 Thank you for joining us and thank you everybody for coming out tonight. My name is Zachariah Watson. I'm the Executive Director for Central Vermont Habitat for Humanity and we are today giving our final public hearing presentation about what the application for the grant was called the carbon negative affordable housing development and it's located at 102-110 Northfield Street here in Montpelier. We have a pretty comprehensive agenda today. We had a lot of deliverables work products that came as a result of this project. So you know we're going to start by reviewing the agenda what we're doing right now talk a little bit about meaning format outcomes. The goals of the planning grant as well as our goals Central Vermont Habitat for Humanity and then review the different deliverables, archaeological resource assessment, the architectural and engineering feasibility study, market study, phase one environmental site assessment and talk about our determination of feasibility based on the results that came from the planning grant. So the city of Montpelier, just in background the city of Montpelier received $60,000 from a community development block planning grant from the state of Vermont under the agency of commerce and community development by the community development program and we Central Vermont Habitat for Humanity were the sub-recipient of that grant. This meeting is actually a requirement of that of that planning grant to close it out. So this is our final public hearing and is being hosted by the city of Montpelier. Got Josh Drough in the back, thanks Josh. And basically this is an opportunity for residents to provide have the opportunity to learn about the proposal and to provide comment. So for folks on Zoom, I do see you there and basically if you have questions use the raise hand function or turn on your screen and wave at me, hopefully we can get through the presentation and we have some time for questions and answer at the end. Meeting minutes are being recorded by Josh in the back there and will be submitted along with our final report. They will include a list of attendees so if you actually haven't signed in yet there's a sign-up sheet over there would love for you to just put your name down so we knew you were here. And we will also include a brief description of what was presented, any discussion that takes place and if folks have written comments they can also submit them to Josh to include with the meeting minutes. So smaller crowd than we've had in the past so probably don't need many ground rules but the rule of thumb here is you know to treat everyone with kindness and respect. You know we've all been out of the public eye for a little while because of COVID so getting back into it just remembering that this is a discussion it's not a debate you know we're not trying to win anything here. We'd love for everybody to participate we might I might even call on you probably not but I might call on you and if I do you're welcome to say you know pass but I really want everybody to participate and not feel that they shouldn't participate. We would prefer that everybody get a chance to speak although with the number of people here I think we will have everybody will have an opportunity to share but try not to dominate the conversation and when you speak love to hear who you are and where you live and just to personalize you and just make sure that you're not speaking when somebody else is speaking and part of that is also just being respectful no disrespectful or discriminatory behavior while somebody else is speaking. And also you know before you speak try to understand the pros and cons of every option and knowing that there are diverse opinions that come through these to these public hearings so seek first to understand not to be understood. So seek questions that ask clarification to someone's comments and also don't talk to the speaker and not to each other as best as possible. So little background about the project Habitat for Humanity has been seeking long term construction strategy to build more houses more more efficiently here in Vermont. So we typically have built one house every other year. That's a lot of time and energy that goes into one house. So we were thinking about how do we actually build more houses more quickly. And about three years ago we talked about identifying a parcel of land where we could build houses on for the next 10 years and takes a lot of the work out of that. And so we coincidentally we were approached by a land owner here in Montpelier in Massa North LLC who owns 50 it's basically two acres at a quake to 56.8 acres at one or two to 110 Northfield Street. And he wanted to talk about us using the land for something good. He was a bit of altruism in his efforts. And so we we ourselves obviously didn't want to take on the size project. I was right at the right it before COVID right at the beginning of COVID really. So we talked to a lot of developers Vermont Housing Conservation Board the Vermont State Housing Authority talked to Down Street. Basically nobody had the capacity or the ability to take on this size project. And we felt that it was too much of an opportunity to let go. And so we stepped outside of our traditional role of building a house every two years to get into this position of determining the feasibility of a very large housing development. And so that's how we ended up with this. I like to tell people if we knew what we know now we probably wouldn't have taken it on. But here we are and we've gotten about to the end. So the parcel is actually two parcels total of 56.8 3.8 acres. The three acre parcel of land in the bottom here which actually includes 11 rental units. That's one that's 110 Northfield Street. The rest of this is 102 and this is 50.8 acres something like that 53.8 acres. So in 2021 Habitat for Humanity Board of Directors approved our signing the purchase option agreement. We then were approved for a $10,000 VHCB feasibility grant and then a $50,000 grant through the community development block grant as a playing grant. That's why we're here today. In 2021 in December we completed environmental resource assessment in 2022. We created our development evaluation committee. We're all here today. So thank you guys for being here. And then in April we pursued a zoning change for the parcel. We converted it from rural to residential 9,000 which increased the allowable density on the parcel. In May of 2022 we selected engineer and ventures, Gossam Bachman architecture, park architecture and VIS consulting to conduct our architectural and engineering feasibility study. And we completed that in August of 2022. We then completed in December or faced one environmental site assessment January 2023. We completed a market analysis and appraisal and June of 2023 our last deliverable. We completed a traffic study. So while we at Central Vermont Habitat for Humanity oversaw the completion of the planning grant, we had a lot of support from consultants who are all list up here. Engineering ventures, Doug Kennedy advisors, VIS construction consultants, Gossam Bachman architecture and planning. Park architecture, K.A.S. Hartschen, archeological associates and Martin appraisal services. And obviously we also had a lot of support from the city of Montpelier. Our development team, that's not what I wanted to do. Our development team is, it's really what we call ourselves the Northfield Street development task force is made up of James Brady. He's our secretary. He's a former consultant with ACCT D and now works at Forest Service and also in a butter. Neal Husser is an architect, Allison Donovan works for VEIC, she's a manager and consultant. Sorin Feffer is a real estate agent, Peter Hauerhand a retired planner and Boston based developer and Jim Hutton a web consultant and long time building committee member and a member of Montpelier. So this is a group effort. So as I said, we received a total of $60,000 from the community development block program grant, another $14,000 from the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and $1,500 from the city of Montpelier to complete the planning grant to determine the architectural, engineering and financial feasibility of building a housing development on 53.8 acres at 102-110 Northfield Street. Basically the project proposes to explore building a mixed income housing development on the project site through this planning grant and we had a number of goals as part of the grant, determine the maximum number of units that could be built on the house, determine on the parcel, determine the financial feasibility and the overall cost of actual implementation, determine the feasibility and cost of connecting the financial housing to the cities water and wastewater systems to determine the best options for building a road and connecting to electric utilities, investigating geographic zoning and environmental restrictions that would limit housing on the parcel, work with the planning and zoning department of the city of Montpelier to determine which is the best type of planned unit development for the site and then figure out best options for providing electric utilities to the proposed development. This basically community development block grants are HUD funded and so there is also a national objective and that national objective is low to moderate income housing so as the result of the planning grant shall have the potential to provide benefit of at least 51% of those served would be persons of low to moderate income and low to moderate income is 80% of the area needing income so basically the number of houses at least 51 should be designed to serve a low to moderate income households so we got our lovely