and I knew it's
going to be multiple floors, so that I kind of wrapped my head around.
I kind of thought it would be something more closer to like the holiday end.
we had some really outside, and then, you know, people would visit their loved ones every now and then.
So that kind of traffic would be a lot less, and they'd be residents living there, staying there, so be a part of our community.
And so that was how I kind of envisioned that.
Now it's being a medical facility. I think it's a great idea.
I just don't know if that's the best location for that kind of traffic, you know, so close into a residential.
And if we're looking at cars all day and late at night coming in,
And I mean, that is right where every kid, shown a view in Parkway, they have to walk across to the two high school bus points where they pick them up at.
And it's like they've become more of a major road, but I just hope you guys can just think about this a little bit for us.
I mean, if one needs to go, then maybe you can be a restriction on, and there's probably a lot of your profits, right?
There's less people using that facility, but we live there too, so if you can take a look at that, thanks.
Thank you,
next.
Good evening everyone, Milo Wyatt, 1301, Shannon Doe of U Parkway, I'm Mike's neighbor.
He lives a little closer than I do.
I'm going to make a controversial statement, and so just hold on to your hats.
It's my personal opinion while a medical facility will serve the broader community and we need it.
There are houses, literally people are going to be opening their doors to that facility.
The Shenandoah view parkway, when you park a car, I mean we have to stop, that street is very narrow.
And I guess the proximity to that building is as close as you can get.
I worked on Thomas Johnson at the Patriot Center at the end of TJ by the new fire station.
I've worked there for five years.
That building is probably bigger than that building.
And it was traffic non-stop from 7, 6, 30 in the morning to probably,
and sometimes after 6 p.m.
because the guy that does the breathe right, he used to have seminars in the evenings.
Now, that is zoned for just medical.
The Amber Meadows community is on an adjacent street.
It's not impacted at all.
There's no houses.
I go to the doctor in Columbia.
You have to go through a community,
but that medical facility for Johns Hopkins
is completely shielded.
You wouldn't even know unless you go to the doctor there.
So my concern is the location and property value.
Who's going to want to buy a house if I live further away, so I can't see it, so I'm
at the end of the block, Bronbach and Shannon Doe of you.
So I don't have the visual impact.
So if my neighbor on the corner of Shannon Doe of you and Potomac view is going to try
to sell their house, and I'm selling mine at the same time, they may have a problem.
So I'm really looking at more valuation.
I'm not saying that there's not a buyer for every property because there is, but that person paid a lot premium for that corner lot.
Now, what are they going to do when they have to try to market that property that's literally at the doorstep of a medical office?
Two story, with like they said, I didn't even think about the age back and all that.
So I just, I know that there are meetings, but I'm pretty active and I'm pretty involved, and I don't recall the change.
I'm pretty sure it happened, obviously, you have proof of it, but it's a huge burden.
And for those homeowners. And while Brunswick proper needs of medical facility, why that specific spot, we have other lots in the community. So I just really want to understand that assisted living is a little different. Because to me, even though I'm not a planner, I consider it quasi residential. There is a commercial element of it, but people are living there. So they're going to have a different
that approach to the property, and they're going to have a vested interest in the community.
If you're just coming in and out to work, it's different.
So that's my comment, thank you.
Thank you.
Next, I'm Mike Cardis, 1321, Shannon Dove, you parkway.
And I, myself, having been in the construction business for about 42 years has built a lot of these kind of things.
When you said the word monolithic, and it doesn't match the neighborhood, I think this would
now, I mean, it dies cast that we're going to do this, but I'm here to talk to the architects
when that is that for me, you could only make the whole perimeter parking by having two
or three-story underground parking, you know, formed out of concrete, underground parking with
and hide all the perimeter parking, and then you could build the design of the building
to look like the neighborhood, instead of having brick have sniping like all the other
houses, you know, make it appealing, make it look like it belongs in Brunswick Cross.
You know, don't make it look like this monolithic thing that just doesn't fit in a neighborhood.
So, you know, I know the dies cast for the thing to go on, but the architectural design
of this is hideous, I mean it really is and it will affect property value and all that
but it could be designed and built in a way that fits with the neighborhood and I don't
think the architects in this particular situation even they just want to cookie cover something and
they haven't really thought about how it fits into the community.
So I think a design build of a totally different ill should be considered where you know you
do away with the entire perimeter parking, having underground parking.
You know, nobody would ever see it.
And then you could put a façade around there that was like deciding in the neighborhood
of the houses that are there.
The way you got it right now, it's just, I think it's hideous, but that's just my two-span,
so I'm going to do that.
Next.
Alexandria Profit, 1206 Potomac U. I understand that it is a need, but I personally travel to
Leaseburg and Frederick for my doctors, so it's not something that I feel is lacking in our neighborhood today, but as others have stated we have other green ground in the neighborhood closer to right next to the get go and the or the white go whatever gas and go and the holiday in huge green space for a medical building, I'd be happy to go to something there I do think there should be some consideration of not just the sound, the light, all of the things but the environmental
effects of a large commercial building across from our neighbors who look right out at it.
I would be completely perturbed if it was 24 hours, so hopefully that is something that
if this does get passed, we could at least maintain some sort of sense around the hours
that our neighbors can at least get a good night's sleep.
If we can't feel the front of our neighborhood today, why do we feel that we can feel this large
I do have some confusion around that because I feel like there's still open areas up there and open businesses.
It is a huge focal point of our neighborhood, right next to a walking trail, our community pool, a large park, a volleyball field.
It is just going to be a complete and utter eye sore in my opinion, that might not be really a big problem for most, but it just seems a little.
like an eye sore.
The traffic is going to be insane for lack of a better word.
Again, I have a small child, many children.
We take a walk down that actually in the grass
of that area every single evening.
