 I don't want to be, I don't want to be that guy. Welcome everyone to our exciting joint meeting of the Planning Commission and the DRB. So first on the agenda directions. So from this room, we can emergency exit either through this door or the one over there and that goes the parking lot. Our meeting spot outside is right in the parking lot kind of right outside these doors under the streetlight. If these doors are blocked we can go out and out the front door the way most of us probably came in. Any agenda changes? Okay hearing none we'll keep it the way it is. So on the agenda we actually have two spots for the public. The first is open to the public for items not related to the agenda. You guys? This is not a good question. On number four commissioner and board member announcements. Does anyone have anything? Okay. Do staff have any report for us? No I think we're good. Wonderful. Well I mean I guess I'd like to say I'm really excited about the meeting. I'm very excited about what amazing staff we have. We don't normally get to see Ray and Marwa so it's pretty exciting to at least have tonight with you guys. And of course is also amazing. I think it might be nice to, can we introduce ourselves? It's not on the agenda but I think we're probably allowed to do that. What would be nice to say just name and background? Name, how about name background and street. That's a good one. Okay I can go first because I'm still talking. I am Jessica Luisos Planning Commission and I live on Valley Ridge Road and Valley Ridge Road is over off-patch. Bill Miller, DRB, Lupin Lane. Lupin, Lupin Lane. Okay we're doing good with this one so far. Everybody knows the street names right now. So by background you meant just which board you're on? Oh yeah I really meant, no I really meant like profession but I didn't say it because I got all flustered. I'm a water resource engineer. I do a lot of river restoration and storm water working. I do finance for solar arrays. Paul Conner, staff, I think you probably know that I work as a planner. Matt Kota at DRB, Winesap Lane and I work as a lobbyist in Montpelier. Mark Baer, DRB, Moscow and Lane over in the Greek village of Hinesburg and I'm an architect. Monica Ostve, Planning Commission, Spear Street and my background is Marketing and Communication. Michael Mitter, Planning Commission. I live just off of Swiss Street. My background is a farmer, a monkey from South Africa and I run a high-tech company here in Canada and the US. I'm retired. Ray Belair, Planning and Zoning staff. Sue Oliver and I've been doing this for 30 years now. And Ed Will, too. Craig Cochman, I live on Hadley Road. I'm a lawyer. Marla Keane, I'm the Development Review Planner. John Wilking, I live on Dorset Street with all the Christmas lights in case you haven't. I'm a Christmas light engineer. You have to not do the FM thing. You have to do it like Spotify or something to get actually, you know, a sun to acknowledge it. Well, sorry. I think other kids are seeing it. I'm a real estate manager. Ted Reilly live on Hinesburg Road just east of the Chittenden-Sider Mill complex. And I'm a managing partner of an investment advisory firm. I work with Smith on the DRB and I'm living on Imperial Drive. And my background is business administration. Duncan McDonald, I'm on the Planning Commission. I live on Deerfield Road or Lane, depending on which side you come in from. And I am in retail. I am playing in sports down the road. Yes, Matt. Are these on? They're not, they're for the TV. They don't make it louder here. So as I'm tapping it's not loud in the room. It's loud on the TV. Got it. This poor guy just took his glasses off. Okay, we won't tap on him anymore for you. Sorry. Is this actually on? They should amplify into the room. Oh. Yeah, they do. Do they? Yeah, they're a little bit. I'll take care of it. Okay, so thank you for that. And welcome everyone. So first thing on the agenda order business is an update on the Planning Commission projects. We as a group have spent a lot of time going through and prioritizing potential projects. We had accumulated a very large list and went through a big process last year to put together information that would help us rank it. What's in your packets actually only some of the columns. You can see, you know, we start with J, K, P, U, B, M. There are, there is other information in the spreadsheet like what are the city goals from the comprehensive plan we're addressing for each one of these. What, where this project originated, amount of time, both in Planning Commission funding sources. There's all this information that we put together. Staff put it together mostly for us to help us organize and prioritize. So in a bigger grant list here, the highlighted kind of gray or pink depending on what you're looking at are the ones that we've kind of put on the work plan for the current year. And they aren't necessarily prioritized in any order. Just the ones that are highlighted and kind of at the top are the ones that we're actively working on kind of in tandem. We did individual voting on these and ranking to get to this point. So the first bunch, I'm just going to generally walk through kind of the kind of bigger categories that are on this list. And I think if maybe then we can circle back and actually talk about some of these if people have questions or how it relates to the DRB work or if Planning Commission members want to really like talk about why we've done some of these. We've put these on the list and how it might affect how the DRB is looking at things along the way. So the first bunch all the way down to 10 are ones that we've adopted and they're kind of there as an FYI. You've probably already been working with these so we could just take them off the list and I think we will. Corrections, we want to always be getting them in. So as things come up at your meetings or with staff or from the public that are kind of a technical thing like typos or misreferences, we want to keep those up to date. We are always taking zoning requests from the public. We have a few of them we've done. We always give the public feedback immediately on if we feel like it's interesting and we want to do it in the short term, take it up if we think maybe it fits into our work plan in a longer term sense further down the list or if we feel like it really doesn't fit within our work plan, we like to give them a response right away. And then next on the list here we have a couple that are currently under active consideration and work. There are a few from the public as well as what we've been calling the footprint lots which actually came from you guys. So those are things that we're actively working on that came from the public. And obviously things get put on that list throughout the year as they come up. The next couple projects are things that are upcoming hearing items. So that's 17 through 19. And these are ones that we will be hearing or having a public hearing on actually at our next meeting. And if they go through, you'll be seeing them adopted pretty soon, we're hoping. A few of these are in response to some of the feedback we had gotten from you at our last joint meeting. Concerns about waivers for setbacks and heights, especially in some of the main corridors where maybe some of those form based code type attributes might make sense like having buildings closer to the road, having taller buildings. So along some of our corridors like Shelburne Road and Williston Road, you know, we're actually looking at raising the heights and reducing the setbacks from the road to achieve some of those things that we think are going pretty well in the form based code area. So next things on the list are some things that we have ongoing. So developing the annual work plan, kind of reviewing back to here. Form based code, we've made a commitment to really making form based code work. As we're hearing feedback from staff, from you all about how those reviews are going, as we're hearing comments back from the public, we want to make sure that that new pretty big change of form based code is really working. So that's kind of high on our list and we're going to be working on that continuously as we hear feedback. So along with the annual work plan, we decided that we should have kind of a good policy for figuring out how the other committees in the city can really help mesh with the different projects on here. So we've been both meeting with other committees and kind of making sure our work plans make sense together, kind of asking for some of the committees for help. We've assigned some work to the affordable housing committee that Monica is our liaison to and really trying to streamline and leverage work where we can from all the great committees we have. So the next couple of things, including number 20, which we skipped, which is the Williston Road Network Study, Tilly Kimball Road Community Master Planning. There's a few big projects here, which are bigger projects that we have grant money for and or consultants on board with. So one of the things that we always want to prioritize is making sure that if we are putting money into something or we have consultants working on it, we're kind of keeping up with their schedule and making sure that those projects are going on on time. Some of the things that's going to potentially be a big change down the road for all of you is our planned unit development project is going to, we're working on some big changes to the subdivision PUD requirements and I think that's going to look really different, but we're in the middle of it so we don't have a great example for you yet. Is that what you mean by the creating four to eight plan unit development types with clear review? Yes. Very interesting to see where that goes because right now it's just a generic PUD with whatever they throw at us is how we review it and throw waivers at it and call it a day. Does anybody want to give an update on what that might look like? Ted? Monica? Oh, that's big. Okay, it's summarized. So I think what's really exciting is, like you said, four to eight PUD types with clear criteria. So the idea