Vermont Housing Conservation Board City of Montpelier and HCCD up there so the first thing that we did well we also sorry Habitat for Humanity had his own objectives as well in addition to the objectives we set out in the grant the first was we wanted to complete a conservation housing development with publicly accessible and maintained trail network notice that our title of the project was called carbon negative affordable housing development carbon negative we had a goal of developing this in a way that the materials and resources that we were using would be low carbon this would be a net zero community and that the conserved land put into a conservation easement perpetually wild or forever wild would potentially offset any carbon that was generated through the project since learned that that's pretty pretty near impossible with the size of the lot so but it was that's where we started off and that's what we still strive towards because this you know it's our responsibility we also wanted to use a planned unit development because we knew there were some restrictions with the site to concentrate the developable area on a on the the allowable density on the developable area we also wanted to create a community create a sense of place with this community it's not just houses on a map we're creating a real community how do these places interact with each other how do we draw them into the community that we're developing we want to connect to municipal water and sewer that's this that's a financial issue reason for that ultimately this if this is going to be designed for affordable housing low-income Vermonters the additional cost associated with maintaining private a water or wastewater system is is it becomes too expensive you have homeowners association fees and so the idea is that we are building a community that also is a municipally runs utilities and road we want to be a part of this so we've we would like there to be income-sensitive homeownership so for habitat for humanity homes so there's a homeowners earning less than 80% of the area meeting income we also wanted to include rentals low income sensitive rentals we also want to include fair market workforce housing in partnership with developers and industries so that's all a part of we want to create a mixed income community we don't want to be this all low income we don't want it to be all market we believe strongly that if we have a good mix of economics in an area that that leads to the success of the homeowners there especially for the low-income families so that those were our goals as we approach this so as I said the so during the initial application period the section 106 preliminary review by the Vermont Department of Historic Preservation they found that there was potential for archaeological and historic properties that would be affected by the proposed project so we were required to complete an archaeological resource assessment with a qualified archaeological consultant so that the reason that they asked us to do this was because you have the Winooski River going here you have an elevated parcel of land and there is some historical evidence that elevated land overlooking a river traditionally served as a sort of an important area for indigenous people and so they wanted to make sure that that was not the case on this parcel so they asked us to do that so we completed an RFP and ultimately contracted with Hart-Gen Archaeological Associates to complete an archaeological resource assessment and the project objectives were to identify areas of archaeological sensitivity based on environmental factors known site information and historic information for the project area of potential effects basically the background research was conducted at the VDHP the Vermont Department of Historic Preservation Online Research Center where archaeological sites are filed the national register state register and town information was reviewed the the contractor Elise Manning also did a site visit on November 17th 2021 to observe and photograph existing conditions basically you know the she filled out something called the environmental predictive model which came out with an overall rating of 12 and so she did look at this you know initially she gave a lot of points 32 points to the pre-contact sensitivity based on its location as I talked about before but then it then those 32 points were reduced primarily because it's a there's no actual water on the site and because the site is very steep so there's really no easily accessible way to access water from this site so there's no real connection between the water and the high ground and so based on the low pre-contact and historical archaeological sensitivity of the parcel no further archaeological investigation was recommended for this parcel and the Vermont Department of Historic Preservation concurred with those conclusions they agreed with them on February 23 2023 2022 excuse me so I'm going to go through all these deliverables I was hoping folks would hold their questions till the end but I realize I'm going to be talking a lot so if folks do have and since we have a relatively small crowd if folks do have questions while I'm speaking feel free to raise your hand or you know just let me know I think that we can handle it that way so I do want to you know the parcel itself talking give you a little perspective about how we approach this looking at a topographical map of the parcel it's all the area that's in green and red there you can see what are obvious constraints were and opportunities so you can see that basically all around the exterior this red area so red is very steep green is not so steep steep gray is flat and yellow is pretty steep but not terribly steep so but as you can see the whole parcel is surrounded by a giant red area and and so we basically cannot build there or we we you could build there would cost a lot of money and it didn't make any sense so I call this area the Acropolis because it's flat at the top and you got steep walls on all sides so we knew we were dealing with that right away the other piece was is if you look is you know when it's steep on all sides where are you going to get up there where are you going to get up to this flat area and it really I mean you can see it right there in the bottom left-hand corner there's one flat-ish kind of road that goes and connects down to this private drive that then connects to Northfield Street so we you know we looked at all access routes ultimately to see if there was any real potential for alternative access routes and really this is the only access route to the property and as you can see there are still red places there so it's it is still steep in some sections the other thing I just want to point out is there is a unique hollow right in the middle there's no indications that it actually serves any purpose for drainage but it it basically separates the two flat areas that we could build on so we started we actually identified that these are two separate buildable areas on the parcel so with those constraints in mind we started to look at what we where we could build where we couldn't build and that started to shape you know this picture that you're looking at here so we know that the again all along the exterior is too steep and we had already put the goal of creating a conservation housing development so we thought okay if we can't build here why don't we just put in a new conservation easement so that was the idea and we've talked to we talked to a number of people about this but ultimately our goal was and is to work with the city to for them to eventually take this over and turn it into a publicly accessible trail network which leaves this yellow and green area which are technically flat enough to develop on we did only focus on this yellow area because of this hollow separating it but also because this is still higher and it requires additional infrastructure which doesn't make it impossible to build up here but it definitely makes it a lot more complicated and more expensive so we focused on this yellow area right here so the current so based on this basically twenty five point nine acres would be available for development three point two acres would be retained by Massa North LLC and twenty four point six acres so half of the parcel would be set aside for conservation the current zoning is residential nine thousand as I said we converted it this has an allowable density of up to one dwelling unit per nine thousand square feet so if the parcel were subdividing subdivided it leaves 50 acres for the development total even though this is in conservation it is still considered part of the whole development so with that in mind 50 acres divided by nine thousand square feet would support a maximum of 242 units housing units and basically in order to create a dense development to and conserve as much land as possible we would need a planned unit development which is and so we and and ultimately when we worked with the architectural and engineering feasibility study it was determined that the best planned unit development for this project was a general planned unit development plan unit development is basically it's a zoning term that that it allows for you to concentrate the total allowable density so if you can build 242 units normally you have setback requirements you have parcel sizes and things like that and it would have forced us if we had to just follow residential nine thousand the only way we'd be able to build 150 units is to develop this whole thing to to parcelize and clear cut and so planning development allows you to take all of the allowable development density housing density and focus it in on a single area the PUD planning