I just don't find it safe to have people
coming further into our neighborhood
to come to a medical building.
There again, the parking on the streets is already a problem
when people are not going the speed limit.
I'm having to slow down, pull in, do all the things.
It would need to be widened and made better for travel, if things like that happen.
It's a disturbance, safety, property value, just like she stated previously.
We have a pond at the bottom, like a runoff pond, what would happen with that?
Is there an opportunity to rezone this?
We make changes all the time.
Can we as a community, today if this becomes denied, come forward to rezone?
And what is that process?
How can we do that as a community?
Because I think we would all be on board to do something like that and take the appropriate steps to come to the zoning commission to do that.
Like I said, there's plenty of space.
I'm not opposed to this type of medical center, like everyone else said.
If it was something like a retirement center assisted living, it's totally different.
You just have visitors rather than daily traffic every single day.
And at the end of the day, I don't feel it comes down to us.
as a community that are represented here, being that sort of not in my backyard.
It really comes down to the fact that we feel that our developer,
Pleasants, and unfortunately you're their representative today,
have really sort of put us in a position where things are constantly changing.
And they are affecting not only the safety of our neighborhood, the value of our properties,
but I'm not sure that you personally would want a medical building,
where ambulances are coming right in front of your front door every single day.
So I don't think it's about that, not my backyard.
It's about feeling that our developer is not giving back to our community.
Thank you.
Thank you, next.
Hi, Marie Verodman, one three, one one, pennington drive.
I just wanted, there were a lot of things that are already about the aesthetics,
I'm not going to go there, but the traffic, I think, really needs to be driven home.
If you have roughly 150 parking spaces and you give even 50 of them to the employees,
you have 100 spaces open with a turnover rate of every 30 minutes.
The building's going to be open 10 hours a day.
That's 200 cars an hour, tax 2,000 cars a day.
Those cars have to drive into our neighborhood, and then they have to turn around and drive out of our neighborhood.
That's 4,000 trips into our neighborhood in a day.
The street is not suitable.
The street needs to be a two lane road.
It needs a turn lane in the middle for people to get in, and for people to get out, because otherwise traffic's going to back up because every good, those 4,000 cars are coming in and they've all got to stop to turn left to get in.
It's just not a great place for that much traffic.
Did anyone do a traffic feasibility study?
Has anyone looked at that, are what we talk about safety?
Those roads are not wide enough for ambulances if there's a problem with all that traffic.
It's not safe.
It's not safe for a fire truck to come if you can't get a fire truck in there.
because you've got 4,000 cars a day coming into our neighborhood.
And I think until we address the traffic issue, this is a dead issue.
You can't go there with that many cars coming in.
You need a two-lane road, and right now our second egress is going into a street
that's even wider than the main entrance in the front.
I mean, even narrower than the main entrance in the front.
So, unless you're going to take a large chunk out of this piece of property to widen both of those roads to be two lanes in each direction, that's like four lanes or three lanes because you need one in each direction and a turning lane in the middle on both of them.
And then, you need to put in at least stops knives, a four-way stop at each intersection because we have children who walk to the pool in the summer time.
If any of you have ever been to our neighborhood, we have people, families with their wagons walking to the pool.
How can you do that with 4,000 cars? Can we put in traffic lights there, please, so I can cross with my dog and not be killed?
someone's going to get hurt. It's too many cars in too small of a space to accommodate it.
I'm all for this building. I just don't think it's the appropriate place. But having listened to the
needs of what people are saying by God, I want a daycare center in there. That would fly.
That's a going concern. Someone's going to make a boatload of money out of it.
Because we've got kids in our neighborhood, lots and lots of kids.
We have so many kids.
We have a bus stop on every freaking corner because there's 20 kids in every corner and
we have a bus for each of those stops.
So how are the school buses going to get through with the 4,000 cars coming in and
out of our neighborhood every day?
I just don't get it and if someone can explain that to me, I will be very happy.
Thank you.
Donovan Fox, 1521 Crampton Street.
A lot of folks have talked about the aesthetics.
I'll just mention one thing about the aesthetics.
It's an eyesore, it just is.
I've seen medical facilities in communities before,
but they're usually designed like the community.
I mean, my dentist is in a community,
and it looks like a little townhouse,
and there's about 50 of them.
They're little office buildings that look like townhouses,
And they, you know, they fit within that community.
They're not a, whoa, what is that?
So, and lastly, I'm concerned about the parking.
And I don't think anyone's really mentioned that.
Sometimes when I do go to that facility,
there isn't any parking, and what I do,
I end up parking in front of somebody's house.
Sometimes, I've gotten chewed out before for parking
in front of someone's house before, that's what I could do.
But that's going to be a concern, that's going to happen.
If we have like, as you said, 2,000 cars coming in there, people are going to be parking in front of people's houses, and that's going to piss off a lot of residents, and there's going to be some arguments, and I mean, that lady was going to punch me out if she could add, so I mean, that's going to happen.
I just want to make everyone clear that it will happen if we don't widen the street and provide maybe Pacific Street parking for the facility or something.
And because I don't think that the amount of parking spaces is enough.
Thank you.
Elena Gershon, one three two five, one and double view parkway.
And actually my house is right there, so I can tell you this road, I'm sorry, this road
is like snow narrow, and you can even do one side of the park and then another.
It's only the parking pretty much available by you guys planning to build that facility.
And then if you're going to have entrance, first of all for us, it's going to be no extra parking because don't forget every family has three or four cars.
So, where are we going to park? You can park on the both sides and then possible.
So, like, if you can do your resources and really check the area, it's no way to have this building done.
That's number one, then I have a question for you guys, why did you choose this particular
lot for the medical offices?
Because it's so many other lots that are available by close to the community, like you can
do by the fire department.