is that there's maybe, it might actually be almost like an overlay district where a PUD type might apply in different areas of the city and one that we're looking at is like a transit overlay or like a transit related one where it's the type of development that you'd really want to have happen in a dense corridor. And it's the idea is that it would have certain percentages of commercial, different types of possibly residential, like different types of buildings and uses, as well as different requirements for open space and like kind of lays out a framework for what might make sense in that type of the city. And then there's other ones that are completely different, either neighborhood related or some that might make a little more sense in like the southeast quadrant have like an agriculture component. I think if I can just throw out one thing to take a look at when you're doing those, especially in like the transit overlay districts where you have a lot of potential for public transportation. I think as the DRB were limited to what a 25% parking waiver currently, which sometimes we max it out and it might be something where they don't even need that much parking, but they have to max out a 25% because the demographic or the use is such that, you know, there's going to be a lot of public bus use or something like that. So maybe look at that, whether the parking requirement is specific to the PUD type. Parking was also brought up last night at the Chittenden County Economic Housing Workshop as being something just regionally is a big concern for developers and there can be flexibility there. So, especially in those kind of districts. Because we're limited to 25% max and, you know, not that I'm saying that, you know, there's areas where we could go to 50, but, you know, that's for you guys to tell us. So what's actually really exciting, if you move down a couple lines to 28, the transportation overlay district update where actually we haven't gotten super into this yet, but there is a consultant working on it that I think might be addressing some of the things you're talking about. Like how you could change parking and to really account for other modes of transportation. Does that project include some of what he was? Yeah, it's somewhat on the parking, it's a lot on the traffic and you know how you measure trip ends. So one of the things that this project is looking at is instead of looking currently the default in looking at a trip end is a vehicle trip end. Some of the more modern regulations are looking at a person trip end, which if somebody is in a certain location or they're providing certain transit then or bicycle amenities or whatever it is, then those trips may not be by vehicle and so they might be able to get a significant credit on the traffic impact fee for putting in certain features or being physically in the right location. If they're already on a bus route, maybe they get a 15% credit on their traffic impact fees just for being there, period. And if I can jump in on the parking thing, one of the things that the commission has looked into a little bit and asked us to continue to look into at the staff level is the idea of maybe either significantly reducing our parking standards across the board or possibly eliminating them or possibly having a guideline for what. I'm just going to say don't do that. Don't eliminate them. I have no problem with eliminating them. I don't care about that. Don't give me an upper number because what you're finding in office space everywhere is that it's getting more and more efficient. They're finding a way to cram more and more people in and four spaces per thousand doesn't cut it. Sometimes you need five, sometimes you need six. And if you go and put a maximum number on it, people like anybody who's an investor is going to stop being able to take certain terms. So don't put an upper limit. Why would you, what is the rationale for eliminating a parking standard? I explain that. Did I hear you correctly? Well, whoever can answer it. Well, so this is a project we're really early on. We're just kind of interested in the idea of is there a better way to do it than we're doing it now. So I don't think we haven't had a whole big discussion about what the values. The limit is that if a developer is walking in and needs parking in order to be able to support whatever it is that they're doing, whether it be retail or multifamily housing, they're going to do it or they're not going to get the tenancy that they need. Or if they're an owner or user, they're going to need what they need to be able to get it done. They're probably not going to build what's a very expensive thing to do these days and not build the proper amount of parking for what they need. The only real problem comes up if we get into downtown cores and there is an ancillary parking to be able to offset. Now there may be times when our requirements are higher than what a developer would want to do. So that would be a reason why we might want to not be in the game of dictating. Or, and I think the instance if I recall of the CVS up the street, the local developer had a number in mind. Their national retailers sort of used our standard and say, well, that's how many we want. And weren't, even though it may not be what they actually need, they said, well, the city says we need seven spaces per thousand. So that's what we want rather than what does the actual market want? And so the local developer had some challenges with their own client. I guess this is the point I'm making is that the kidney dialysis group on Joy Drive, they didn't need half the spaces they have. They have two or three people who run the place and they have one person or two people come in per hour. And I think they had to have 20 spaces for the square footage. Yeah, there was something again last night. This is a Burlington building, but it's a residential building that is primarily studios and one bedrooms and a few two bedrooms. Yet they're zoning in Burlington that this lot was requiring two spaces per unit. And he knew what he needed. He knew what the people come in. So he was basically saying give, find ways to give flexibility. So I think that's really what we're hoping to figure out is how can we give flexibility yet to make sure it works. Yeah. The assumption, okay. Well, the assumption that the end user will be sophisticated enough in all cases to know what he, she, he or she is going to need is, I think, misplaced and to rely solely on the developer for that is maybe not a good idea. So flexibility, probably, but no standard, probably not. The biggest negative is the second user. It's not the builder and the original developer. They're probably going to develop to a standard that's going to be best for their use. If you do, if you take the Joy Drive example, if, if, if that it's a medical use, it has a medical parking. If it wasn't a kidney dialysis and it was actually primary care, they'd need more parking than they've got. I would apply to, you know, residential development and a tight housing market. Someone knows they need two parking spaces, but the best place they can find to live has one parking space. They're going to take it and scramble. That's not satisfactory. I don't have a magic solution. I understand the flexibility argument, but no standard is not viable. That's great, great feedback. In our last agenda online from the January 23rd meeting, there's a nice document in there looking at kind of the initial concepts that we've been talking about. Yeah, there's some really great graphics that go along with the PUD, just from our last meeting. So thanks, Monica. That's a great idea. Also a plug for our new website. Under the current, under the new website, under projects, the first one we've put up is this project. So all of the project documents that have gone to the Planning Commission are there. The PUD project. That's great. So some of the other projects ongoing. I know we skipped over at number 20 was the Williston Road Network Study. A few of these are transportation related. So Williston Road Network Study, Tilly Kimball Community Drive Transportation Land Use Study, looking at some of those areas in the traffic and land use. We talked about the transportation overlay. Let's see. We anticipate as part of the PUD project there would be just additional land development regulation changes that are going to come out of that. So scoping of bike-ped projects. These were identified by the bike-ped committee. So a few of these, like I said, are transportation related. Part of that is a little bit because of projects is the ones where we have consultants working on. So a few of them are transportation related. We're doing some work on the river corridor standards. That would be kind of an update to the stream buffer requirements. That's something that the CCRPC, the local RPC is working on with us. And I think we talked about form-based code making sure to make that work, but just in general, we as the planning commission have been giving some guidance on different aspects of the city center area. And especially as individual projects come up, we've been kind of approving the purpose and need statements and making sure each project is consistent with the comp plan. So that gets us down to 33. And now we have listed the kind of new priority projects that we're all kind of excited about. These are more like proactive planning things that we think would be great, but didn't come out of a request, didn't come out of the fact that we have money for it already. So these are ones that we're going to start working on as we have time. And a few of these, I guess just one of them is affordable housing related. So the affordable housing committee is hopefully going to be helping us with that, looking at small houses like similar to the Kirby Cottage area. Scenic views, we've been talking about a lot, but you can see, we're talking about wanting to do a lot with it, but you can see there's only 5% done. So it unfortunately keeps kind of getting behind other projects, but we're moving along with scenic view protection. Let's see, a couple other