development has to be approved by the development re-bored as well as the city council so basically there we go just want to you know the with the general with the general planning development there are some recommendations that it doesn't fit precisely into the PUD the the general planned unit development like I said that they would have to the board as well as the city council would have to approve dimensional standards for the building height requirements individual parcel setbacks individual parcel coverage as allowed by the regulation and there might be some waivers and conditional uses that would be required depending on the final design that is selected so this is ultimately after much back and forth and a couple public hearings we landed on a concept design this is our final concept design that we came up with we had about nine total and and so I'll tell you a little bit about what this is it's a it's total is 115 units on the entire parcel there's 260 unit multifamily buildings and these are the bit there's a big one right here at the entrance and there's another there so these we were in our initial research learned that 30 units was kind of the sweet spot for low-income rental units that are supported by a funding source called the low-income housing tax credit it's the largest funding source for affordable rentals in the state and so we thought when we learned that 30 units was the sweet spot we decided to make sure that we included a couple 30 units there so basically this large unit here could be a low-income rental then the second one back here could also be low-income rentals although after hearing you know there's there's different potential as well there is a huge need for senior housing in Washington County this could also be subsidized senior housing and so the other thing is we have 18 townhouses so these are this three blocks one there one there and one there so the townhouses are tap side-by-side there's six per per block there those could be those are essentially be fair market housing we had 22 duplexes so 11 buildings total 22 total units total these would ideally be habitat for humanity units 80 percent area median income for homeownership there are 15 fair market single family houses which could be fair market or subsidized missing missing middle income housing for workforce housing and those are kind of dispersed throughout the development back here we almost have what we call the phase 3 as a cottage cluster these are 900 square foot cottages and we thought of this as ideal for subsidized transitional housing for seniors so they can move out of the big houses in downtown Montpelier and move up to some of these smaller units that are easier to maintain but also staying being connected to a community a thriving community hopefully so as I said we have this requirement for 51% of the housing units to serve folks that are below 80% of the 115 units 60 units are designed for people earning less than 80% of the area median income in addition to housing there's also an interconnected trail network we were very thoughtful about this we had a lot of feedback from our neighbors but there was already some existing trail networks over in the area that we're considering to be conserved and we actually connected those and expanded them to connect and go right into the development also go around the development you know creating a direct connection to from this from this housing development to the conserved land around it there's also three community gardens one two and three there are two plazas plazas are part of our sense of place which bring the community together it's also slows down traffic a little bit so that you know you don't have people blowing through there's also a playground in the bottom here and total of 179 parking spaces just to you know we have some visualization of what cottage cluster would look like what streets might look like your traditional sort of neighborhood and I want just to give you a sense of what it might look like so we did look a lot at storm water obviously this is really important for the folks that live around it so right now the runoff from the site currently drains into one of three catchment areas the Western sub watershed drains to Northfield Street so this direction over here and that's where it's captured by the municipal wastewater system and then discharge charged into the Winooski there's a north central sub watershed which drains to an existing ravine which enters into a culvert and you can see this line here that is connected to a combined a water system on Pleasant Street and then the eastern watershed drains across both Hill Street and project Street where it enters into a municipal closed drainage system so three watershed drainages areas so the stormwater for our proposed project would be connected to municipal stormwater as we discussed earlier and there would also be three to four treatment areas where other forms of green infrastructure treatment areas typically something like a rain garden but other forms of green infrastructure which were included in this to reduce the amount of runoff included no curb sidewalks and lots of green area but also we have a tremendous amount of green areas surrounding it basically engineering ventures our consultant on this performed a conceptual stormwater design for the feasibility study to incorporate stormwater conveyance treatment and and that would be that would fall into Vermont's stormwater management systems and the conceptual design what that was created is determined to be adequate for the budget costs and will also work to fulfill the the state stormwater operational permit requirements we won't have this is our we won't create a final wastewater design until the implementation phase but this is a rough design and that's not typically something we would do until we knew more about the concept design so utilities you know the best projected route for electrical water wastewater and internet and sewer lines is along the new access route connected to a Northfield Street and we did confirm with Montpelier DPW that there is capacity at the water resource recovery facility our wastewater facility as well as the water lines along Northfield Street to support the proposed development the parcel would actually connect to a new 16 inch ductile iron pipe to provide residential fire and protect and protection services there was also a new pump installed on Northfield Street for water we also completed a water flow test which was done by the Dufresne Group basically the location within the development which was selected for the simulation this flow test simulation was at 795 feet in elevation and based on the static pressure of this simulation it was a had approximately 73 pounds per square inch which is considered adequate pressure for the size development so shown that there is water water can get up there and there's adequate utilities within the municipality for this particular project which was important part of the deliverable so as I said as you saw in the beginning that opportunities and constraints map we always knew that street access was going to be a challenge for developing this site and as I mentioned there's really only one viable access route to the parcel and it is actually steep and it's long so it takes a while it takes a there's quite a distance before it actually gets to an area that a building can be developed and ultimately that was we believe the biggest impediment for developing this parcel in the past you have about a thousand foot long road before you can build a house that's a very expensive cost before you can actually build something you can sell so there's the proposed access including the sidewalk would be would start on an existing right-of-way so we would the landowner Massa North LSE has right away along the private drive that serves 116 Northfield and 120 Northfield which is the Montpelier Housing Authority so it would go up there it would then turn up into what is the old logging road and in order to build a road which conforms with municipal city ordinances the the new the proposed access route actually needs to intersect with Northfield Street 150 feet away from Derby Drive so we couldn't use the existing private drive this is okay as a private drive for this intersection but when it becomes a public street which is our goal that's the only way we can make utilities be covered by the city it does need to become a conforming intersection which requires that it is at least 150 feet away from the nearest intersection which is Derby Drive so that's why we have to do this funny loop up into one ten Northfield Street there and so that that that was a big change you know the we this is a concept design so the current design actually does not show a conforming road or intersection we would still there are sections of it that are above 10% grade which is the city doesn't allow does not like roads that are above 10% grade and so we would need to not only do this intersection but also design the road that is below 10% and we believe there's this is we absolutely believe this is possible according to the engineering ventures there's two ways that we could do this we can extend the whole road so you have more road means you can go a longer distance one by extending this access point further up that way so now we've got more road there we also like that it could also might create some additional treatment stormwater treatment areas or like I said rain gardens if we could also extend basically make this a larger loop here this is a modular housing authority again so this would be a larger kind of turn that would extend the road a little bit and then the other part is that we're just