And to be honest, it's perfect because you have a circle, you make the right, and you can
in a lot of parking lot and everything.
Plus, it will be convenient for the people
because vice is there so the pharmacy, you know,
it's also another like, wherever Duncan Donald
Burger King, you know, but I just don't understand
like the purpose to build in this kind of community plus.
When I was buying a house, I was told
that it's gonna be senior living and I particularly asked
If the zone is going to be changed to the commercial and I was promised that it's still going
to be residential, even it's not going to be the assistant living.
So now, if I knew this is going to happen, would I buy a house there?
No.
And now you're making me to move.
Am I going to afford to move?
No.
You saw how much the house is, how much the cost.
I'm sorry, my rate right now is 2.25.
Would I move? Would I be able to buy another house? No. So what you make it into do, you know what I mean?
So you have to all such that I am important to check with the community before you guys make everything.
You know, and then if I'm going to sell the house, if the people see this building, would they buy this house?
You know, maybe they will, but much less. So I'm losing the money.
You know so how is it fair for the people it's not if I knew in advance I would never buy it
So that's the issue and yes the medical building is awesome
I mean I work in the medical skills for over 15 years my question. What about the laboratories?
What's gonna happen?
No, when they do the lab, they're supposed to have boxes outside for the lab to pick up. Also, the medical waste. How is it going to be taken care of? Plus, don't forget, guys, we're all human beings. I've worked at different offices. Some offices are perfect, but another offices are terrible. They don't do the requirements of the medical waste and everything else. You know, so how is it going to affect the community? It's very important as well.
So that's pretty much it and like I said because it's not enough space here even for the parking lot and everything and when you're going to place the dumpsters and everything and even with trees like you think you're going to cover.
It's impossible because like I said just when you have time just drive around and you will understand why it's impossible.
Well, you can do the others, I will be the first one who would say yes for the medical offices.
It's important, and the community is so huge.
It's amazing, plus you have little kids, you know, if something happens emergency, you'll look right there.
But not in the community, not in this particular area.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Charlie Crawford, I'm at 1137, Potomac View Parkway.
I first would like to go on record up to a month ago.
So when I saw the site planning, I had no idea any of this was happening.
Secondly, I have a question.
What is the anticipated visit for this building, medical visits that should be in your planning?
For any medical site, there is in the planning about how many anticipated visits there will be either per day per year.
No
comments, okay.
So I think that's really important for us because my concern, I'll try not to get emotional,
is the safety.
I live on the corner of Potomac View and Landercreek, and it is already a lot of traffic.
The road is not wide enough.
And I have children that play on that street, they walk across the street to go to the playground.
And I do not think that that site can support this scale of medical facility.
I wasn't honestly too upset when I heard it was a medical office building.
I envision something like the medical center that is up off of night.
It looks like a house, it is one story, small parking lot.
I feel like something like that could be doable there.
And so when I was really shocked when I read the agenda and
the architecture and I guess just the scale of this type of building in this flat.
I am not an expert, this is just for my lay view.
I really have a hard time understanding how all of that will
fit in that lap, with trees and things to make it private.
I just do not think that this plaque can support the traffic that's going to come in and out of there on the daily basis.
Thank you.
John Hatcher, five and five, Potomac View Parkway.
One thing that was stated by this manner, that kind of caught my attention was that there was a vote or a look at it being for
that elder care or having elderly houses so that people get, but it was voted out.
Don't know anything about that and never heard anything of it because that would have been a good idea of something nice to hear about.
The second thing that the planner talked about was the retention pond that there's like an environmental study or whatever to make sure it worked because when it rains,
if you're looking at that parking lot, that thing is going to flood because all that water is just going to run in there and it's just going to run over.
I agree with what you were saying, we're right at wise if you place it there or if you place even that monolithic building
over by the holiday end, it fits right in, it looks like that so if it's over there that's fine.
A lot of people, I don't know if y'all saw one lady left crying because of your statement that this is over.
We're going to do it, you're just deciding what it needs to look like.
It's like, and like his name is John, and he's upset because he actually lives right there.
So he's going to be looking at it.
He's like, wait, you already said that why am I here?
Because we were, everybody, I know I was, I don't know about everybody, but I know the only reason I came was because
I thought this was, hey, do we want it there, or we don't want it there.
I didn't know it was to decide on a planning that it's already been decided, so that threw me for a loot.
It would have been nice to be a part of that and yet, and I do look at the page and I try to read and try to keep up with when y'all have these meetings, so I can come to, if I want, if I have something to voice.
Lastly, when you talk about that building is going to be facing the retention pond so everybody who's living on Shenandoah are looking at the back of a building.
That's not good, because every morning you're getting up to look at the back of the building and people coming in and out.
That's going to cause a lot of issues for the people running through, so thank you.
My name is Andrea Noruzie, and I live at 1304 Shenandoah View Parkway.
So our house is just several houses down from this lot.
And we are going to be very impacted by this building.
And we were not given any sort of personal notice.
And in any place, I've ever lived in the 52 years of my marriage and we've moved many places.
If there was something within close proximity of your home, you received in the mail a letter notifying you exactly what was going to happen even with details.
It was a requirement.
I was disappointed to hear that that isn't a requirement here in Brunswick because I have
a really high opinion of the city of Brunswick and the city government.
I think we're doing a great job.
I think Brunswick Crossing is a great community.
This is really disillusioned me tonight to hear what's going on.
And I know that the HOA hasn't been as communicative as it should have been.
There's been a lot of complaints about that that we've heard.
But this is beyond the pale of uncommunicative.
The fact that we didn't even know that this was up for consideration and has previously been changed to a medical building when there was an option of senior housing.
I bet you everybody here would have opted for the senior housing in a heartbeat.