things on here that have come up. So I think that that is kind of the overview of kind of the categories of projects and how they got onto the list a little bit. Does anybody have anyone to highlight or talk about that are, I think would be good to talk about with the DRB specifically? Anybody? Were there really only two of these proactive new ones? No, there's more. I didn't read them. I'm sorry, Sarah. I thought everyone had it in front of us. So linking cities' efforts together, so really coordinating between committees and staff and the CIP budget process to get projects kind of in the lineup for the budgeting. The R4 setback standards, that's something that actually came out of the Chamberlain neighborhood study. A lot of that is about making sure that places can have a porch out front and really create like a nice street presence, even though a lot of those R4 neighborhoods, the buildings are already right up to the setback line. I think I'm characterizing that right. And South Village zoning requests, they had taken kind of hiatus for a little bit, but they had come in a while back with questioning whether or not they could have some small retail in their neighborhood and then took that kind of back to the neighborhood. I think they're ready to come back in front of us pretty soon here. So that's one of the things that's on the priority list. And then there's another 52 projects, 54 projects that are things that I think we're interested in. We've put on the list, we think would be really great to get to, but based on hours per meeting and staff time and all those such things, we wound up with the ones we just kind of did the overview of up top first. But I think it's fair to say that for any of those proactive ones, the more public participation there is in the openings and meetings, giving us preference and priorities, everything that certainly helps to know what the community has to say about that. Yeah. There was some discussion recently redefine open space citywide, maybe applying some of the form-based code standards in other spots. That came up recently with a request from the public, and I think there was a little bit of interest in maybe considering that in some other areas, at least in the other, maybe the transportation overlay district or something like that, some of our corridors. So I know that was a really brief run through. Paul, can we make sure this also gets on to our planning commission website page? Absolutely. It's on the meeting packet, but it's not currently on the planning commission page. That's a great suggestion. While we're in the meeting right now, in fact. So I know we have several things that you've heard about in the past, footprint lots probably being the one that's the most important, I think, from our group. But I know I have a personal one, which is the tree replacement standard. I'll give you my example. At the blue wall, we took down a tree that was, I don't know, I hope it was 14 inches in diameter or something like that, and had to replace it with six 2.5 inch trees. Now we don't have room for six 2.5 inch trees. So Ray has a bunch of trees that are now on Market Street that are going to get torn out because they had to go in, and we didn't have any other place to put them. And this happens all the time. If one tree is replaced with six, and every time a tree comes down, that's gotten a little bit bigger, you have to replace it with the same caliber in smaller trees. And everybody's going to do it with smaller trees because they're cheaper. You can't go out and buy a 14 inch tree and not spend, you could spend $25,000 on a 14 inch tree, or you could spend $300 on a 2 inch caliper tree. So you buy the caliper trees you need to have. But we've got a tree standard. Now listen, I love trees. This is the tree city, right? And so we should have a standard that makes sure that the landscaping level remains either consistent or better. But there's a lot of situations where it just doesn't make any sense. We're working on something now that we can't talk specifically about, right? But that's heavily forested. And if every tree that grew from 2 inches to 10 inches then had to be replaced with 5 trees, it's impossible. They won't fit. So there's a... I don't recall seeing a site plan amendment for those 6 new trees. Very much so. There was? It was administrative policy. We don't need you working hard for 6 little trees. So it seems, it sounds like just to be clear to everyone, it seems like we've moved into number 6, which is a discussion of the board's experiences and recommendations for the LDRs. And I think we don't need to be like super clear. I mean, we can still refer back like if there's projects on here that you're interested in hearing more about or you want to give input on. It doesn't need to be a split conversation. Definitely. It's some of the issues we've run up against. Yeah, so any other topics? Well, the general issue of the PUD revisions, we actually have 2 thoughts. The first one is about the issue of waivers. Let me tell you where the question comes from. I think currently the waiver process as frankly not very well laid out in the LDRs and as put into practice is more or less absurd and probably at least half the time violated by the Supreme Court standards because there really are no standards very faithfully observed. There are very few standards laid down coherently in the LDRs for waivers and there are even fewer actually observed with any meaningful consistency. So I would think that one good thing that could come out, although I have some reservations, one good thing that could come out with more specific thought through separate kinds of PUDs is a tightening up, not the elimination of waivers, but in each case a really thoughtful approach to waivers. What can be waived? What are the standards for the waivers? They clearly should not be the same in each state. If you're going to all the trouble of distinguishing, being too much in commercial PUDs, et cetera and all that, you can think through what ought to be waivable, what extent should it be waivable, what are the clear standards that the DRB ought to apply in order to waive. That's my first comment. An example of how to make something other. You tell me, under what circumstances. And I say that very comfortably because personally I have a very simple standard for height and I'm free to apply my personal standard in the DRB because nobody has anything to counter it with, which is if it's not in the way of any existing neighborhood, I don't give a damn how tall it is. And if it is in the way, I'm going to fight you for every inch over 45 feet. Now that's no standard, but it happens to be mine. That's an example. Why is there a height? First of all, in your given PUD, let's say hypothetically you had a zoning district that abutted nothing that anybody cared about, but it abutted a mountain of slag to speak hyperbole. Who cares if you build a skyscraper there? On the other hand, if you have something that is scenic, not just from the public way, another area that is in the middle of things and people are used to looking at a park, used to looking at whatever amenity happens to be there, maybe you should tighten up on the height generally and maybe you should tighten up in particular on waivers in that district. Is that specific enough? And with setbacks, I don't want to get into a setback discussion right now. But on your PUD standards, I also think you need to still have flexibility. I'm with you on getting an understanding of what they want because we don't know what it is today, but not just on height. People come to us with more and more creative things all the time and if you tighten it up too much, then changes in traffic, changes in, you know, it's just going to mean that things can't get through. And so I think you've got a fine line to draw there. It's a tough one. All administrative law, and that's what this is, is very, very difficult area to have on the one hand clear standards and to avoid arbitrariness on the one hand and to avoid rigidity on the other. So I ask you, please don't look lightly at what you're doing with these PUDs, you know, when it comes to A, flexibility, and B, standards. Well, I had setbacks on my list. Well, I think specifically with PUDs, I mean, a big reason why that's one of our big projects is because of the feedback we've gotten from you in the past about how hard it is with our current PUD standards, you know, what are the standards? Like you say, what are the standards? You know, I think that's a main goal of the project to make sure we have clear standards and it's actually what we want it to be. We often grant height waivers. I think that's fair to say, right? There is no heights. We won't speak to specific projects, but if you're looking at a downhill slope and the downhill side is going to have five stories instead of four and it's not really affecting the uphill side, it pretty much sails through. No, it doesn't even matter uphill or downhill. As long as you're not blocking a view from a public corridor or a public view, we pretty much don't have the authority to deny it. Yeah, that's pretty much been the standard we've been given over the years because... Pretty much... If we don't have the authority to deny it, it's only because there are no standards. Exactly. And therefore... I'm in agreement with you, Frank. The height's been my issue as Paul can probably tell you. For, you know, my 13th year on the board, I've said we need height standards and if we're not going to have them, we'll have four stories, 45 feet or something like that because if you want taller buildings then don't set a height, but then say you can go higher as long as you're not blocking a view. Because pretty much everyone's going to go higher because you either go out or you go up and you don't want to go out because that creates sprawl. So you go up which creates... But in all cases... And again, I'm not answering the question, I'm posing the question. In all cases, should it only be a public view that's that issue? In an old neighborhood, that hasn't had a particular cache or a