doing more cutting into the ledge at the beginning where that 30 unit apartment building was at the beginning and so that the grade stays at 10% and the length of the most western road basically we'd have to do the whole redo the whole lower loop but it is absolutely possible and we are committed to designing an access route which which would serve the proposed housing development and would also conform to the city of Montpelio zoning regulations prior to starting the development on this we also did conduct a traffic study yeah go ahead yeah good questions so this there is you don't need it there is a waiver the city could provide a waiver on those things and I believe there was a recent development where a waiver was provided and I think that basically you have you have the city ordinances and then there's sort of best practices and so there's my understanding is that the discussion around those things is finding the best compromise between those pieces but in conversations with the city they feel you know ultimately comes down to fire and safety we want to make sure they can get out and so you oftentimes you don't see streets connecting to other streets in Montpelio and what you see instead is round cul-de-sacs or hammerheads so as long as there is an way for the development for fire trucks to turn around you can usually fulfill that need and I'll just get go back a little bit so we actually if you look back at this design here I feel like I should just have this permanently here there's two loops there's one loop here and there's one loop here we designed this to actually be two phases of construction and so in order to create that roundabout option for fire access we the first phase would be this loop and the second phase would be this loop so that we're we're meeting that those those we're providing a safe conditions for fire but it would require the development review board in the city council to approve any waivers of that good question Paul now back to our exciting access discussion so we did a traffic study I do want to just say that you know the I've got some points here and I know some of this is terribly boring a lot of work went into it and it is you know at the time every time we look at it this is very exciting but then all together so it's a lot of talking but basically a traffic study or transportation impact study was completed for the new proposed intersection by wall consultant group basically the full build project both phase one and phase two is estimated to generate 50 new trip ends on average during the weekend a weekday am peak hours and 67 new trip ends at the average weekday in the afternoon peak peak hour excuse me and 838 trips ends over the course of an average weekday at 67 afternoon peak hour trips the new vehicle trip generation associated with the project is less than 75 why that's significant is typically these traffic studies are not required until the average trip a new trip generated is over 75 so basically for every house hold it you expect point five trips I think that's how it's calculated 115 divided by 2 is 60 something and so that's 67 so that's why we don't expect this to generate a lot of additional trips and Vermont V trans has set 75 as a as a threshold to require traffic study we are below that but we did it anyways because we care and it's good research to have it's good information to have so based on the analysis conducted this project is not expected to impact the condition the capacity of the affected roads the proposed project won't create any new safety or congestion issues or make any existing issues worse we're expected this line of site is expect to meet the Vermont transportation's line of site standards we're not expecting there to be a bunch of lines traffic generated from this the topography at this spot this intersection is relatively straight line a level line of clear of site so the stopping and intersection site distances meet required minimum design target site distances and we also the consultant also looked at high crash locations and determined that there's no notable pattern of crashes near the site so those are all good things for us anyways so and also the number it does it there's no need they also didn't find that there's a need to install a light or turn lanes for this project we'll know that at the time of the traffic study there was no information on the proposed boves project across the street which and I still don't know what it is I think there was an article recently about it but that's I and I don't know if they have submitted any information to the town so we know there is a proposed development and that will probably impact traffic we don't know my head by how much and so we couldn't incorporate it into the traffic study because we it would have been entirely guesswork at that point but we do know that that is coming in and it is a consideration and it and it was recommended that once where there is more information about the proof boves project than another traffic study be done so full disclosure on that one yeah in that last slide there is a crosswalk with a yellow flashing light right where I come together how will that happen so we're not planning to use this area anymore it might stay there we might pave it up and close it I don't really know but I mean it would be another part of the road that we would have to maintain and wouldn't be used so more than likely we just wouldn't that whoever develops it would not use that so I don't and I don't anticipate that I mean we didn't talk about that at all but I don't anticipate it would impact so there's a crosswalk right there you said okay yeah I don't that seems like a safety thing I don't know why they would take that out it's good it's a good question all right it's pre-development and infrastructure there is yeah there's this sidewalk right here so the idea is that we want to create a walkable community there's a lot of exciting things about this parcel that I was going to talk about in the market study although you all might be pretty excited already with all the things that I'm talking about but but yes there's this connects to the sidewalk on Northfield Street and there is a sidewalk that goes down the whole development unfortunately the unit 10 percent grade 10 percent is just the steepness of the road that's pretty steep for somebody in a wheelchair so we couldn't really create an like a multi use path unfortunately and but that was something we had hoped for it's just it would just be almost impossible for us to do that without blowing up the whole mountain basically and we're not going to do that just to be clear so getting in the cost this is so we've talked about that basically all that is to say this is the number of units we can build by the way there's a way to get up there that's that was a very important piece now we're going to talk about the financial feasibility of this project so there are really three phases of implementation for a project like this there's pre-development and infrastructure and then we also as I said had designed for two phases of housing by the way the the price modeling which came up by a lovely Paul up in the front here so anything any questions you guys have about that Paul Simon's VIS and park architecture he's the guy to answer questions about about cost estimating basically the purpose of determining the financial feasibility of this project tonight we're just going to look at pre-development and infrastructure costs and compare that to the number of units that can be reasonably built on the parcel to determine if a hundred and fifteen units can support the total cost of pre-development can a hundred and fifteen units support is it the total cost of building out the infrastructure so as I said vi oh there we go is it all again as I said the IS construction consultants reviewed the proposed site neighborhood plan and developed a cost estimate with input from engineering ventures and park architecture other partners and the construction estimate the the estimate is based on the conceptual plan that I showed you earlier and includes design and construction contingencies we expect that it's not going to be precise their contingencies as well as estimated additional costs associated with the project budget such as budget engineering fees permitting third party fees third party and testing and etc the construction market has also been very volatile for the last couple of years with labor and especially material prices fluctuating significantly up and down so this this estimate assumes construction in the summer of 2024 they did it would they didn't include escalation which is the cost of every year of about five to ten percent escalation and the cost of materials and everything and then that should that five to ten percent should be applied for every year that this doesn't happen so if it doesn't happen in 2024 another five to ten percent should be applied if it happens in 2025 another ten percent happens in 2026 so the longer we wait the more expensive it's going to come assuming all the sudden construction materials and contractors don't become a lot cheaper which I don't see that happening unless there was more housing so also some of these numbers have been updated with with actual numbers that I have received since this was done also in permitting fees and also the actual known price of acquisition so pre-development costs which includes purchasing the properties and these are based on the current purchase option agreements for the the road and the large parcel and that's a total of five hundred and fifty three thousand dollars architectural and engineering work hiring consultants insurance permit as well as the cost of infrastructure