 To the Tuesday, July the 6th meeting of the Montpelier Design and Review Committee, welcome everyone who showed up for face to face in the first time in over a year. It's nice to see everybody in person again. I will let members introduce themselves. Some people are on Zoom, so we'll take it for everybody here. Go ahead. Martha Smurski, Member. Meredith Crandall, Staff. Steve Everett, Member. Ms. Pritchett, Member. Okay, Liz is with us by Zoom, so we will go ahead and start the meeting. Do I hear a motion to approve the agenda? I'll move to approve the agenda. I'll second that. All in favor of approving the agenda, speak your names since one of us is on Zoom. Martha. Liz. And Steve. So unless anybody has any other questions to start, we can go to the first application for 7th School Street. Hold on, can we actually do it? Because we do have some people via Zoom, including people who haven't done it. Oh my sorry, you have to review your meeting procedures. And I've got a few. It's modified, it's shorter. Go ahead. And I don't have to unmute myself to do it. All right, so I am going to share a screen. This is for people watching via Orca and people attending via Zoom. Give me just a minute, because this is a little slow. So for those viewing this meeting via Orca Media, you can participate in the Design Review Committee meeting via the Zoom platform. You can do that using this link, or you can phone in using this phone number in the meeting ID. If you're trying to do so and you're having any problems, please email me. I have my email up while running the meeting. I'll leave this up for a little bit. For those attending via Zoom, turning your video on is optional. For everyone attending, if you have the ability to mute your microphone, please do so when you're not speaking, this reduces background noise. And the Zoom chat function should only be used for troubleshooting or logistics questions. If you have a question or comment about an actual item on the agenda, please raise your hand, or you can use the raise hand button on your toolbar, and then wait for the chair to recognize you before you speak. For anyone, members of the public, or if you have two applicants tonight, but if you want to speak on each other's application for any reason, make sure that you wait for the chair to recognize you to participate, and then make sure you provide your full name and address for the record and for applicants as well. If for some reason your name isn't on the application, please make sure you give us your full name. We don't have any members of the public here right now, so just to note that because we have provided Zoom access as an option for accessing this meeting, if that starts to fail and members get noticed that members of the public can't get in, we would actually have to continue the meeting to another date, to a time and place certain. All right, I'm going to hand this back over to the chair. Okay, we can move forward to the first application for 7th School Street. Are they here remotely or? Yes, and here remotely. Okay, go ahead and describe your application for us for the three new signs. Sure, so we are moving from our current location on State Street over to School Street. Forgive me, I'm a little nervous. I haven't been through this process before. We worked with great big graphics to help us look at what we might want for signage on that building. So on the first page, we're looking at signage that's going to be on the side of the building that's facing School Street. I'm sorry, excuse me, Main Street. Our goal is to put as few holes into this building as we can. This is Pat Malone's building and I've been working with Pat and his folks and they're going to install the signs and probably work on installing them into the mortar of the building to avoid putting holes into the historic brick. So that's going to be a painted metal sign with Berkman Community Loan Fund in white. The second sign is the projecting sign. So it'll be visible from both Elm Street and Main Street for folks coming into the office. We'll just use our acronym for that as well as the number of years that we've been in business currently. And then the third sign, if you have the handout, there's some windows to the right of that door and that's going to be a training room for us to provide some training to some of our customers, our borrowers. We just wanted to put a little discrete sign above that door just to give folks just so they know where to enter the building to go in for the training. So I'm not sure there's anything else about any other questions you might have. Katherine, this is the old Neckie building, isn't it? It is, yep. Okay. It is and we've done quite a bit of work on the inside of that building. It's going to be really beautiful on the inside. We're expected to move about the third week in July into that new space. Do any of the committee members have any questions, comments or suggestions at this time? It looks good. I don't, at present, looking at them online, I thought they looked good. I don't know if we want to look at any mock-ups. Well, you have them there. And I can look on my cell phone and look at some of them. I can share my screen if that would be helpful to share. That would be great, Katherine, go ahead. Sure, I'm sorry. I thought that the handout was with everything else. I apologize. It is, it is, it's all in here. So you can share your screen or I can share my screen and however you want to do it. So this is the two signs that we have on the historic part of the building and this rectangular sign is facing Main Street. We just thought based on the traffic down School Street. People don't tend to walk down that street a whole lot and if people are looking for the space, they're typically going to be walking down Main Street. So we thought this would be actually more visible for folks. And then we added the projecting sign off the front of the building. And then this is the third sign that we're looking for. This