particular aspect for 50 years because the view in question is not a quote, public view. Should you be able to obliterate it? Come on back here. You're saying that you want the waivers to be specific but then the other side, you're saying it needs to be creative and there needs to be flexibility. It's very hard. And it's not easy. You lay down the standards. I mean, this is a very exacting drafting problem. You lay down principles for the waiver and then you depend on the good faith and judgment of the RV to apply the principles but they have to be concrete enough so they mean something. Well, there's also some things like... And again, I'm speaking about a specific project but I'm not going to speak about it. I'm talking about an instance where you have a PUD that comes in and standard PUD, side yard setbacks are 10 feet, rear is 30, front is variable, you know. And it goes into, adjacent to an existing backyard of these one, one-and-a-half, some two-story houses, which are set back 30 feet from the rear of the property but this PUD is, as of right, not asking for a waiver, is 10 feet off of that person's back property line, this long row of houses and it's a four-story structure. That has to be looked at in terms of... And the difficulty in that is the zoning regulations talk about planned character of the neighborhood, not what's currently there. So I think that's what Frank's getting to. Some flexibility respecting the existing fabric that's in the neighborhood, not exactly what the planned character of the neighborhood is because the planned character disregards what's there right now. And, you know, so taking in the context of the pattern language of what's there, offering some flexibility for the DRB to review that and take that into consideration. Because up until now, we've never been able to take into consideration existing neighborhoods adjacent to new development. Can I say that part of our work plan says that in March we're supposed to be getting an update on scenic views, which is number 35. And I'm wondering if maybe scenic views can incorporate this concept of characters that are really well. It's a slippery slope. Character... Dictating scenic views, you know. Well, but it's just a starting point. So what are the principles of scenic views? Does it have to be one list of them or is it the principles of and can that include what you're talking about, which is preserving character, respecting current character somehow? So, Mark, just to be clear, are you only concerned about this in the case of PUDs or is this happening with other types of development? Because I think the project I'm thinking about, I don't remember if it was even a PUD because I think everything was as of right is within its density and no setback requirements or anything like that. So I don't recall. I think it's more in context of taking into consideration adjacent properties. And I know some of the neighboring communities do have things where if you're adjacent to a single family development neighborhood and you do have a multi-family, even if it's a 10 foot setback you have to step the building back so you don't have the full height right on the property line or right on the setback line. That's what I'm saying. Taking into consideration the existing character of the neighborhood because that really handcuffs us when we're looking at projects, you know, the existing neighborhood and the existing, you know, what's going on. I can make a high-level comment. One thing I'm hearing from the board today and in other instances is about the authority to deny something if there's not a standard. And that's something we've talked about as staff. And I was hoping we could kind of talk a little bit about the board's authority and what the Planning Commission's expected execution is if there is or is not a standard. Is that clear? Does that express what we talked about? So like, they've been talking a lot about height. So if there's not a specific standard, what is the expectation of the Planning Commission about the board's behavior? So should they be denying height waivers, this kind of foyer? If there's nothing to rely on should the board just say there's nothing that says you can't do it so therefore we have to say yes or should the board be saying there's nothing that says we can't do it then we should use our judgment. If it says 45 feet then you really can't waive it without a standard. If it's not a new standard say it's not height. Typically the standard says as long as it's not blocking a public view. But say it's not height. Say it's something else. Say it's something like the character of preserve the connectivity of the neighborhood. If there's nothing specifically saying connectivity is defined as having sidewalks along the entire side of the road what is the Planning Commission's expectation about how the DRB will execute something like that? Is that fair? And that happens frequently? It's been brought up a couple of times. I can tell you that the frequency and again, like I said it's been going on for 13 years so I pretty much always operated whatever regulations you give us I used to implement my review but I'll tell you that that's one of the things that I've experienced year and year out is when we get a new development that goes in whether it's infill or just a large development that's going in but adjacent to existing neighborhoods that we don't have the regulations or the authority regardless of how many neighbors and because you're getting this big development going in I don't want to use that not in my backyard but we don't have the regulation or the authority to take that into consideration and up until now we don't have that authority and if you're saying to us we're looking at the long-term picture you're not supposed to take that into consideration fine, I'm just telling you some of the things that's definitely come up as a standard as a regular complaint and a handcuff time and time again one example of that we've had a number of neighborhoods where say a parcel that was quite long got split in half and now it's the back piece of the parcel is sitting on a road where everybody is 75 foot setbacks and the current requirement is 25 or something like that and so now this house gets pushed way up front and there makes no sense at all compared to the rest of the neighborhood and we have no choice I will say though that as we see more and more of them come in that is creating the neighborhood look and feel which I think is the intention of planning but when it's a single infill it's a single infill and we don't have the authority to change that to say oh this one's consistent with this is what would be consistent with the character of the neighborhood even when the owner wants to put 75 feet back we can't well when we have I forget if you're not maybe somebody can help me to what extent of the conditional use standards incorporated into major subdivisions and PUDs because character of the area is one of the statutory criteria as well as a regulatory criteria for but to Mark's point it's specifically the planned character of the area there was a change in statute about 10 years ago that specifically said it's the planned not the existing so that's the challenge that exists that is a challenge because I can see the idea of planning commission LDRs, DRB projects that you are looking big picture long term not snapshot by snapshot because if you did there'd be very little development or you'd always be taking that into consideration and you have to look at some of the great neighborhoods in South Burlington that you know went in and have created the pattern language but were originally farmlands and you know would never have taken place if we tried to implement those standards then you know so I don't know if that was the answer to your question the solution that anyone can think of between what we're talking about I mean I think if it's I think the again you know this is your job and you give it to us but I think if there's something that addresses the edge conditions the edge conditions, yeah the transition the concept of transitions has come up enough times now in our conversations that would be fantastic to have and we have the buffers between commercial and residential but that's typically a distance I think if there's a you know whether you have to break up the building masses or whether you have to step the heights back or something like that from but something that's look at the edge condition because obviously if you have you know many many acre site with 50 to 100 houses on it or even larger you know you don't want to say well you've got to reduce the density based on the planned character the planned you know zoning maybe you look at how does that edge condition occur next to a neighbor that's been there for 50 or 75 years Ted and I were talking earlier about a situation where a dog kennel that we've approved in the last couple years is noisy to the neighbors and they completely comply right but so it's not just about neighborhood to neighborhood or commercial to residential it's also use to use so would you like to see would you like to see language in the PUD stating that or kind of overall I think again that's up to you guys I think you know whether it's just in the PUD or if it's even in the site plan for I think it needed for both it really adjusts the edge condition and maybe it's I don't know what triggers it you know that's why I dump it on you guys you know is it size is it you know previous well I think you know one thing that's actually kind of interesting is and I know art spoken to this in our meetings a lot like if our end goal our future condition that we're trying to get to is more like a downtown I'm speaking specifically of like form-based code at this point so our goal is in those areas buildings towards the front the street condition possibly building on the whole side in that case even if there's maybe something existing there now like you have to look towards the future of the full streets so you know I don't know like I don't know Mary's I don't want to pick up Mary's but like you know