which includes roads utilities cutting fileting landscaping electrical installation all this is estimated to be six point six five million dollars so the map I'm showing you here this is a cut and fill map so the green is filled green and blue is filled and red sorry orange yellow and red are cutting so as you can see the entire almost the entire development has to be cut or filled in some way so there's a lot of expenses that are just going into cutting and filling so six point six five million dollars not no big deal nobody dropped dead that's good so so basically the cost estimate was broken down by general conditions which which is the site for two hundred and forty three thousand the existing road so that's the private drive drive I added an additional two hundred thousand for the extension that we talked about earlier so the redoing the existing private road is about half a million the access road which is that thousand foot stretch of land from where the logging road starts at the turn and then goes up to where the first 30 unit building that's approximately five hundred and thirty six thousand dollars the phase one loop so just this phase here is one point nine nine million one one million ninety yeah one point nine nine million and then the phase two which is this section and the cottage cluster was one million one hundred and fifty two thousand dollars and this one did include that 10% escalation that we talked about because it will happen in the future as and because it's phase two it also includes the cost estimation six point six five also includes landscaping the acquisition insurance and permitting so just so you know permitting alone will cost at least two hundred and fifteen thousand dollars that's assuming the new cap of a hundred and sixty five thousand dollars on active fifty this also assuming we have to go through active fifty that was done recently through the home act the permits that are required for this we'll need from the state operational stormwater permit construction stormwater permit wastewater permit will probably have to go through active fifty and then local and then the construction of the state construction per modification of source here at the local level sorry in a wastewater system in potable water to supply permit at the local level will need our standard planning and zoning permits subdivision planning and development and then building permits so lots of permitting although so based on based on using a very simple calculation of how we look at the feasibility of this the financial feasibility and we take the number of units a hundred and fifteen or we take the total cost six point six five million we divide it by a hundred and fifteen units and we come up with the pre-development cost of fifty seven thousand eight hundred and twenty seven dollars so to give you some context when you I don't know folks have been looking at land recently and what it costs to buy a parcel of land to build a house on this is pretty reasonable for a house that parcel of land that's connected to water and wastewater and there's even room there for somebody to make a profit if they sold it to get a more accurate sense of what the actual cost per unit is we can break it down by phase because of the different phases of construction had different costs and phase one very old so phase one is roughly that's 60 units and that roughly breaks down to sixty three thousand nine hundred and fifty dollars a lot of that has to do with that half a million dollar road to get up there and just the initial pieces so that's that's the most expensive phase two which is forty seven units is thirty eight thousand three hundred and then there's the cottage cluster which we're almost considering like I said a separate development of eight units is thirty two thousand five hundred dollars and that's because it requires additional infrastructure like a water pump sorry just lost my place there but basically these these numbers are comparable to other other developments of its size and so from a even from a simple per division point of view or by phases all these costs are pretty comparable pretty doable so the financial cost of infrastructure versus the number of units does support the idea that this is a financially feasible so these are common site costs shown in the concept design and it does not include the site cost specific to each building so this does not this the six point six five is not houses on top we that is much more expensive we did some very rough estimating of the cost of construction in order to complete a pro forma to apply for some grants and also figure out if we can get this project fully funded based if a developer were to build it all out but that's not really necessary or relevant in terms of determining the financial feasibility of this project at this time since we're really just trying to figure out whether we can build here and so we're looking at number of units versus the cost of infrastructure and that does not include houses so we then after we completed the architectural and engineering feasibility study we completed a market study we worked with Doug Kennedy from Doug Kennedy advisors to complete a market study of our project the report summarizes research analysis completed and completed to complete the preliminary assessment of the market based feasibility of the proposed development it was focused on providing an indication of the market demand for the project if we build this will they come you know so and I think anybody who's been watching the housing market or reading the news knows that this is obviously yes there is a clear case for housing in the area but it's good to have a market study that says that and so so basically the assessment shows that there's more than adequate market pools for each of the major components of the project the fair market the low income the rental and the home ownership and also the fact that we are completing this in phases will result in a rapid lease up of all available rental units so and and provide sufficient prospects for ownership units to be constructed by habitat which is what we wanted to do so basically the preliminary as I said the preliminary market study shows that there's a clear case for continuing the project it looked at used to market areas to determine the the the need or for this type of project to look at your primary market these are buyers of the houses who would come and live here and so the primary market where the primary folks that would come and live here live within 15-minute drive of Montpelier so you know they're looking at age they're looking at demographics and income where do they work their their age has is directly correlated with their propensity to move where older folks typically don't want to move as far also if you have kids in the school district you're not going to want to move out of your school district so even the secondary market which is Washington County which is 15 to 35 minute drive from Montpelier so this was there's a high demand for this specific type of project and there I did it again because it's an easy access to downtown Montpelier it's literally like an eight-minute walk there the demand for housing from Montpelier exceeds the current available housing we all know that and there's this would provide great affordable first-time home ownership opportunities for seniors and young families to live in a stable environment there's not a lot of affordable starter homes for people out there so this provides some more of that obviously there's a significant interest in rentals this would provide a number of interest that right now the rental and ownership market is super tight and the rent continues to increase since 2019 the rent has increased by 4.4% that feels pretty low at this point with the market also showed that there's a high demand for one-and-two bedroom housing we provide a lot of that with the apartment building Montpelier has a very low unemployment rate 2.2% and this is an indicator of the health of the economy which affects the demand for housing the other thing is people really want to live in Montpelier we have a great school district we have a fantastic community of fantastic downtown where the capital but the problem is is there's not housing for people to live here there's not enough housing options at the time of the study there was only 11 houses for sale at the time and I don't know what it is right now but it's it's it's pretty low and because that demand between 2015 and 2021 Montpelier saw a 19.2% increase in the value of their homes and that's probably higher now into 2023 and the average median price of a home sorry the median house of price of home in Montpelier was $359,000 it's way too expensive for a lot of people in Washington County it saw in 2015 and 2021 a 40% increase in the value of their homes that's huge and what that is is actually a reflection of the lack of housing in Montpelier people want to live in Montpelier and they have the money and they have the means to live in Montpelier but there's no housing supply so they take that same money and they go and live in Williamstown or somewhere else where there is housing available and that is driving up the cost of housing in Washington County finally as we talked about the phased approach there's something called an absorbed rate how quickly will people buy these houses they expect that the affordable rentals will be gone in four to five months market rentals market rate rentals will be gone in one to two months and Habitat for Humanity units the 22 units will be fully bought within four to five years and we're not planning to do it we're doing it over a ten year period that's that's too quick for us