is just right off the historic part of the building. This is where our training center is. So we were just hoping just to get a nice little discreet sign there just to let folks know which door to enter when they come in for that training versus the main entrance. Just one quick question. The sign that the large Vermont Community Loan Fund sign that's over the window on the side of the building facing Main Street. What is that pipe there? Is that a piece of conduit or? That's a really good question. I'm not sure what that pipe is there, but I can certainly find out. The only reason I was asking if it doesn't cause any issues, if you were to take that sign and move it left, it would hide that pipe number one. It would line up with the left side of the window number two. And again, that's just an option. I was just looking at the way it was placed. And then that might leave exposed the little sections of brick that extend to the left around the corner of the building. And it might preserve that in minor detail, which is part of the design. OK. I can certainly talk to Pat about that. I know the pipe is set off a little bit from the building, but I can absolutely look at doing that. That's a really great idea. And I was just looking at the detail of the brick, the way it extends on both sides of the window and around the corner of the building. And moving the sign to the left would preserve that detail. OK. But that was all. It looks very nice. I agree with Steve. I think that's a great idea, Steve. Again, it's one of the criteria as we go through that it doesn't hide architectural details. And even though it is minor there, I think it would be more attractive. And the other two. Yeah. Any other comments? Oh, just that I think the projecting sign is very attractive. Yeah. No, it's very, very nicely done. So just so I'm clear, if I talk to Pat's person, Mike, who's going to be installing it and there is a problem with the pipe, do I come back to committee to talk about that or? There shouldn't be an issue with the pipe. I mean, whatever it is, again, my guess is it's probably a piece of conduit. And for whatever reason, they had to put it there. You notice that they've lined it up so it moves through to the left of the, on the left side of the window. It's between the solid section of brick and the projection. So it didn't it didn't really interfere with that. It was about as minimal as you could make it. And I, and given that it's a probably a piece of conduit, there shouldn't be any issue with moving the sign right up to the edge of it. OK, we'll be sure to do that then. OK. I can go. Unless anybody has anything else to add, I can go through the criteria. There's a set of criteria that I'll read through for signs in the Design Control District. Number one, the size, location, design, color, texture, lighting, and material of all exterior signs within the Design Review District. She'll be compatible with the building and structures of the site and surrounding properties, acceptable. Number two, where appropriate signing shall respect the original sign placement and sign bands on historic structures. All of these signs are in appropriate locations. It is recommended the sign placement be centered over building entries. Again, these locations are acceptable. Sign installation shall minimize damage to character-defining materials of the building. Again, by your app, applying the mounting hardware and the mortar joints, that is acceptable. In masonry buildings, again, it defines that. In masonry buildings, fasteners shall be in the mortar joints. Again, you have applied for that. Sign design, color, and typography shall respect historic precedents where appropriate and shall be the appropriate scale for existing and new buildings, acceptable. Sign support structures shall be compatible with the building architecture and must not be overly complex or dominant in and of themselves, that's acceptable. And that's all the criteria that apply. So I ask for a vote from the committee members. All in favor, speak your names. This is Martha. I say yes. Yes, yes. And Steve, yes. So the vote is three in favor. And the next step, I'll let you explain. So Catherine, because this is an administrative permit, what we're going to do is Steve will pass me the recommendation form that he has signed that has the recommendation about shifting the sign over. Because your remote will get that scanned and emailed to you. And if you could get that signed that you agree to that change, and then you can email it back. And then we'll get the permit issued. The earliest it would be issued would be Thursday, because Audra's out tomorrow. But it should be a pretty quick turnaround once we get that email back from you. Wonderful, thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you. I better finish that. We can move on to the next application for Fort Langdon Street. Honor Interstate Enterprise's applicant, Bent Nails Bistro. Nice name. Come up to the table. Use these two couple chairs up here. You can leave that chair there and just use one of these. Sorry. I didn't realize we're going to have two people today. And yes, a reminder, just make sure you speak into the microphone. And describe your project. Do you want to introduce yourself? First of all, I'm sorry. First of all, give us your names. Introduce yourselves. My name is Aaron Ingham. Aaron, with AA. Two A's, yes. I'm Curry's Churchill. Spell your name. First name, C-H-A-R-I-S. OK, just for the record, I wanted to make sure we got it right. OK. Go ahead and describe your application. We are hoping to put new windows in the front of the building, just the two large windows on the first floor. From the outside, they won't look very much different. They will have some framing, like a French frame, similar to what's already on the upper windows, just larger scale. The only real difference is they will fully open, similar to a garage-style door. So we want to be able to allow as much light and