All of us have said that we wouldn't mind additional houses.
is we wouldn't even mind a small scale as we said,
something that fit into the character of the community,
that the architecture and the scale
fit in with the community and with the safety
of the community.
This is a monstrosity that is going to ruin our community.
Ruin it.
And it's so ironic because I set in a meeting,
a special meeting, I think it was with you
and others from the HOA, and we were trying to convince the HOA that we needed a native plant committee to enhance neighborhood with native plants.
That was controversial, that might ruin the property values of everyone.
I can tell you that native plants is a whole hell of a lot better than this thing.
You are going to ruin the neighborhood if you're trying to maintain the property values
for all of us, if you're trying to maintain your reputation as a builder, as the community,
then you better find another way because this thing is going to do it.
It ain't going to do it.
This is really, really scrotisturbing and so ridiculous.
I can tell you that the intersection of Shannon Doe of You Parkway and Potomac View Parkway is tiny.
Just trying to turn from Shannon Doe of You to Potomac View Parkway, you have to be very, very careful.
There are whores parked on both sides of the road and there are, this is the main road so there's always traffic coming.
If a big truck goes through delivering furniture or doing whatever is going on in the community,
you can't, you have to pull over to the side and wait for that big truck to go by because
there's not enough room for a big truck in your car and I have a little car.
How is this going to work?
All the additional traffic you're talking about.
How can that possibly work?
When I first saw this come up on the screen and the images of it, I said, what in the heck
happen to the people's sanity here. This is absolutely insane. Where were you?
What were you thinking? Did you look at our community? Did you come and talk to
any of us? Did you drive around and see what we're already
dealing with? The traffic in that community is already. I thought it was
designed that way to be narrow street and slow traffic. This doesn't fit in.
Thank you, ma'am.
Hi, I'm Sherry Brescher, 413 Wills Creek Drive.
I know it was mentioned before, but I'd like to thank the committee to at least address it to us as to why that particular piece of land was frozen when we have the huge piece of land that's been leveled probably four times across from the Firehouse, where it is bigger than I believe than the piece of land that this has been proposed for, and this is an enormous building.
I know we had company at Thanksgiving that we're staying at the holiday in and going through that intersection and total their car.
So traffic is definitely going to be an issue.
The other thing that I want to address is, and I'm not saying you didn't do this, you said you put signs at each of the entrances telling us about all the prior meetings.
My husband and I walked this neighborhood five miles almost every day.
Only a month ago, did we see a sign on that property?
There has never been a sign on that property.
Once we saw that, we said this is something we really need to address.
If it's at the different entrances, I guess my mistake is I assume it's like the first topic that came up.
But, we're going to be developing these new houses, but as soon as it was on that property, and at the same time the first time it was in front of the farmhouse, that's when we knew that's something we needed to attend because it was specific to those properties, I think that that was really a miservice and kind of guess lighting us on the issues that were at hand.
Thank you.
Okay.
Senate Freeland.
I live at 1304 Pennings and Drive and I'll just start out by saying for all of you live
on Channando, Channando of you Parkway, I feel very badly for you.
I almost bought a house on that street and I'm thankful that I ended up on Canyton.
Mostly I have questions relative to what Beckow just said, never saw any signs on the property
until just a month ago. Why were those other signs not put on this actual piece of property?
Does anybody have an answer to that?
Can somebody answer that? I mean, when other people were speaking and they asked questions,
folks came up and helped address the question. Is there a reason that the sign was not the zoning
sign was not good on the property.
Bruce, do you have a guidance on that?
Well, typically, like I said earlier, we have always put the signs on the
permers of the property, and that's just how it's been.
That's how it's been for 15 years.
Excuse me, excuse me, let the man speak.
We always put them on the perimeter. It's what we've always done.
I've got a rain camera. I've got to sit here to storage.
That's time to run from my house.
Wait a minute, sir.
You're next.
Okay, so that's kind of interesting.
That's kind of strategic in that the signs were put around the perimeter of the community, but then when we came to this final hearing,
It was actually put on the actual piece of property, so that's, and I use the word strategic
lightly.
Well, part of the problem that you're talking about is when we put the signs up there before it's owned
and the use is all about Brunswick crossing in the Pleasant's development, so it goes on the outside.
This particular property is a different applicant altogether, it's not Pleasant's development.
that it's a Frederick primary care, so that's why it's one their property, as the
contract purchaser. Same thing with the infield property, it's about a new contract
purchaser, so that's why it's identified separately. It's not hard to run across it.
Even though it's in the development, it's not, they're not the applicant, Mrs. Harley.
Okay.
We'll take that answer.
I would add to say that the signs that were on the perimeter of Brunswick crossing that you say relative to the October 2022 meeting in the December 2023 meeting.
And again, I drive the community pretty frequently, and I never ever saw a tonight that said, hey, we're going to resound this and make this a medical building. Again, don't have a problem with a medical building, put it up by the urgent care, you know, like businesses, like each other, put it up there, plenty of property up there for a medical facility. The other issue I have is the December of 2023 meeting, where you said that this is not
kind of already decided it's going to be a medical building and we decided, we changed it in December of 2023 to amend the plan.
I guess if you had a meeting and amended the plan then, you could amend the plan today, too.
It's not a done deal.
Never say never, things can change and I think that you see with all of these people here tonight.
It's really a real sore subject.
I have been so proud to live in Brunswick Crossing, but this is really sour to me.
Thank you, ma'am.
It's unfortunate.
Matt Lane, 1147 in Potomac Parkway.
Could you pull up the housing view of that, like the house is adjacent to the roads around
here?
The map.
the map, a little bit zoomed out a little bit.
Do you mean the side
panel?
Right there, it's perfect.
So my question is this road right here, the entrance.
This is out there right here.