but there's because of our homeowner requirements is a little lower less of an absorption rate so basically there's a clear case for continuing this project there's a clear need for this project based on this market assessment so we did phase one environmental site assessment it was we engage KAS Consulting to complete the study they looked at 102, 116 and 120 Northfield Street that's these these parcels here and then the Montpelier Housing Authority and Dan Jones's house the goal was to identify what are called recognized environmental conditions and basically what this is is is their presence of hazardous substance or patrolling products in on or in the subject proctor area due to the release due to a release to the environment is there toxic stuff in the environment is there likely presence of half hazardous or patrolling products in on or at the subject product property and the presence of hazardous substance or patrolling products you're at the subject problem during a project a property excuse me that pose a material threat to the future release to the to the environment this does not include other environmental conditions such as wildlife habitat wetlands endangered species etc this would actually be reviewed in a complete environmental review prior to receiving what's called environmental release letter KAS reviewed the available information and basically determine and now not basically they did determine that the current historical uses of the property are not likely to present a material threat of releases of hazardous substance and patrolling products so there's no recognized environmental conditions on this property so that's that's really fantastic and that that could have potentially been an issue if there were and surrounding properties do not appear to present environmental risk based on their distance and location and basically they recommend no further action so that's that those are the conclusions of our environmental site assessment which is again based on hazardous materials so based on the conclusions of the completed deliverables conducted for the purposes of this planning grant we determined that there are no historically sensitive areas or recognized environmental conditions that would prevent the development of this project there is an access route to the property which can be built to meet the city of Montpellier's planning and zoning regulations and which would also serve as a conduit to the required utilities there are no traffic concerns related to the new proposed intersection there's sufficient buildable area to support 115 building units housing units a general PUD enables the developer to build a dense 115 unit housing development on the buildable area of parcel which also enables half of the parcel to be entered into conservation the current zoning of residence from 9000 allows for 242 units which meets that hundred and 15 is above that hundred and 15 and there is adequate capacity within the city's municipal systems to support a new project of this size the overall development cost per unit is within a comparable range based on similar recent projects and the proposed mix of housing will have the potential to serve 51% of LMI low to medium income populations based on this information over two years of research over $76,000 in expenses at least eight public hearings and a hundred hundreds of hours of volunteer time and my time we have determined that a 115 unit housing development located on this parcel is both physically and financially viable so I just want to comment to and then additionally our objectives were met we habitat for humanity we you know we've designed something that has publicly maintained trail networks we did we found a PUD that worked we were able to create design concept design that had a sense of place we also designed an income sensitive mixed income community and I think there's a lot of potential we did make sure all the roofs in the concept design were southern facing so they could have solar panels on them and you know we and we there is a lot of land that could be conserved I don't think we're going to get to that carbon negative but we certainly are going to build a low carbon product it has the potential so that's pretty exciting that's what that's why we got here that's the point of this in terms of our timeline of what how this could go forward and please keep in mind that this is the planning phase there's a lot more to come this is the initial part it just says we can do this so after this we still would like to complete our environmental review of the parcel there's just two other things that we have to do and then I have to bring this to my board of directors to see what they want to do if they want to purchase this property so that we can facilitate the development of this project and then early 2024 is when we hope to engage a private developer they would be the ones that would be responsible for building this out through 2024 they would be applying for funding sources to ideally become fully funded and if everything goes according to plan they would start planning and permitting in 2025 break ground in April of 2025 and 10 years later maybe I don't know nobody that's I'm just gonna say 10 years later we might have a complete project of 115 units in 2035 feels pretty far away but that's that's kind of realistically what happens with these other things I just want to point out is you know we actually are this project was listed as a housing prior on the Vermont housing priority list which means that we this project is would it look gets looked at by major funding sources at the state in the region and and we also did we're recommended for a federal earmark of a million dollars for the road through Bernie Sanders but you know that we got lost in the fray there so where we're not going to get that million dollars but it is exciting we're on the federal government's radar the other thing that we want to look at to make this a priority housing project is to work with the city to designate this area into a redistrict not redistricted is that's the wrong term but put it into a development area either a TIF district tax incremental finance district or tax tax incremental finance project if that ever becomes a thing there's another thing called neighborhood development area or a growth district these are all designated development areas through the state that create the help with creating what's called a priority housing project and that opens us up to more grant opportunities it also could significantly reduce the cost of permitting so this is actually and not only that it becomes a very sellable point for a private developer finding this private developer is probably going to be the one of the most challenging things so we you know there's not a lot of them out there in Vermont that can do something of this scale so we really have to sell it if we want to build this in Montpelier we have to create a sellable project that they want to be a part of part of that is community engagements community support but it's also having these things in place like having being on the creating a priority housing project or being in one of these development areas so that makes it more enticing for them to to to be a part of an in addition because it reduces the cost so these are things that we would like to work with the city on and I know that the city is excited to you know see this move forward assuming we can make everything fall into the city's ordinances and they want to they want to help support this and they already have been supporting it significantly you know with Josh and and Mike and Meredith so we're they want to see this move forward and so these are the things we would work on them with to make this move forward so I'm gonna I'm gonna stop there and I saw that I wasn't sure if there was anybody from the city that had any comments I saw Kurt was joined us on the on Zoom there or Josh I don't know if you had anything to add or if there was anybody from the city that wanted to add anything about the project. I'm glad to see the redesign intersection as part of the presentation I think initially that was a big concern of ours because it didn't be our intersection requirements I think maybe Cory wants to speak up against you know about the slope that's still a concern but I'd like to hear that there's a commitment to redesign it so that it does conform for our regulations no doubt that will change the cost but I think it's important for it to meet our regulations so we're ecstatic that you're making that commitment to do that and yeah I mean I think all the deliverables are what we were anticipating as part of the planning grant so kudos to you and your team for making it happen. Thank you Josh. I'll just say my name is Cory Lyon with Public Works. I just want to say one of the things after I have ordered his level of coordination and outreach with our department very helpful through this and just know on the roadway as designed you know the sticking point was our ability to maintain that especially in the winter as designed again as Josh said happy to hear that there's another way to rectify that and everything I just said that accurate capacity for our utilities is there and so I got Cory. Yeah I'll follow up again you know I think using the TIP designation or NDA is definitely our goal you know I know you've talked to Mike and myself about it and we're engaging in that process it's going to take us over the next six to twelve months to really sort of figure out what that looks like of course the state it's going to change the whole designation process next year we don't know what that's going to look like but we're fully committed to ensuring that