fresh air in when possible to do that. That's really the basis just of what we're trying to accomplish. They also fit in the existing space that's already there, so we won't be. Right, there won't be any enlargement of the frame of the hole that's already there. It'll just be replacement. Now, what's there now is two large panes, one large pane-age opening. The frame of the window is a light color to match the other trims. It will be the color. I also have to paint the building within a year, so whatever color is chosen for the trim paint, it will be that color. Regardless of what it comes in as originally here. Do you have a color for the building, or are you going to plan to come back for an application? It's already painted. They don't have to come to design review to just paint a painted surface anymore. Oh, OK. So it'd be the same color, basically? No, there are historical colors that we have to choose from. Oh, OK. Is that administrative? But you don't have to do that anymore? When design review regulations changed, if a surface was previously painted and all they're doing is repainting it, no permit at all. I do have one suggestion. Not necessarily, it has to be approved. Use a once you scrape and prep the building, use a urethane paint job will last about five times as long. I am actually a professional house painter by trade. Oh, OK. I'm with you. Absolutely wouldn't you say it, yes? But I also, Steve, you have a conversation about when you came to create it, I took notes. Now I've had experience with all buildings and the issues that. Well, this is the reason why I'm actually agreeing to do it. It's called sweat equity that we have built into the lease. Yeah. Well, there was a smart move to pull in a painter into the group. Yes, she knew what she was doing. One other comment and not a suggestion, just a thought. If those two garage windows, if those frames, if you look at the glass in the window now, I mean, what you see is whatever display is behind them. And the particular case of the existing windows you see behind the whatever drapes or name or whatever is there, if you were to take out all of that behind it, frequently that opening of the glass will just look black unless you can see what's through it. One option for your garage door style windows would be to paint the frames black. I was just thinking that too, because it kind of gives it that same feel of just the same pain as before. And I would mention that if you. If you look at the front, one example of that is an application that went through for Julio's. They took out glass pane, plate glass single pane windows, and they put in triple sliders. And the slider frames are black. And look at the front of Julio's. No, we actually like that idea much better. We assumed you all would want the frames to be painted in the same way of the trim. I would like, if we can get them in black, which I'm sure we can, we'd be coated. And I don't have to paint them at the Wonderland. You don't have to cut out all the little windows. I just think that the functionality of the windows, I appreciate it, if you've gone to loonings or places that have done that, but to replicate the appearance of the building as closely as possible if you do black frames with insulated glass in them. Perfect. And that is what they offer. They offer, I believe, a black frame or a gray frame. And then you don't have to paint it if it comes black. You're taking hours off of my job. Your sweat equity is going down. I was just going to say that. You'll have to find something else to do. Oh, yeah. Well, come on over and get a look at the inside, too. I noticed that on the old building, you have your name, the name of the businesses on each of the windows. Do you intend to do that with the garage windows? We don't, because they'll be open, hopefully, a lot of the time, which would mean then the building would have no sign. So we were just talking about that. We're going to have to come back. Catherine was just doing it. And once we figure out a sign and where we'd like to place it, you'll see us again. OK. OK. Because even the front door has to be open when we're in business with the fire, so we have to choose a sign. You do have a space above the trim on the front door, between that and the bottom of the windowsills above it. And in historic districts, recommendations are that lettering only needs to be one inch high for every 10 feet of visibility. So if you could squeeze a 10 foot or a 10 inch letter, 8 to 10 inch letter, a 10 inch letter is readable from 100 feet. So that's more than sufficient, a 8 or a 10 inch letter if you can squeeze it into a sign band. And the visibility is the trick, the contrast between the letter and the background. So if you did a sign panel with lettering on it, black, white, black, gold, black, just contrast, and maybe with a pen straight around the perimeter of it, it would look really sharp there. Again, play with colors. It could be, depending on what color you're doing the building, work with something that, again, dark, light, contrast. Yeah, it's great. It's nice that we have that option. Is that on the trim piece above the door? It would be, you have a water table above this sign here, or I'm sorry, above the entry. You have the trim work, and then above that piece of trim above the door, there's a water table that obviously sheds water so it didn't go behind that trim. And then above that water table, you have a space, they are a horizontal space. They would give you, you're sort of limited as to where you can put a sign. That's over the door, which would indicate the entry. You have a little space over here, but that, again, I think you're lettering in again. That's your choice to propose one or the other, but the only places that look large enough to put a sign are the horizontal space above the door, or to the right here, everywhere else is grand. So just so you know, because the sign calculation would be both frontages of this building, you may have