So that's not the entrance of my front of my house.
There's no other interest into a building in this neighborhood
or commercial space where it comes in front of someone's house.
It comes directly off a road so it makes more sense that it was to come off the main road of
Mirror into to me view where it's a four-way. There's a way to do that
Now you have it so there's parking going along this road here
And now two cars cannot even go across that road. It gets a stop going to get over
As they were saying these roads are not wide enough for this purpose right now
So now you're gonna add in a entrance
This is still the main road going to all that new construction used to prove that's going
on back in the southwest corner, because they don't always use the main drag coming
up from the sheet.
They still use to tell me if you would come behind wise and that route, so I'm just curious
what's going to happen right here.
I mean, obviously, the building itself is tedious.
It doesn't look any like an error, but they mentioned multiple times.
Maybe something close to the clubhouse would fit in.
If you wanted to be a two-story, to get that kind of vibe,
kind of form housey-looking, but the interest right here,
these interest is just on making sense at all.
The literally right in front of the house is road or two-tied.
Just I'm just trying to understand what was the thought with that could you have elaborate on that
With that development why why right there?
Because I just called it's like as soon as it gets around the neck the corner out there. Just make sense to go right in
So
I think the entrance is located where it is we're trying to stay as far away from the owners
We have utilities down through here
So we're trying to keep it up and get that separation from the from the intersection for the primary entrance you can't really
You can't I can see you want to say something you got to do it in the mic
Yeah, I guess my question is this is this is residential hard residential
This is hard commercial
There's a commercial road basically coming in right here. Why can't we utilize that coming in this route?
that would cut down on that traffic. Have you shoot straight across? There's a storm work on right there.
So it's a bad spot.
I think guys, guys, one of the time he's speaking.
I'm just, I'm just, it just does it.
A little frustrating that wasn't playing into the system to delay out.
I mean, if it wasn't a system, a living facility would still have access coming off of there.
I mean, I think no matter what it's going to be, you're going to need access.
But the traffic wouldn't be as much, and then hopefully not, we don't know.
But if there's a way to just come off that main drag, to curl it in, I think that should
be looked at it as an option, as a thought process, that way your doctor, that's a hard cut
right into that resident, in front of my house, and starting to just know what's the coverage
going to be like that there, as far as that monitor looks great at the front of that office
building.
Am I supposed to get the interest so that the entire time I move up the front door?
There's no way of covering up that interest.
That's going to be enough.
Let's be right there.
Let's stop with it.
Thank you.
Next.
Wendell Harris, 1301, Monocracy, Crosting Parkway.
I'm a little girl, I'm living here.
I guess, I'm with everybody else about the traffic.
Guys, let him speak when, when we bought our house back in 2021,
we bought it in a high-visitly lot.
I want to put up a privacy fence, so no, you know, this got to be like everybody else's houses.
You know, I can't tell you how many times they've had to fix the circle from the trucks and everything.
There's, I know these seven school buses come just in the mornings, so everybody's been saying.
Pick the kids up, take them, drop them off, you got them coming, anybody ever seeing all the traffic comes in the sheets.
McDonald's, you got, you know, 180 can't even hardly handle the traffic sometimes.
17 can't handle the traffic sometimes now we're going to start adding more and more and then where are these people going to come from are they you know somebody from
Baltimore going to come to Broniswick just to go to a doctor you know or is it just you know if we got all these doctors buildings in
treasury you know they're always full I just don't understand you know I'm right there in that corner and I can see even though the medical
The single bill is going to be up to street from me, but I still can see a living nightmare coming.
And your kids are going to get hurt, or you're going to have accidents.
I mean, we can't get the roads taken care of when it's bad weather.
What's the thought process of that?
And then, last thing real quick is, is this going to be least out to all different office buildings,
You know to different doctors and all and if so who manages all that who's going to make sure that them doctors
We want to keep the property up to par the clients are going to be good tenants so and so forth
How do you thank you for your time? Thank you Paul
has been 1315 volunteer drive
I think what you folks have heard tonight from the community is several things one of them
concern about having a medical center.
I think there's a good growing opinion that, yeah, we need a medical center on this scale,
maybe not so much location, definitely not, and impacts their lives, impacts their pocket
book, impacts their resale value, most of all, impacts their safety, their kids' safety.
In the my line of work, we look at things that efficiency effectiveness and can do smartly.
This is neither of these and the way things are being communicated to the Brunswick Crossing or Brunswick community and posting signs just posting signs is kind of archaic.
I think you guys can do better when it comes to posting things that impact our life that we should have a stay in this.
You know, we are the stakeholders and the shareholders here, right?
So, like I said, when the builders are gone, done and gone.
Granted, people have got to make a dime.
I get this, but who's left holding the bag in the end?
Who does it impact?
Who's lives does it impact?
I think you guys need to look how you're communicating.
Be more efficient, more effective, and more can do smartly on it.
Or else, it just ends up to be nothing but lip service.
And then there's a trust factor, so I've got thanks.
Brandon Barna, 40 team, Will's Creek Drive.
I just have some questions.
Excuse me, sir, were you just up earlier?
I was, I have a question for the architect.
You stated if we have questions or we can come up.
From the architect standpoint, there's two items that I'd like to ask.
First off, is there any opportunity instead of this being a square,
make this an L shape or maybe make this similar to like Aspen Ridge in Frederick.
Since I'm already hearing that this is going to be a medical center, regardless of what we say here tonight.
I want to ask what options do we have with this committee and with the architect to discuss options other than a big box?
We've already stated that some people have said they want something like you see in Gathersburg with like the townhouses.
That's fine, that's one option, but what I'm asking is, instead of the box, can you make a U-shade, a C, an L, and still get the square footage that you want for
Frederick Primary Care Associates?
I know it's not your standard bill, but it would solve a couple options.