whatever is out there for us that the parcel is more open so you can take advantage of any incentives that are out there. I just want to ask if you have anything now you know speak now or yeah sure I'm Kurt Modica I'm the director of Public Works you know the the city does support this development my focus is really on utilities it's kind of my my primary area of expertise with the city and we did just reconstruct Norfield Street just a few years ago and we constructed it in a way to support future development along this corridor so there is adequate supply on the water side as well as the sewer and um and you addressed well uh Kurt we lost you I don't know if you can hear us at all oh sorry can you hear me now um my connection may not be very good here can you hear me I don't know if anybody can hear me I can hear Kurt, Corey can hear Kurt that's good thanks Corey there we go Kurt yeah we can hear you now Kurt okay I was just saying that um we reconstructed Norfield Street just a few years ago and uh we did it in a way to support developments off this corridor and um there's certainly adequate as you said uh Zach um adequate supply on the water and sewer side to support this development we lost you again Kurt I'm sorry man I think the speaker's batteries are low as my guess um well we'll see if I can make a change here hang on one second no no we can hear you now I think you've got um yeah talk fast okay I was just saying that the that the Norfield Street utilities can support this development right on thank you that was what we wanted cool I'll leave it I'll leave it at that all right so I'm gonna start with feeling some questions in the room here um Paul I saw your hand up yeah I just have a question when you say engage to the developer what what becomes the relationship between how to adapt for humanity as a developer are you like you own the land and the developer of the buildings or do you turn the whole thing over to the developer or what's the what's the model uh so we ultimately that recommendation has not been made yet the board of my board of directors has to make that determination um I and I don't know what the best path is I think you know we we've been working with a private developer um that wants to work with us they see the value of having um habitat for humanity being the public face of the development of this size we know the people in the town already um and uh so you know there's so they might want to work with us regardless of our stake in this project um also we are the only organization that's building single family or duplex houses for starter affordable housing for low income families and if you want to include that in your development right now you're basically going to habitat for humanity because the cost of doing it on your own is so expensive uh and we we have a model that works uh so uh so there might be an incentive where the uh for for the private developer to partner with us regardless of our stake in the project um the other alternative is that we do own the project we own the parcel that is our financial stake in the project and ultimately the parcel then gets turned over to uh the private developer given it given it given to them but we have this our stake is the value of that land the appraised value of the land and so now we can use that to negotiate how many parcels of land we can build on ourselves or there's some sort of combination of those things but that we haven't actually made that determination yet that's the piece that the board the our task force has to recommend to the board of directors and our board of directors has to approve I guess my my concern is just would just be that your um you know your goals are maintained through that uh through that project and then it doesn't sort of run away from you yeah um because there can be you know developers have a lot of experience and um you know once they get in the driver's seat um I hope that you guys can maintain your your aspirations for the project we do too we put a lot of work into this to to not um so I can't I um that would be my I think the best way for us to maintain that is to own the property put some restrictions in place maybe we're putting conservation easements in prior uh to to uh handing over the land to the private developer but that's my preference um but um my board of directors ultimately has to make that decision and we have not made a recommendation yet and that some of them are in the room here today so as a board member I think I'm not going to speak the whole board but for myself I think the board is pretty determined to make sure that the overall goals that jack said on board the habitat are going to stay there and it's not going to be easy and it's going to take a little process to work with the developer but we're not going to our goal is to make sure that that doesn't happen we there is stage um the direction and purpose of the developer stays away at least really that's previously and our board meetings are open yeah but yeah and we we'll have we're pretty dedicated board and I don't think we're we've been doing this for a while one thing I'll add too is you know we uh we are a small nonprofit um our our budget is typically $250,000 a year that's what we bring in and uh in revenues so for us to take on a project of the scale where we actually have to buy 500 a $500,000 we're going to be seeking grants but specifically donations from members in the community that's how everything we do is supported through donations and so if there are people in Montpelier that want this project to happen please support us through donations or get your friends to support us through donations or get their friends to also donate to us as well but that's that would be if I went to the board of directors and I said we want to move forward to this project and I've got I've got $250,000 people that want to contribute $250,000 specifically to buy this project that would be a strong incentive for them say yes um but ultimately we have to look out for the interest of our mission and our existing homeowners who we're currently serving across washington and orange county Nathan you tell me so listen carefully the way you just said that and understanding the board members in the room uh have you identified a sort of go-over-no-go point where if you if if it falls below right I just heard you say very firmly we have existing constituents we have existing programs that's our priority um the board members as well is it what's the what's the tip of the point I don't know you I'd actually tend to be different going on we we're we're glad we got to this point where this is a feasible project we didn't know six months ago whether this was going to be feasible given especially the road conditions and getting getting sewer up there and getting water up there that was and from that to our normal site which is just a curb cut which is and we didn't know whether this was going to be but we've got it to the feasibility study now we have to determine that I don't know what it is I can't determine what that go-or-no-go is I think we have to maintain a certain amount of affordable housing that 51 percent is a nice number like that we have to be able to build a number of houses that meet our determination and then we can put use our process to put people in there that will be and how many of those will be a key determination that we can and the relationship with the developers is going to be key when you need a developer that is willing to work with us as we are rather than someone who comes in here and just says I can do this and I was keeping the land that's not going to apply. This project is tailored for subsidized housing to support it without subsidizing this is not really a realistic development for fair market housing because of what I talked about earlier that thousand foot stretch of road is half a million dollars that you have to spend on a road before you can build a house that's a lot of money to spend and not be able to get a return on so there's a reason this parcel hasn't been developed thus far so it really is designed to be subsidized affordable housing and then the market rate housing helps subsidize the rest of it to make the affordable housing doable so there's it's even if we didn't move forward with this project or couldn't find a developer it seems pretty unlikely that a private developer would be able to do anything about it and I'm not sure that the current owner would want that to happen I don't know what they would do it might make I mean this might make sense to just donate to city turn into private parkers or public park so there's there's also just constraints around the property that make it really difficult for just somebody to come in and do whatever they want to granted somebody with a couple million bucks could do whatever that actually $10 million could do whatever they wanted to with right yeah I know I'm late so I may have missed this is there any you know from the city folks city staff folks is there any sort of politically within the city council to consider the community community to the $500,000 to make the make the road access you know that's our that's our community like we want housing all right let's step up and do it is that a part of the conversation is not I mean I don't think the question's been asked but I also don't believe we're in a financial position to being the author anything we're on a spending freeze right now I mean we can't even go into conferences that cost us 60 bucks to register hey so it's like saying is there an is there an opportunity that to have that question as yes but not at this time maybe another six months there's also the housing trust fund we don't have