enough to be able to do that, and then also do like a projecting sign on Elm Street, potentially. The hanger on Elm Street. Oh, ready? Can't see, yeah, there's a little thing in there forever. Right, so you may be able to have enough sign. You mean my projector? Yeah, that sticks out from the building, right? So you may be able to do one there, a small one there, and that one. We just have to work out the calculation. You can email Audra or myself afterwards and we can let you know what your max sign area allowance is. But again, it doesn't take with contrast. It doesn't take a larger letter to be very readable. And especially as you're either walking or driving down the street, if the letters are too large, you pass by before you can even read it. So again, an eight inch letter is visible from 80 feet. Between this building and the building across the street, you're probably not 80 feet. So eight to 10 inch letter probably would be. I'm not across the bridge. Well, 100 feet away, it'll carry you almost back to state street. So this is Liz. I'm not convinced that this replacement window is really appropriate. Steve, when you were saying the window itself, all the components that are not glass would be painted black. So in other words, do you think the window, once it's installed, is going to look similar to the picture window that's there now? It's as close as you're going to get with any kind of a divider. And you can't, I don't think you can get a window that's that wide that will fold up like an overhead door. Yeah, I'm wondering if the panes of glass were bigger, but I think as long as all the trim around the window and the cap above it are similar to the historic trim, as far as dimensions go and profile, painted the same as all the other window trim, then I think that's important and should, would help minimize the change of the window. Liz, do you have a copy with the new style of pictures that we sent, pictures of what the new ones would look like? We have this one and we have this one. So here, hold on, I can share my screen. So again, this trim that's there now. Yeah, we don't want to touch that. That would remain as is, and the door that you're installing would be just inside of that. Correct. So all the existing casings, exterior casings and trim, which match the entry door trim, all of that would remain. Yeah, essentially it's just the glass, just the glass. It's just the glass is being replaced with an interior overhead insulated door. Just so we can open those, because right now there is absolutely no way to get any airflow through them. Right, you know, did you consider sliders similar to what they have at Julio's? We didn't. The only reason is because then you would only be able to open half of the window. Right. And there would still be framing involved with that also. So that would still give you two vertical lines if you did a triple slider. And the other current drawback for those is that a clad triple slider, two of them are gonna rend you about 20, a little over $20,000. Oh, really? Yes. I thought the estimate we got for these were high. You can readjust your scale. Yeah. So what are the windows made of? The doors, the material? The framing? Yes. I believe it's aluminum. Thank you. Yeah, it has to be aluminum. Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking about Lunigs in Burlington because they use the same types of garage doors in their area. There's several places in Burlington that have that kind of opening. But that one's on their bistro too. Yes. Yeah. They only come up, they start, you know, they stand down to about table height, right? And not so far down the seats. I'm guessing, I can't remember exactly, but I've seen those done. And building square, you know, the windows don't go all the way down. Yeah, we have the option. You could put a solid panel in the box. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we have the option. You could put a solid panel in the bottom, but I just don't think that looks, I'd like to keep as much window, as much glass as we could to match what's there now. Just be able to open it. That's really all we're trying to do. You can, if there are any code issues, you can put a black metal bar across inside at a height that you may be required to for code. Yeah, we'll find the inside being... Because if the windows are open and the sill is very low, there's a chance somebody tumbles out into the street. Well, the one side is the music stage, and we're hoping to have acoustic players being able to play in the window because we are being allowed to have outdoor seating in the summertime. So that's one of the reasons why we'd like to be able to do this. So we can turn the music around a little bit. And when you order the windows, if they are a clad or aluminum, make sure they give you the ones... They have a thermal break, so it gives you much better insulating properties. I believe they are. I think that's also on the cut sheet. Yeah. Any other questions, comments from committee members? If it is metal, they have an anodized color. So you can get a black or a dark bronze, either one of which would look nice in that location. Black would probably more closely mimic. Well, I like your idea that when it's darker and black, it actually looks like a full pane of glass. Yes. Like what's there originally. I didn't think of that. Any other comments, questions? No. Okay, I can run down through the criteria for this application. Just a little warning, this is going to be a little longer than the sign. A little more reading. For all projects for historic structures, the removal of historic materials or alteration of features and spaces that characterize an historic property shall be avoided. Character defining features, finishes and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize an historic building shall be preserved. Deteriorated character defining features shall be repaired rather than replaced when possible. Whether severity of deterioration