there's existing development in the form-based code area and maybe there is a residential house and you might say well you have to step back a certain amount and but if you have all these buffers and edge conditions between everything that's existing and what you're trying to get your eventual goal winds up with all these funny gaps in between and I agree there's a big picture broad stroke of an vision for a certain area like downtown city you know you know market street and city center then you can't take into account the whole things that might affect it because you have to look long term I'm talking about like infill development or where you do have a neighborhood where it's an existing you know they're not going to knock down 20 streets on one property line or 20 hours on one property line you got to be a little more sensitive to it it feels like things in the transportation overlay district might be really different than some of our four neighborhoods or those bigger neighborhoods that are like maybe further out oh it's a good question in my mind we had the opposite problem with CVS they could be they were intended to be right up against the property line and yet at some point this is what an F quality intersection something like that sooner or later somehow we're going to have to deal with the fact that we're going to get traffic through that intersection and yet six feet off the edge of the line is CVS so we've just created a solid boundary that's impossible to break I was going to say the other comment of widening the Williston road right away but for years now we've been approving buildings closer to the street ignoring the future potential of street widening I think there's only one building that's too close isn't it I think we looked at that when we made the right-of-way wider and am I thinking wrongly there's that accounting building that's too close but that's not news I don't think you made anything too close we looked at that when we changed the planned right away discussion about that maybe that was it, maybe we said we can move the building this much closer because once the right-of-way goes it'll still be almost on the street at that point and I think Jessica mentioned some of the transportation projects about a year and a half ago the city had hired a firm to help us to look at how to move people in that area and one of their initial findings was that the long-term capacity of vehicular traffic could be managed by widening Williston Road or by putting a parallel street on the north side of Williston Road and there's a long-term planning goal creating more smaller streets rather than making one massive barrier across the street got a lot more public interest of a way to move the same number of vehicles and open up new development potential in behind actually traffic in general was the second of the two points in addition to waiver that I wanted to raise we don't seem to have any way to control the pace of development the city has long-term traffic planning over here which doesn't appear to be our function I noted years ago that for example in Act 250 you can condition a permit I think it's Criterion 5 on account of traffic conditions but you cannot stop a development no matter how bad the traffic is you can simply add conditions it's not clear to me what our powers are in that regard what you want our powers to be but I point out that transportation planning seems to operate independently of what we're actually doing which is similar to the point that was being made about buildings being too close to essentially bar expansion show how can we integrate that inevitably by way further example I had the privilege of being in front of you recently when someone else who was there without naming the development he was talking about his desire to put a very intensive expansion of development in the worst intersection in the city with no discernible now he wasn't there to get your approval for his development he was there for another reason obviously but there was no discernible plan for addressing the obvious traffic that that was going to create I don't think a traffic impact fee is a solution to the problem that I don't even know where those fees go but they certainly don't go to Wagner and Welleson Road so I raised the issue without a solution I would like to see some integration between what we do and what the actual planning function for transportation improvement is I don't see it they operate on independent tracks they do operate a little but independently in that we try to keep our traffic and transportation planning studies kind of in line with where we're seeing more development so that that project that you were talking about did include that through road that Paul just talked about like a second road on the north side of Welleson Road that actually came out of the Welleson Road Network study so that new it didn't look to me like it just moved it down the street a little bit so that is actually on the official map so you know we have been working kind of in parallel of the LDR changes also making putting things on the official map as we have studies done so I mean I think we're trying to identify those areas like saying yes we just did a lot of work on the zoning for city center we're expecting development there what does that mean for our transportation network and what do we need to do to make it work so some of it is on the official map and some of it maybe we haven't figured out yet the development is going to get there before the streets get there so the other problem is we've got existing traffic problems it's much easier with the new city center to say this is what we see as ideal but take a look at Shelburne Road take a look at Dorset Street at Christmas time you know I don't know where the traffic funds go either that would be a really good question for you guys to ask because we need intersections that are coordinated with each other we need all these lights to work smart streets thing not that long ago with SBBA there's all sorts of technology out there but it costs a small fortune to integrate something was supposed to be so DPW has a plan this summer to start adaptive signaling at least along Dorset Street and other intersections too I hope to see an improvement there by the fall I mean apart from Christmas there are times Dorset Street is quite busy and you get stuck in the blue wall you get stuck here, you're stuck here just before you get somewhere you're stuck Fire Joe's is an excellent example of two businesses and a third business that created a whole new dynamic in travel around that street so it's a really good point to make about that just to answer part of the question a couple of the recent or upcoming uses of the traffic impact fee one was for the little bridge that exists behind Trader Joe's for when that connects through that was one authorization that the council had given as a public private partnership and then portion of the funds are meeting to match for Market Street to construction starting next summer so that's there's also TIF funds in that and also obviously the federal earmark on that but those are that traffic impact fee go to fix that pothole on Market Street right now that nearly took out my REM the other day which one which one well you mentioned the city map I know we've run into issues with the bike path not knowing we'll have a new project we'll look at it and say okay well somehow we want to put a bike path through this thing you know it's going to go from Dorset Street to Heinsberg Road well what does it do when it gets there everybody you know there it is by itself out in the middle of nowhere is there a plan on the map I haven't seen that for the bike path committee well we have, did we adopt the second page I thought we did not adopt it adopted it so something's coming so we've had a draft for a while that would be helpful for us we should do that isn't it on the map little dotted line on the east side of Heinsberg Road there is an older map that is currently in effect there is a draft of a map that the bike path committee is working on that is on the commission's update list but maybe that should rise higher up yeah I actually thought we had adopted the one version it's in the comprehensive plan though yes that's where I'm confused we have the official map that has the roads and there's a second page that shows the bike lanes and other bike facilities and sidewalks and that is the comprehensive plan and I think our goal is to adopt it but the bike path committee is still working on the official version so we'll see something soon so the comprehensive plan actually does have a working version that I think would be an appropriate are we allowed to tell them to look at that I mean it seems like an appropriate thing to reference when I mean because there was public input on that and a lot of work I think it's a starting we're seeing things where it's getting you know where it's getting dumped out and the question is okay it's getting dumped out I mean we've seen this on Spear Street we've seen it on Hinesburg Road we've seen it pretty much everywhere and the question is then okay here's the map what's the timetable for that map is it dumping out for 5 years 10 years 20 years is there some plan for services like that I'm wondering John that is starting to get to a little point I think Marla correct me if I'm wrong but the types of things that you were raising a minute ago about how can the commission or other documents help give some guidance when there isn't necessarily that full standard sure is that sort of if there's at least a standard of connectivity from street to street with the bike paths when you're able to make it from street to street there's some way to get there and the bike paths are not the sidewalks so the question is are we just putting down some sidewalks or are we putting down interior streets or are we actually requiring a bike path to go through so some standard would be helpful map 6 has the plan I think the standard is good but I think also both the standard and then there's some comment here about working within the committees