half of that in it so you know but as I think a lot of us in the planning department and those who have worked with the housing committee and having task force over the years we have wanted the the city council to approve appropriating upwards of $175,000 a year to go into the housing trust fund and that still remains I think we would you know we need to be committing more into the housing trust fund just 110 just not cutting great thank you yeah I think also just having the city on board with this saying that they want this they're looking at that they're already for a deep interview they've looked at this they've made a major commitment them working with us is going to help us get more federal dollars I mean that's just that's just they're pretty high the fund so that's that's we're not fighting city hall here we've got we're all moving in the same direction which they may have money they or estrangements it's here and she's understandable this from on you know the north but when I think the cooperation is going to be great in and of itself it's nice for them to do it make a revolution at the board did you have a question for me sorry a response I guess I think some of the next steps in low hanging fruit is actually that nda neighborhood development area or growth center designation because with it comes a bunch of benefits not just to the developer but also the municipality in terms of fun funding available and turn it and also priority consideration for that funding because you're designated there so it could there could be cdbg grants for public infrastructure roads utilities that kind of stuff that that could come available and so I yeah I didn't encourage that uh to be one of the next um parts of this just to you know to to go after I 100 percent agree and I and I and Josh you heard Josh said you know they're committed to helping out with that you know that's that's not a cost commitment it's a time commitment they could do that and we know you know the city's not getting revenues and parking right now they're not getting sales and rooms tax you know they've gone through three years of disaster is coveted and now a flood like uh to ask the city all which is ultimately taxpayers among period to to shoulder this burden of this project is is um is really difficult so we're not going there yet but I we've heard really good things from the city that they do support it I you know I I think about uh you know like Kellogg Hubbard library um and people with wealth in this community that used to invest in public projects uh we know we have wealth in the city um and a lot of civic minded people I think we uh we're hoping that some of those folks will step up and make this project possible um I think that's a really good place for the citizens mobility to help it out in addition to that too I think what the designation will do is help shore up what I think it was Paul was talking about about um a developer coming in right it shores up the requirements for priority housing so it really you know it also provides incentives on the permanent side that you said too so it really incentivizes your development partner to be part of that you know are there other questions inside the room and then I'll ask folks on zoom if they have any questions good discussion so cool uh anybody on zoom have anything they would like to say and speak quickly I do I'm on a butter um seven pleasant streets so on the the end of the street that has the development behind it just a couple questions um uh they're you know they're I know this is all conceptual that what we're looking at um and understand that and appreciate that conservation buffer um my question is and maybe just a consideration when moving forward and you know if the project moves forward um about the property line um I noticed on most of the drawings I've seen so far that the I think the city uh parcel maps the lines are a bit off Stacey hold on just a second you got the speaker died this just I'll tell you when we're started up here you don't want to look at I'm not a non-profit I've been using that slide for years all right uh Stacey you are ready to go Tracy go ahead yes so um so like you can't really see it on here the back of where I live but essentially the lock you know if you look at the parcel maps on the city's website oh there you go so it's a little tough to see because it's so tiny but basically the what I've seen from plans are the line is kind of going right through my backyard essentially through our backyard and our shed is shown is always shown on the parcel maps it's shown on that larger parcel that could be developed so just to this voicing it like out there now for future reference I'm assuming that you guys will do an actual survey of the property we actually had our property surveyed recently so that was just one you know one item of concern or just to mention a technical item the other technical item uh was stormwater is a huge thing and just just curious I know that you know this whole feasibility study was done but I'm assuming it was kind of done before the flood and I know that someone in the room there has a property that was flooded pretty good during that uh you know another person on Pleasant Street and so that gulley or hold on sorry sorry okay you're all set Tracy sorry oh no all right it's uh can we sorry just saying you could uh Tracy can you hear uh can you can you try talking now there can you hear me yes okay so yes thank you for doing zoom so I could cook dinner for my family at the same time um anyway so just just about that gully or the hollow and how much water came down that in the flood is very concerning um you could actually see a difference in what it looks like now after the amount of water that came down it so just um you know for technical items in the future and designing the stormwater really looking at how that's going to be in maybe another flood so you know the stormwater retention ponds and such I hope those can be not too close to Pleasant Street neighborhoods in case they fail of any you know in a high storm event um you know so just I'm really interested in the kind of the stormwater um that's kind of my number one thing because of the hill behind us and the amount of water that we get in our basement just before the flood and then during the flood it was like a river um so and I know there's others on our street that had it even worse than us so that that was all I wanted to mention those couple concerns and thank you thank you Tracey sorry to hear about the flooding anybody oh yeah uh so I'm going to the house I would like to do also and um like us when I own a property there that the drainage area is going through as we have that as a rentals and um I think what Tracey was referring to is during the flood the driveway of that house washed out and even in non-flood times like a lot of water comes through that yard and goes into the drainage that's like right across the street from that so I guess I would share Tracey's concern that you know what's going to happen in that whole area during this development and I mean I would just think that whole system has would have to be pumped very good because I don't see how it can take more water than we currently do. Yeah the uh the final wastewater design would be done prior to implementation what we've created is a concept design that would work um from what we know but um but yeah those and I think everybody's thinking about the 100-year storm is not every 100 years anymore so I think we have to be thinking about it so anybody else on zoom have any questions or comments okay well um so I encourage folks uh you should have uh if you have not already please sign in we're recording this meeting so I can uh look back at other folks that um we're in the zoom meeting and add those to the attendee list um and just ask that do that again um just ask you know if you want to stay in touch um you know you can we have a newsletter that we send out I also have a specific list of people that I'm sending out emails to for this project um this is our final public hearing so we will not be doing any more of these although we will try to keep community posted about the progress of the of the project um obviously if we get additional funding like community development block grants for implementation those do require more public hearings and we would want to do public hearings anyways to continue to keep community involved so you can stay in touch by signing in and I'll add your name to our list uh and my contact information's there at the bottom there um and uh you know uh just want to you know remind folks that they can donate to us to help us that's a reason for us to move forward when you donate right uh you know for northfield street development we will earmark it for this project um and uh you know I just just to put a face to the type of thing that we're doing uh this is Karen uh she lives in Warren and she's owned her house for 30 years and she just paid it off and she oftentimes she comes to the state house with us um often she's our best homeowner and she um and she talks about how when she applied for our house she was couch surfing and she was needing to ask her friends and family for a couch she sent her kids through college and her kids now have kids and now she is providing a couch for her family to live on so that's what we do with Habitat for Humanity there's the types of stories we like to see and perpetuate and we want this to we want to see this over and over again with this project so um and as a non-profit we always have to ask people for money so please give us more money but thank you again for coming and appreciate it and ask everybody stay in touch have a nice evening