It would solve the fact that the committee here is asking you to put up a wall and put up a berm.
You don't need a wall or a berm, you just need a whole bunch of trees if you're doing a U or an L.
And the other question that people have been asking, and this is something the city engineer needs to consider with pleasant development, is why can land or
Creek not be redone and widened to meet Potomac View Parkway as a two-lane road.
I understand why it owns that commercial property, not my problem.
You want this project, the city wants this done right.
Everybody here said they want it done safely.
You need to widen the road and make it not quite an industrial parkway style road but a little
bit wider than what it is today, and instead of curving that road, you need to go straight.
Land or Creek needs to go straight into Potomac View Parkway.
And right now, the only restriction to that is this commission putting rules on the
berm that was put in for setback for vice.
If the commission can adjust that, we can potentially talk about that road being completely
be restratin' from Knoxville, where McDonald's and everything is, bring that all the way into Potomacue Parkway.
I'm not a civil engineer, I'm not a road architect, I don't have the money to run the cement.
I'm just asking what options can be done other than just aesthetics.
We all said we don't want a box, we all said we don't want a two story building, but we're going to get something.
What can we get, thank you.
So I find, everything's clear here.
At this point, we're deciding on this site plan with this building, Cliprint.
So at this point, the footprint is set.
Again, the factors involved are many.
A lot of it is client-based and efficiency-based.
There's parking requirements, there's site requirements.
All of that goes into making this building this footprint, working on this site.
Yes, please.
So your name again?
Myle Wyatt, 1301, Shenandoah View Parkway.
Someone raised the issue of a traffic study.
Was that ever done?
Was a traffic study ever done?
Because I didn't hear an answer.
So if you have that, we would like to hear.
Because I think Marie brought up the trips and the cars and the this.
So is there an average version?
Can you share?
I'm not a traffic engineer, but we did that one done and the site was originally, this
was a assisted living.
It was 100 units.
Over the last, when did we start the age restricted conversation over the last year, probably
a year and a half?
We've had multiple workshops to discuss this.
That's when we were talking about posting this fight
from the outset because we were actually discussing
where to put this.
That's why we didn't post this exact state
because at the time, we weren't sure.
And we had multiple meetings to discuss
the exact concerns you guys were brought up.
And this pad essentially was 2.3 acres to put 100 assisted living units. It would be much, much
taller and a lot more parking than what's going on here. This is a much less intense use than
what was actually planned there originally. So we still have hopes and aspirations that we get
100 units out in the commercial area, where we have a lot more land across from the volunteer fire company.
We have six acres that we can give to somebody and do a nice assisted living facility there.
That's still something we're trying to define.
That's not off the table yet, but when this project was originally designed,
We absolutely had to do a traffic study and the site was ran with 100 assisted living units and it had a
general office and medical use up to 95,000 square feet, so this site was ran for both, you know, the assisted living in that field.
But didn't have the impact of all the wise and all the cooperation.
It absolutely did.
It has all kinds of use, who's actually much more than whatever be there to be honest with you.
That's even the hotel at the time and everything.
It's all in here.
I mean, I've been on the show today.
Like I said, I look at the end of the blood and my own blood.
So I look at my neighbors.
I look at my neighbors, but I don't look at this, but like everyone says, right now,
if I'm coming home and there's Amazon, I'll put them in view and cars parked, I have
to literally stop and wait and I have the Amazon guy come to my house because he thought
I was honking at him and like flip me off.
No, we designed these to certain standards and this like Potomac view is actually a major collector road.
It's designed for a lot more traffic than what's on it today.
It's designed for, you know, a lot of the commercial Potomac partway.
It's designed to expand all the way down and then to the city to collect even more.
And a lot of it, I think, is some traffic calming that you guys are experiencing, right?
They purposely do some of that squeezing, so people don't fly down the road for safety purposes for kids crossing the road to actually do that intentionally for safety reasons.
And that's why some of the roads, so you're actually experiencing some of the things that are intentionally designed to slow people down.
They can handle a lot more.
In fact, all of the intersections, you know, because we have roundabouts, and all the intersections internally, all are at a level A service, the best that you can get.
So, yeah, that's how they did, they did an absolutely expensive study, and just for the record that there was not, there was 95,000 general commercial in that case.
And let him speak and 100 is just a living originally that was in this actual location.
We're only doing 20, we're only, this will be a much lower reduction of what the 100 is just a living would have.
In fact, this particular site, which will be moved out to the commercial, where hopefully they can handle more traffic.
So I've been reviewing past 30 minutes, the Frederick County, all the local regulations on
placard and sign postings.
All the guidelines I found specify that the signs should be posted directly on the site
rather than the perimeter.
You can put 100 on the perimeter, it doesn't matter, it's a fight.
Regarding, so a little confused by your response to one of the previous questions, day one when a sign had to be posted, notifying the public, notifying the citizenry of this neighborhood, was the sign posted on the site when it had to be posted on the site?
Yeah.
Don't care about the perimeter.
Yes.
Yes. Yes.
The cabinet has been put in the battle, landfading and wife.
What is the post on the site?
My house is right for that property.
I've been here for eight years.
Nothing is ever been posted.
Actually, the third problem.
And you have a lot to do.
Just a minute or so.
I wouldn't mean my rights.
There's a lot of us.
There's a lot to do.
the December meeting. We're talking about the meeting for this, when this was done right.
All meetings, like I said before, are posted on the perimeter of the property because that is the site.
Brunswick Crossing is 500 and some acres. That's the site. We put five signs out.
That's how it's been done for 15 years.
I have one very important comment, you all know Hudson the Dog, the Bernie's Mountain Dog.
He and I walked the perimeter of Brunswick twice a day, morning and night, and I have never seen a single sign.