we get reports of reviews from the bike path committee but I think maybe if we can get it as a standard those recommendations need to be implemented because I mean that actually brings up a request that the affordable housing committee had as well which is some a process in which when there's a larger development that all the committees can take a look at things prior to it getting to this point so that at a time it wherever in the timing frame that could happen but that so that the bike and pad for example would have already been able to add their two cents by the time it gets to the DRB we're typically asking we're typically asking a developer to say have you been to the bike path committee if you haven't which you can opt to do which is good to know but there isn't a process for that and natural resources too exactly couple of the projects we've said go check it out if there's a certain way it becomes part of the preliminary checklist before it even comes to us that they've gone to the bike path committee I think that's something that should not be that responsibility to identify those groups to the developer for those larger projects that's what I'm saying before you even step into sketch or you show me the sketch so you have your first powwow and then you go well I don't know where this bike path should go but I know some people do know where they would like to have it go but I think that's one of the recommendations that takes the committee's recommendations towards the review process because if it's not on the regulations a committee can recommend but the developer can say I'm not doing that and we as the DRB don't really have any authority to say no no you are so there's something that takes that into account but also to be fair to the developers who don't necessarily have time for every project that's going to be streamlining committees something that a process that can invite multiple committees at once or something to go in and share comments or something to streamline for the development community as well they shouldn't have to go out and meet with each other if there's a way that that process can be streamlined for the development committee so that we also ensure that everybody at least has their data to weigh in you know that's I wonder and I'm asking staff not to say you ought to have to do it because I don't know what the time factor is necessarily but you prepare for us you know a description of the project in staff language could you share that or maybe it will be sufficient to share that with the other committees potentially of interest so that they know we're looking at and at least they would have an opportunity to react and say hey we'd really like to be heard on this you know just as a routine procedure it's got to be a real timing issue with that yeah the committees typically meet once a month which can be challenging to a certain extent we are already sending them things but we're sort of pre-screening them I don't know if members have found that committees are coming and saying gosh I really wish we had a chance to weigh in on X the staff is sort of saying oh this is a two lot subdivision I'm sure the bike path committee isn't going to want to read this so we don't send it to them in that instance have people found that there's a lot of I'm talking about substantial stuff so we are doing that I think that's a fairly recent development though so in people's future memories they may have felt like that hasn't been happening but that is something, an improvement we've made in the past five months or so Sarah do you have something on this? It just seems like a really really good idea and it's going to save time and angst down the road because if you get things too far advanced in the planning and approval and then somebody gets wind of something that they're really anxious then they're coming in and you know confrontational which isn't helpful sitting down and coming to some solutions for concerns could be helpful I agree because also you know the other thing that you know and again DRB meetings are held in the public not for the public so when the neighbors who aren't interested party status come and have comments and all that we listen we definitely try to address those comments but I think if a lot of the times if they come and have heard that yes natural resources have looked at it like that has looked at it open space has looked at it and weighed in it'll alleviate some of these concerns that we're not just shoving all this stuff down that program but I think to your to Marla's point that is happening more and more but I think if there's a way to I don't know if there's a way to set a standard but based on and again it goes to staff you know certain projects that would go to open space some don't need to go to bike path some don't need you know it's a subjective thing even if they just routinely sent out our mailing maybe not the whole plan but at least the narrative description routinely sent it out even if it's when we get it frankly I mean sometimes 3-4 days before the meeting if it's a substantial project over at the next meeting it's going to be ongoing so there's time to chip in so just put it on the clock something that's substantial goes out to the committees it's on the website so realistically the committees probably ought to take a look at what's in front of DRB once a month as well I understand that but we could be proactive if it's not a burden we could do that to that no virtue to yourself to that end we don't have things prepared we don't have everything prepared long in advance but we do have the agenda prepared almost a month probably 3 weeks in advance it doesn't have all the details but at least describes what you're going to see would it be helpful to get that sooner I mean you're not going to get the whole packet but it would give you a preview of what to expect not really certainly something we can do with the caveat that sometimes things change very rarely does anything get added but some things get removed so today we had a project that we thought was going to be on next week that emailed us and said we're not ready so that's okay about a committee that was gearing up sometimes things come off but I think that's a really simple step we could take for sure well also providing guidelines for the invitation to the committees like what is the process for them if they see something who do they send their comment to early enough on any kind of guidelines like that might be helpful if the committee chair has got notice of the agenda or whatever and if there is something just a clear line of communication who's the go-to person on that should they go to the DRB meeting or should they contact you guys they may know I don't know I guess I'd say go through the staff person because more often than not there may be a question associated with it and the board members can't really discuss projects that are in front of them so I'd say if somebody has a question about it Marl is the person so that's just kind of almost like a standard line here's my number I would think a simple process would be in most cases it's probably major developments or 40 unit development if the chairs maybe could be notified just a one liner there's a future project or there's a project proposed and then maybe they would be able to go on the website and sort of see themselves exactly what it is but at least just to alert the chairs of the different committees applications will be submitted online will be available for review as soon as they're submitted so that means that you wouldn't have to wait for your packet to get the information it wouldn't be organized it wouldn't be beautiful because I'd obviously make beautiful passes but it'd be there and so that'd be an opportunity for everybody to get that information that's a technology question that we're working on technology and budgeting question that we're working on so as we wind up here we're scheduled to do something else at 835 we've got 20 minutes left the meeting you referred to where Tim and you and I were last night and I think several others on the economics of housing or affordable housing I think what I came away from that meeting with was a suggestion that the affordable housing committee work with some group CHT, Housing Vermont something to come up with some ways to increase the flexibility allowed to developers in order to reduce cost because reduced cost is what's going to create more affordable housing so I would like and encourage as much as possible some of those recommendations I mean they were there were a bunch of fairly clear recommendations that people made last night the SB affordable housing committee was a lot full of some amazing people it's a really yeah, it's a powerhouse so they're working on affordable housing is the most expensive piece of housing you can build these days a lot of it's administrative there's a ton of soft costs that go into these things if you went down the Kildon Road and looked at the senior housing on one side and the affordable housing on the other side it's double they look like the same buildings it's nice as much that was 15 years ago so anything we can do to make that process faster, easier their soft costs are always going to be high the increased density was reduced parking increased density there were a bunch of great suggestions last night even like the identifying the neighborhood new neighborhood whatever that phrase neighborhood thing it's like kind of like creating a new town center but it's not, it's establishing a new neighborhood and there's some kind of set up in which you can streamline the Act 250 process and that those kind of efforts are I think can be a big new market funds are going around new market tax credits yes, but there may be some other ones coming in to replace them in the lightest tax bill we're still working on all this stuff affordable housing which I devoted a lot of my life to is when you say soft costs what you really mean is grotesque administrative costs and fees as tough as it is with housing the absolute worst I'm glad it's going away Monica there's