City Manager James Wieprecht told the commission at their last meeting that the proposed improvement plan, referred to as Phase-2 for Meade’s Crossing, will have to be further revised including improvements of Angel Road being taken into consideration, at the request of Carroll County. As a result, the now-deceased version that the planning commission had been reviewing has to be scrapped, and the developer will have to generate a new plan for review.

Specifically, the improvement plan addresses infrastructure, including a clubhouse and pool. Prior to the county’s insistence on including addressing improvements of Angel Road into the mix, some relatively minor changes had been proposed as "red-line" items, such as moving a couple of stormwater inlets relative to the clubhouse and swimming pool entrances and changing some stockpile locations relative to the clubhouse and swimming pool area.

As far as the overall development of Meade's Crossing, Phase-1 is "mostly built-out," and construction of the second and final phase’s infrastructure is underway. Some lots in the second phase are already being constructed.

In other business - a planned addition to Taneytown Liquors was approved by the planning commission and the commission’s Design Review Board. Taneytown Liquors requested approvals for the design of a planned extension to their existing building, as well as a site-plan waiver.

Wieprecht told the planning commission that the building occupied by the liquor store is located in the Old Town District, and this is subject to the applicable design standards of that district. As a result, the changes proposed required a decision by the design-review board.

The city manager noted that the existing building "is not particularly of the architectural character that the city is really hoping to emulate or preserve through the design standards … we still want to make sure that what’s being proposed to be added-on to the building fits with the building and doesn’t do any harm or stand-out too badly with the existing community."

Regarding the proposed exterior design of the addition, project-architect Dean Camlin stated that the intention was that the materials to be employed should match that of the existing building. "It seems like the addition really inhibits its own compatible identity that related to the existing building … but doesn’t go too far out-of-the-way to try and look like it’s been there since the beginning."

Wieprecht also reported that the work on the preliminary plan for Bollinger Park, a new town-owned park currently under development, is continuing to progress. The park is located off Route 194.

The city manager said the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board has developed some additional ideas to include in the park’s preliminary plan, including a pollinator garden (involving plantings which attract pollinating insects), whimsical sculptures, and an additional side-trail. "They’ve kind of fleshed-out the concept with some more details and some more features," he said.

Bollinger Park, currently in the development stages, will be a nature park. Preliminary plans include a walking, jogging, and biking trail, and possibly an observatory constructed and operated by the Westminster Astronomical Society.