That's number one.
Number two, I'd like to point out to your traffic survey that a nursing home where I can tell you a third of the people, or a half, don't own a vehicle.
And two, those that do, don't go out but once a week if they go out that often.
And it's not like a medical facility where they're turning over every 15 minutes a patient is in and out.
And it's a different traffic therapy, thank you.
Just kind of have a quick question.
Just a minute.
Please put it next.
I just have a question.
How about the traffic study?
For the traffic, like this entrance, so like here the houses, and they have a driveway.
So, the only way from the Shenandoah view parkway, they will go to their driveway to the
garage.
So, explain to me, please, if the people, not everybody is going to go here, and a lot
of people probably will come out from here, so how they are going to enter to their houses
if it's going to be difficult to get in and out, that's a big concern.
So how is it going to happen?
because these houses, they just have the front entrance,
they don't have the garage here, they garage in the back.
This is the villa houses.
So it's three or four houses together,
and we have our garages that drive it up front
on Shenandoah's new parkway.
So how are we gonna go in and out?
Plus, a lot of people have like, for example,
my dad has disability.
So how he's gonna go in and out,
and how he's gonna have a parking for his car
because we have three cars, and I'm living for work at 6 o'clock in the morning, so he cannot park his car on the driveway.
He has to park right here, so where is he going to park his car then?
And how he's going to work with the disability and everything? That's another issue, that's another thing.
Thank you.
Jeanette, Freeland, 1304, Pennington, Drive.
This is a question I'm not sure of who.
Is the property actually sold?
Wait, I hear someone, I hear the architect talking about their client.
So you have a client?
Have they actually purchased this property?
No, we're smitten.
Okay, so it's not a done deal.
It can be changed.
It got changed in December of 2023 when none of us know about it,
because there was no signage and we're all here tonight because we have been
paying attention. We saw the signs, we saw the information and we're here. So I
think it's important that the commission considers all these comments tonight.
I would love to take a poll and ask each of you, do you live in Brunswick crossing?
Yes, I do.
Do you live on Shannon Donut?
Do you park?
No, I don't live there.
But I have known that that was basically a commercial application within what is
largely a residential area.
That has been known to me since the time I signed the contract for that.
Well, again, when I bought my home six years ago, it was assisted living.
It was.
But the point is it was not residential.
So it was a commercial application.
But again, this is living as a little different.
But anyway, so that was my first question.
Is the property not sold?
It can be re-zoned.
I know you're getting frustrated, sir.
But this really affects everyone's livelihood.
And as many people have said, you guys walk away, you walk away,
and we're still living here.
And your home is your single largest.
I don't have to tell anyone this, but your single largest
I just purchased and you get to walk away and you get to walk away and we get stuck with this ugly medical facility, which I think we all would like a medical facility, but let's put it up by urgent care, not in the middle of our residential homes.
Any other input from the public?
I think they beat it away to get it there.
I work from home, so things like atmosphere is coming in and out.
It's hard, man, if I've got a lot of noise and I try to hope business meetings,
everyone works from home, now the work has changed in 2020.
We moved in in 2020, kind of have certain expectations, so thank you.
Julie.
Hi,
I would just now that we're done with the public comment, I would just like to thank
you all for coming out. I think that some of the concerns that you raised tonight are
very, of course, they're very real. You live there, I live in Brunswick as well, not
Brunswick Crossing, but I live in Brunswick. So I really appreciate your input. That is
This is where you get started, right, and being involved, this is how that happens.
My statement earlier was that the use of this property was decided in December, it could be a medical center.
I didn't say it had to be this medical center, but anyways, now it's time for
the commission to have their discussion about this and make their decision, but I would like to thank everybody for coming out.
Thank you.
All right, my fellow commissioners.
But I was also concerned about the traffic thing.
I mean, when people asked if there have been a traffic study done, I heard crickets.
And when people heard asked about the number of visits the facility was going to require, I also heard crickets.
And while people are often concerned about traffic and not necessarily all of that is justified,
we should certainly have numbers to back up any position on it one way or the other.
And if the study is, as he said, for an assisted living facility,
I would suspect that has a very different traffic pattern than the medical center.
I live next to the current medical center, so it's fairly busy even for a small building.
We don't have too much trouble with it, but it is busier, and it's just that people in the system living generally don't drive, and the people who work there generally don't leave.
So I would be concerned that that traffic study is not terribly relevant to the area in question.
Has any been consideration been given to widening the road in that vicinity?
No,
I mean, consideration specifically, no, not widening.
This is a major collector road, and it's been studied to have, you know, a lot more traffic actually than this would come close to providing.
I would agree if you assisted living is less intense use, but this site was designed to have a lot more assisted living.
And this is a lot less of the medical use, so it actually offsets it.
Because only because there was so many assisted living units that we were trying to put on this height.
And now we're only putting 20,000 square foot of office when this originally had 100 assisted living in over 95,000 medical in general office.
That's the sign, so it actually offsets a little, you know.
So you might be right, I would be happier if we had solid numbers to back that up rather than what's essentially an estimate.
Well, piggyback and off that, could we take the plan, the traffic study you have then and update that for the actual envisioned application rather than the assisted living?
I think it'd be more applicable to do a new micro study of that area.
Yeah, that original traffic study.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know.
I'm about to be honest with you, Dan, only because of how they are planning for all the future stuff that is currently approved to be in here. So I would have to ask the question. I'm just looking at what they originally had in here. And they had 95,000 general office of medical in the mix. And they had 100% of the living units in the mix. Beyond that, there's a hundred other, you know, all the single families.
There's, like, all the school stuff, everything's in here.
So there's townhomes, things like, there's adult housing, there's hotels.
I mean, this will use these all kinds of things, the shopping centers.