something you said that resonated with something actually you said last week when you talked about small houses and also it's related to when you say neighborhoods what are you talking about is someone talking about creating affordable housing quote neighborhoods there's a state term that is it's like if you're going to create a zone that's called a new neighborhood it's a state identification and it doesn't have to be for affordable but it has to do with if a city were to establish a new neighborhood zone it gets certain efficiency or streamlined process and I should not speak to it any more than that maybe the neighborhood development areas program yes program that if in designated areas and we have one in the portion of the city center area if a developer is doing fewer than 275 total housing units and they commit to 20% of it meeting an affordability standard then they are exempt from act 250 altogether for their project and they are their wastewater fees are capped so the most well known one is probably the building that's going off church street in downtown berlington that one is not going through act 250 because they're meeting that threshold I have a question for you because here's my concern my concern is anything that encourages in the tense concentration of affordable housing is retrograde policy so my question for you is in the example you're citing I understand 20% is minimal so what's the actual percentage I don't know in that particular case but it's a good you're raising an important good issue I think the hope of the program is that it is a large private sector that it's largely a private sector driven one where the affordability is being absorbed not through a group like shamblain housing trust or cathedral square but is being born by the private sector as part of an integrated development but I think you've raised an important good question of what if it all is for lack of a better word subsidized housing again let's call it spending but I don't know if I hear what you're saying frank in terms of high concentration of affordable housing but I think when you talk about you know with 20% affordable, 80% not can I talk to the same subject but different issue that more relates to DRB and how we do review and it's actually on the list the bonus density and timing of affordable mix plan then can't talk specific project I'll just talk narrative but it's you know and it goes to the issue of more pressing with the whole issue of streamlining as long as 20% whatever the number will end up with in our regulations you're allowed what is it a density bonus as long as you do 25% of them as being affordable housing so we get these master plans in we review them that takes into account the affordable housing bonus density for the overall development looks at it, big picture looks at it but we're not seeing what is being deemed affordable when it's going to get triggered so we approve these projects that have an impact of let's just use a number of you know 300 houses of which 40, 50, whatever it is 20 is going to be affordable so we have this plan that shows all these units street layouts for it but not what's going to be affordable and when they're going to be built where they're going to be built and then we're told that you only have to build it once you trigger the number that goes over the base density so therefore you know you can build up to that amount without building a single affordable house and then just terminate the project never build the rest of the units which are affordable but you've impacted X number of acres and you have these blank spots within it and you've never built a house and if they're going to implement these streamlined approval processes you streamline it but you never build your 20% bonus density I just think that the regulations have to give a more clear picture as to what and when and that has to happen earlier than later when it's triggering that number the affordable housing committee is working on inclusionary zoning that's potentially city wide in some fashion and it's early stage but I think it will hopefully add to a lot of that but we also did here last night some really interesting things about other things that can be even more beneficial to developers like deferring tax payments over like four years or things so yeah so the no just the affordable housing committee I'm not sure if they commit to a time like that Mark can I just to so that I have the notes correctly here were you referring to the the point in time in which a developer would need to physically build a unit or the point in time in your review process where they need to commit to something and I'll broaden it out beyond specifically for the public and say let's say planned streets and rec pass for instance just so that we're talking very generally about the subject area so that's something that you're feeling that you don't have enough guidance on I think we're fine on planned streets and rec paths I'm talking about very specific affordable housing if they're asking for a density bonus for affordable housing then they should be telling us where it's going because it's supposed to be equally mixed. We have a phasing requirement for rec paths where they're going to build a park but we don't have a phasing requirement for when they have to build the affordable housing we're worried about clusters we don't want clusters identifying after the fact and also the fact that you get 300 units approved of those 330 40 whatever the number is is affordable so you build up to 260 or 270 or 250 whatever that number is and then you stop you're not required to build any affordable because you haven't triggered your bonus but you've developed you've got an approval for the 300 and you've impacted the 300 the lot with 300 roads and lots. So the simple solution for example would be to say the build out needs to be prorated yes that's the simplest that's a simple solution well it sounds like we don't want any sneaky things going on like that so that seems like something that we shouldn't be putting on sneaky tasks I didn't say that as eloquently as frank did prorated but it was very clear yeah 10% of the units are supposed to be affordable and you're asking for that density as you construct you have to construct 10% at a time that would be the simplest solution yeah thank you so is that everything on that issue the bonus density and timing so we have a few other things on here items topics to move to administrative review or move to DRB do you guys have some they come in front of us all the time I know if you fix it absolutely not we are frank wants to be able to say no every single time they come before us it's the wrong topic completely distorted so are there other topics to move to administrative review there's an administrative problem which is we're not typically raised not typically punitive but you also don't have a good source of being punitive if you wanted to enforce a dollar figure for somebody who's not fixing something yeah there's only one option which is a notice of violation which starts a process that ends up in court we don't want to be there is there a way around this through planning what are you thinking about John I'm thinking of a very specific example where they had temporary storage facilities well they had temporary storage facilities they built a baseball backstop they did a bunch of things for somebody who probably could figure out and and knew that they were in violation and then went ahead and did something else again so and then came back and tried to butter us up and that's okay at least twice yeah several times there was a point at which at least a threat of punitive action should have been occurring and and I got I got the impression that it's just too much work to create it no I think our position has been that we're not here to punish people we're here to get compliance and that's a nice that's what we're trying to do is to get compliance if they can comply we'll give them almost as much as they need to bring their properties into compliance I've properties that I've been waiting years and it's been incrementally slow progress towards compliance so as long as they're making progress that's fine I'm bringing this up as much as anything for Frank but but I think there would be something in between going to court and just laying off we have not used this yet but a few months ago we had looked to go to the city council to adopt the land development regulations also as an ordinance and as an ordinance whether it's a noise ordinance or traffic ordinance or parking ordinance or dog ordinance or whatever there's a ticketing power associated with that goes to the judicial bureau we actually we and our legal council were discovered that there's a little hidden piece of state statute that we have not been aware of before that actually says that that authority already exists so it's another arrow in the quiver that there could be a ticketing option there's pros and cons to that there's a capped amount there's no the judicial bureau can't force an action they can't say you must remove this building they can only enforce the issuance of the $500 ticket for having had the building there which is a little bit different from the environmental court which can say you are so ordered to remove the building but that may be something that we explore as an option and would that be like a city council thing or would that be something that that's an administrative level thing as long as the standard is known we would have the like start doing that right so that's an administrative level thing yeah they pay $500 that's a drop in the bucket then what exactly a day oh a day it's public information that's reported in the blog well I agree with Ray that you should make every effort you can to solve the compliance issue first and if that takes six months it takes six months it's for somebody who's been going on for years or is doing something in the face of knowing the regulations I'm going to speak to the opposite view there's a statute that tells you what you're supposed to do when someone is in violation the administrative