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HomeMy Public PortalAbout20151208 Tybee CCS TAC Meeting Summary.docx / City of Tybee Carrying Capacity Study Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) Meeting #1 Meeting Summary December 8, 2015 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM Scope of Project Introduction Courtney Reich opened up the meeting by introducing EPG employees. TAC members introduced themselves. Meetings are open to any interested citizen. The purpose is to gather information and receive feedback from as many interested stakeholders as possible, in an effort to represent different views as well as verify the accuracy of data used for this study. The meeting invitation went out to a well-rounded group of citizens. George is going to check with some other citizens again and committee members were asked to invite interested citizens to attend the next meeting as well. Project Tasks & Schedule Technical Advisory Committee. (This is the first meeting, which will be held quarterly. The Grant is to be completed October 2016). Community Resources Inventory & Assessment Analysis of community Resources Limitations Recommendations and Implementation Plan Coordination with Comprehensive Plan process. This project will attempt to coordinate with the Comprehensive Planning process as much as feasible, although the deadlines aren’t an exact match. The Carrying Capacity Study has to be completed by September 30th, however the Comprehensive Plan must be submitted by August 2016 for approval by October 2016. Review of Wave Ecology Report Findings In 2011, a similar study was conducted titled “Tybee Island Wave Ecology and The Highway 80 Challenge Study.” This was essentially a Carrying Capacity Study that focused on the Highway 80 corridor near Tybee Island. The study was commissioned by Chatham County to assist the City of Tybee Island (and a committee of government and agency leaders) in defining localized solutions to issues affecting the safety of citizens and visitors specific to the Hwy 80 corridor. A copy can be downloaded from the MPC’s website at http://thempc.org/Transportation/WaveEcologyStud y.html. EPG will email a copy to Committee attendees. Many Tybee residents were active participants with this study. Recommendations for this Study Committee members discussed the following recommendations from this Study, and their implementation status since the report was completed in 2011: Install road signage to address special features related to safety concerns. Establish a bus or shuttle service during special events and inter-island options during peak tourism periods. Establish and maintain an ongoing bus/shuttle service through the Coastal Regional Commission. Utilize signal timing and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) during special events. Utilize social media to disseminate information to the public. Data Analysis Courtney presented on the data collected and the analysis conducted to date on the following data sets. She will provide a copy of the power point presentation to the TAC and the City for posting on the website. A brief summary of the discussion is below. Water Withdrawal A question was asked about how per capita water use was going to be examined in this study. This study is going to look at other communities and other organizations where people have tried to estimate % of water use for outdoor watering. Often, studies look at per capita water use during the growing season and per capita water use when it is not growing season and use the difference to estimate how much water is used to water lawns and landscaped areas. A suggestion was made to look at shallow wells for irrigation. We don’t think these well are requires to be permitted; where could we obtain this data? If we don’t have the data, then we can make a recommendation in the report to start collecting the data for future analysis. Another recommendation is to notify citizens about how much water they are using so they can see a real “number” as to their water consumption. Water Withdrawal-Future Permit Limits: Courtney Reviewed data from 2010 – 2015 that indicates that the City of Tybee consistently exceeds its water withdrawal permit limits during peak summer months. Courtney reviewed a bar graph that shows Annual Daily average, the 2015 Permit Limit, and 2025 Permit Limit. Georgia EPD is assuming Tybee will rely on the use of a deep well in the Cretaceous aquifer to reduce water withdrawals from the Floridan Aquifer water consumption as mandated by the 2025 Permit. Water conservation measures alone will not allow the City to achieve this amount of water reduction. Wastewater Treatment Plant (WTP) Discharge Monthly WTP discharge data from 2012 – 2015 indicates that discharge from the WTP also exceeds permit limits during peak summer months. There was a question regarding the water quality standards in the permit, and if the WTP is currently exceed water quality standards. Courtney stated that EPD has that data, but has not performed that review yet. Solid waste Solid waste data was provided by Waste Pro. There was a question regarding whether dry trash numbers are included in the Waste Pro data. EPG will work to determine that. The general trend is an increase in both municipal solid waste (MSW) and recycling, although the upward trend in recycling appears to be greater than the upward trend in MSW disposal. Population/Housing Overall, the trend is that resident population is decreasing, the percentage of owner/renter occupied housing is shrinking, and short term rentals are on the rise. Several graphs and charts were reviewed to provide better understanding of the changing dynamics of Tybee’s resident versus short and long-term renter populations. The TAC discussed trying to encourage participation by people in the short-term rental industry on Tybee to verify capacity and per/unit population data. Traffic Daily traffic counts from 2014 – 2015 (since the City’s traffic count equipment was corrected) were reviewed. They indicated that the daily capacity of the Hwy 80 corridor was only exceeded a few times per year. However a look at the 15-minute interval counts may tell a different story regarding road capacity. EPG will look further into this. Zoning Analysis This was not done in the Wave Ecology Study and it was a recommendation of that study to look at zoning. Ed gave a presentation of some maps he generated with existing Geographic Information System (GIS) data. This included a R-2 Zoning Analysis to show what potential increases in living units there could be possible under the R-2 zoning designation. EPG will be conducting a more complete zoning analysis as more GIS data is gathered and assessed. Data Gathering: Outstanding Data Needed/Recommendations for Future Analysis EPG reviewed the status of data that has been gathered thus far and outstanding data needs. Jackie asked if the dry trash # is included in the Solid Waste-Residential Trends line graph; EPG will check. Question was asked for the Housing Units table: what was included/grouped in the “Other” category for vacant rentals (was this for second homes that aren’t being rented and are not up for sale)? EPG will check. A TAC member suggested that a good project for Tybee would be to look at other methods (other than tear down/ new construction) to encourage historic cottages to be elevated out of the floodplain as opposed to torn down. Lewis Avenue is a prime example. Suggestions were made to examine wastewater quality, focusing on TMDL limits (what is the next generation of wastewater permit limits?), & beach water quality. This is a good time to look at the technology of Tybee’s WWTP to see if it can handle variable flow and whether its treatment processes need updated or modified. This study won’t be able to examine this in depth-it would require an engineering study but this may be a recommendation of this particular study. EPG can also talk to the City’s engineers to get some preliminary information. EPG to obtain sea level rise data and new flood map data. For traffic evaluations, maybe should look at citations and accidents on US 80. EPG to check with CORE MPO to obtain 15-minute interval traffic counts for US 80 (what exceeds the capacity on the Tybee portion of US 80). EPG will look at lot sizes and determine which lots are big enough to build upon. Study needs to look at possible sea rise-how much is that expected to shrink the buildable lots? How do we quantify the infrastructure upgrades that would needs to happen to support the potential population increase under the R-2 zoning scenario? We also need to look at the effect of these possible population changes: how do we make sure that what we are looking at is supportive of the local economy? How is this affecting the work force? What does this do to local businesses that can’t find local workers? Next Meeting Next Meeting to take place in March 2016. The exact date will be provided to the TAC in 2016. The TAC was asked to reach out to encourage people to attend the next meeting and participate in the TAC.