So it's kind of a mix, but I don't know how they, I just know that that was only.
The traffic engineer was originally that was in there, so.
The traffic engineer would be able to assess this site with this proposed use,
this proposed square footage, and assess the surrounding roads and determine if they're adequate.
Yes, I've asked that question and I had to look at it today.
I think that perspective of formal report on it is like marited.
Yeah, well, I mean, the body of input, I think, was legit.
I mean, there's clearly going to be a traffic impact and a non-trivial one.
And I think it would be who of us to get a better,
to Andy's point, a better fix on what it actually means that use that site there.
And if we're not talking about widening the road in general,
what about turn lanes and the intersection question?
Yeah, that's a, that's beyond my level of expertise that I'd have to
defer to the traffic, I guess.
Okay.
with the, you're not the applicant, right?
No, sir.
Okay.
So I'm asked a question.
You can't answer.
Sorry.
But would the applicant be agreeable to consider the comments from tonight and developing their
plan?
You'd have to, I'd have to defer to the applicant, but I'm sure they would.
I'm
sorry for the record Bruce Dean, I'm an attorney with a law firm of McCurdy Dean and
Gratitor in Frederick representing Frederick Primary Care Associates.
Since it seems to be the desire of the planning commission to gain additional information,
in at least regarding traffic, I would say that the applicant would be willing to have
this matter continued to a further hearing.
We can look at the traffic more specifically, I'm not at all authorized to design the
building a different way, I'm an attorney, I didn't go to architecture school, but even
our architect can't answer that.
But the doctors who own Frederick primary care have to answer whether they be willing
to make changes to the building or not.
But certainly, I have on page 19 of notes from all the comments we've heard tonight.
And I write pretty small, so it's a lot of notes.
So yeah, we will consider all the comments that were made.
But as Dan said, it was approved under the traffic study, if it was approved under the traffic
study for 95,000 square feet of medical and other general office, I can promise you
that a further traffic study is going to show as Dan testified to you that there's less
of an impact than was already studied.
But if you need a traffic engineer to put that on traffic engineer letterhead, we can we can certainly do that for you.
And like I said, I can certainly go back to my client and provide them with my insights that we're gained from this meeting tonight and see if there's anything that they can do or are willing to do to modify the site plan.
But Bruce, I would like for this, for the applicant to view this, why it looks the whole comprehensive thing here.
Parking and all the other comments.
I'm not saying that there will be changes or won't be changes.
But I think that the applicant wants it also to be a good neighbor, okay?
So not to say you can't do your project but maybe some modification of the project.
with the site plan would be beneficial to everyone.
And as usual, Bruce, you are as smooth as they come, thank you.
Well, I can tell you that the doctors who in February primary care says he has practiced throughout
Frederick County and want very much to have a larger presence here in Brunswick than they do today.
And so certainly, they will be willing to listen.
So that's all I can promise you is that they will
They will listen to me, but they are the decision-makers as to what changes they'll make.
So we're looking at a continuum, so we're not.
We are.
So, how do we need to structure that, Bruce?
Which Bruce?
No, this one is sorry.
Yeah, say Bruce and everybody answers.
So, you just basically moved to have a continuance for up to a certain period of time.
I would ask, you know, the applicant, as well as the architect, you know, how much time do you think you need to come up with a better design, do the traffic study, look at the architecture of the building, and make and do an analysis of, of no knock on my bottle of paper, do an analysis of the site to come up with something that is a better fit, is that going to take 60 days, 90 days, I mean, how much time would you need?
Mr. Engineer, I'm looking at the architect and the engineer I'm saying it's probably 60 days.
So you would want to structure it, we'll continue it so we're up to 60 days.
And then I would spell out some of the things that Carol said is do a comprehensive review of all the comments that have been put out here tonight by the citizens.
I mean, we want to make sure that at the end of the day, it's not just—they're going to have the biggest impact because of where the proximity, but it's a—it's a authority for the whole community, so.
It is. So, we're talking of continuance for up to 60 days to do an updated traffic study that deals with this specific application on this specific site.
as well as address other architectural design issues and site design and everything.
So you guys reckon that's a that's a window you can live within.
It's a one month or we in may exactly six days you have a which meeting would we be
talking about this for clarity you would be looking at the July 22nd planning commission
meeting we we actually need one one more further than that August 26th yes okay so it's
It's going to be up to 90 days.
Can we confirm that, too?
I'd just like to speak with other architects and engineers
and make sure that everyone's got to work with that.
You know, the summers are getting busy.
Well, and if something happens that you can't do it that time,
we can always push it 30 days.
Yes, sir.
We'll come back and request a push.
Okay.
So we're going to stick with the 60, then, for the 90, right?
90, yes, sir.
Which will be the August 26, 2024 meeting.
Can you all put that on your calendars, please?
I assume I assume August, August the 26th and at 6 p.m. in this same spot.
And we're taking attendance at the.
2024 and the site will be posted with that new date and the site within 30 days prior.
There'll be a sign back on the site right at him.
We can hear you on the recording from the back of the room and we can't we can't really open it back up the public comment at this point.
I can't, I can't tell you why that site was selected, that's what the applicant can
propose. Anything can be changed.
That's what we want to be at since it's over here, we don't consider it.
That's not our job.
It's not, yeah, it's not, we present what comes to us, we don't go out and solicit it when
And the application comes in, we've processed it based on all the rules and procedures that we have to process.
We're done with this conversation.
It's up here for the board to have a motion.
Can we have a motion for the continuance?
I will move that we continue this matter until the August 26th meeting so that we can review the issue is brought up at this session,
including parking, strike review and architecture and traffic and traffic yeah it's screening me any not on our table
can we have a second second for me no we're done man all in favor all right I posed motion continue
Yeah.
I'm cheering.
August 26th.