people are supposed to give them a notice as you got I forget it's a very short time to remedy the problem if you don't you're subject to both a coercive order from the court and a daily fine I don't think the provision you're talking about allows for a daily ticket it's a one-time shot each ticket has its own violation and each ticket has a fine but there is a limit as to how many dollars we can find so you're going to go out there every day and give them a ticket probably not suggesting is that there's something fundamentally as lovely and as community friendly as it sounds to say we want compliance not punishment my suggestion to the since this is a matter of policy and I'm talking to the representative of the city council my suggestion is that you get better compliance when it's mixed with a healthy dose of punishment the policy is ultimately in the control of the city council so if you want that policy to be modified then it can be it's not that big a deal to go and get it enforced the explanation I've heard is that well we don't want to spend the legal fees we don't want to spend the money well if you're right you get it all back when you go to the environmental court so that's a well if you win you get it back necessarily necessarily not been my experience well it's been mine so other administrative review items we're getting close on our time I have one other this is a planning question and it's just a question tax policy does it have any effect on how you work for instance today commercial buildings all of their taxes go straight to the state and don't come back there's a little piece that comes to the city but it's a little tiny piece so if you build a new commercial building in town all that money goes to the state and the portion that comes back is only related to what we call for as a need whereas residential does the opposite I mean it gets applied to south burlington and to the number of kids and so forth there's some interesting tax policy things my question is does it ever come up for you and do you consider it never has not come up probably should sure in the old days there was an attempt to keep a 50-50 split between commercial and residential we're not anywhere close to 75 25 or 73 57 or something and frankly tax policy says that we should be higher than that but if you go purely by what's best for the city you also wouldn't have any affordable housing at all because it generates more kids and less income so I'm not saying tax policy should be the way you work this but it may be something that you want to consider as an item on your list as to how it affects the city there was a discussion about that as part of the comprehensive plan process and I believe we took out that 50-50 split objective because we weren't meeting it we didn't have a good way to get there but I think there is there was some discussion about that tax breakdown as part of the economic section of the comp plan and how long ago was that plan? recently, two years? so it's dramatically different today yeah, it's very yeah Todd LeBlanc is moving forward with the plan and asked for resource to do a commercial partial and that's going to take a couple of years by itself first you have to find somebody who can do it and get on their residential list and then pay for it there is money for it okay other thing on the list design review check in how is it going, is it right sized? it's on the list I don't know if somebody had a specific thing they were looking at these are just potential prompting that we put forward I think that this was really something sort of along the lines as you've looked at buildings whether it's the CVS building or it's the building that the light industrial building the corner of Lime Kiln Road and Ethan Allen and Airport Parkway how was the board feeling about your ability to weigh in form, design et cetera I think that was sort of the question Lime Kiln building was very difficult for us to weigh it's an industrial zone not an actual tour de force what we got on it was a green stripe you got a little you got a triangle I just saw the triangle I fought to get it at least aligned with a window or a door it was like randomly aligned was the best we could get so I guess the question that we were posing is not necessarily where on the rank list but should that have should there be a little more to say like that or not a fairly significant transit corridor as that one did I don't think that one would have made any difference if it was down in the flats but because it was right up next to the road it needed do you think those transit points should be pre-identified or more kind of conceptually I think you can pre-identify you may have to update every five years or something but I think we can all identify the primary streets that kind of goes along with the note conversation we have at Shelburne Road not in the same vein but something similar to that where we identify those within these areas present something a little different we didn't get into that along Shelburne Road on corners, certain corners we're going to try to have some of the buildings have a corner presence we're going to give some examples of what that might look like so that I know we've all seen beautiful corner buildings and they kind of have a presence on both sides and some architectural features that really draw your eyes so that's in the works hopefully we'll be adding to that a concept of scenic nodes on Shelburne Road what do you think on that note I will say that applicants in generally some of these more design review intense areas or where they should be are generally amenable when we have comments like the industrial one online we were not going to get anything we were lucky to get what we got but I think that for the most part they are pretty amenable when even if it's not in the regulations when they hear us say or we want you to look at it they generally do come back and do look at it and listen to us even if it's not within the design review district thank you very much I like the concept to hear of having a meeting that ends on schedule we don't have schedule so Bill did mention that so we do I don't need to cut off the discussion completely but I do want to make sure we hear from anyone in the public so is there any public comment on anything that we've talked about so far or you want us to talk about we have a little bit Zoom is down the way buddy touchy I've just been listening and trying to take it all in I think you know matching these two functions has always been a big challenge meetings like this is better I think so I just want to as a city councilor I just want to compliment everybody for the immense amount of time that you put in to your various groups and your commitment to the city in terms of trying to derive the best look in function or new projects that are coming down the pipe I hope you're as excited as I am because there is a lot of money in the forms of redevelopment for areas that haven't been developed before or being recycled take a look at Fayette and Sherwin Road right now take a look at city center and Williston Road is I think on the verge of a lot of changes over the next five to ten years so I mean you've got a really big job to do I'm glad you're doing it I think the rest of the city council will thank you as well the only thing I want to ask is that at times and I don't know how you can do this is reflect on the speed with which you generate work and if there are ideas that you have where you can increase that speed as Brad Ducevich said last night he broke down his cost for the affordable housing land is the number one cost but time is a big cost too they have the cost of debt service and things like that so if there are ways that you can speak and I don't want to speed things up for developers I just want to say eliminate wasted time that's the key thing if you think that there are things that are just wasting time identify them and see if you can work on them somehow if you need to bring them to city council please do but thank you very much for your time thank you very much so we do have a couple more minutes is there anything we didn't get to are any other questions I think we got through the things on the list well I mean I'm with just everyone here and discussions about Wilson Road whatever we can do to try to get the crossover into Burlington worked out for bike and pad I know it's kind of out of our hands that there was that wonderful community conversation before and I think it was kind of leaning towards maybe adding a bridge from the Humal area over a crossover by UVM I mean I can't tell you how many times this winter and all this weather I've seen people and I shiver when I see them walking or biking on that damn crossover so with all this stuff coming in I think it's just going to be so sad to have all this amazing stuff happening in South Burlington and have people not have a safe way to get there so whatever we can do fix that freaking process the bridge to the bridge to we have another public comment well just to add on to what Monica said and somehow make whatever that connection is so attractive that people will truly use it because I think of the underground tunnel on the top of the hill by UVM and how many people still try to cross even between streetlights rather than go down in that hole so you know this is going up in the air or going down in the hole but you somehow have to lure the users to really use it because it not just because it's safer I think we should follow Boston's lean and just put the highway underground Big dig? Big dig VT? That doesn't necessarily drive with your get it done quickly that's true any other things? I mean this was very helpful and the issues were great for you guys hopefully we can clean them up create more work keep you in business full employment for planning well I don't know that we have any other business so I believe we're adjourned thank you for you guys all know about the public hearing on February 13th a number of things and there's it's on the city website on the planning commission page there's a number of different things in there