requires replacement. The new features shall be replaced in kind. Any treatments that cause damage to buildings but not including them limited to chemical or physical treatments such as sandblasting or not be approved but this installation is acceptable. Again, because it replicates the single pane glass that's there now. Number two, any new development shall be differentiated from the old but shall respect and be compatible with a massing size scale architectural features detailing an overall character of the primary historic building by historic properties acceptable. Rhythm, visual patterns established by the alterations of solid walls and openings, windows and doors and the facade shall create a rhythm. Again, you're replicating the existing appearance that's acceptable. Sorry, that notes a little more complicated. We have a little duplication of it. Winders and doors on historic structures character defining windows and door patterns placement size proportions and original features such as trim, sash and moldings shall be preserved to the extent possible when preservation is not possible such character defining windows and doors must be rehabilitated or replaced in kind. Windows and doors that are not character defining may be replaced but such replacements must be compatible with the historic building style materials and architectural features. Again, the overhead doors with the black color again is replicating the single panes of glass that are there and in the recommendations we'll just say that the recommendation and again that black color with I'm assuming a clear glass probably a low e glass panels and committee members all in favor of the application with the black door frame for the overhead doors. Speak your names. This is Martha, I say yes. Liz, yes. And Steve, yes. And administrative approval of this one. And they can sign it right now. Okay. Yeah, so this is administrative permit so we'll get you to sign off on this on the recommendation form. And there should be a pen. There's a couple pens there. I'll give you mine and just sign below my name. Yep. Both of us? Sure, if you like. You can do it through it. That way you're both on the hook. Yeah. And then you can give that to me and just as with the other one we'll get that out to you as soon as we can probably Thursday or Friday when Audra's in the office. Okay. And normally we would mail that out and there'll be a notice for you to post on the building as well as a permit to keep because there is a 15-day appeal period but nobody's shown up to comment. Actually, I didn't read the second sheet. I'll go through it anyway. Wait, do they do? No, that's a sign and design control. That's the other one. That's the other one? Yeah. Oh, okay. Sorry. It was one sheet. Okay. I got a double sheet. Sorry. Because here's the... I got two of those. Oh, because I hit extras around. Okay. Sorry. I was trying to... I need to finish filling that one out. Going back to paper again for the first time in over a year. You just read all that. Wouldn't mind a copy of that. Yep, you'll get a copy of this along with the permit. So it's all together and then also a notice that's on the thicker paper to put on the building for anybody to see, right? Yep. Meredith, once that is posted, does that mean we can go ahead and contact the company to be installed? Yeah. I mean, nobody's been here to contest it and to even comment on it. So the chance of somebody appealing it is pretty darn low. So anything you do before the permit will have an active date on it, right, when it goes into effect. Anything you do before that is at your own risk, right? So it's your judgment call on what to do there. But we'll get that out to you as soon as we can so that that clock will start ticking as well. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. And yeah, be in touch about your signage. Yes. Get on that right now. Yeah, the next phase. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Good luck with your project. Okay. Thanks, folks. Sorry. While I'm looking down, I'm seeing another sign. It's like, wait a minute. No, no. Why? Here, I'll give you that. Yeah, give me that. Sorry. No, that's okay. We brought some extras and it got mixed in with yours. We'll figure out what I was missing. Nope. We weren't missing anything. I just have too much stuff. I think I accidentally passed it back to you. So, review and approve meeting minutes. What's next? Yes. Does anyone have any questions, comments or suggestions regarding the minutes from May the 17th? I just have a comment because I was kind of hesitant about the sign at 147 May because it was plastic and because that's such a classic old traditional building. But I've been by there a number of times and it looks great. So, awesome. Is it truly plastic or is it a sign foam or is it a special? It's a sign foam kind of, yeah, it's some sort of an acrylic thing. Yeah. And that just didn't, I had a reaction to that because of the building and because of the fact that the regular sign was all wood and everything. But it does look beautiful. It seems to be a fairly acceptable replacement for wood and many applications. And again, if you do, if it's done right, it looks pretty nice. It looks, yeah. So they did it right? They did it right. Good. I still haven't put the caps on the top there. They may have already had the sign ordered but are trying to find somebody to get them the right caps. Maybe, yeah. With those comments, I would move to accept the minutes from May 17th just the way they're written. Okay. Do I hear a second for approving the minutes? I'll second that. All in favor speak your names. Martha, I say yes. Yes, yes. And Steve, yes. Unless anybody has anything else to add, our next regular meeting is on July the 19th. Correct. And we have applications for it. And I won't be here. Oh, okay. Sorry. Nope, that's okay. I'll just make sure I talk to Eric. I won't be here either. Oh, boy. All right. Everybody else better be able to attend or we can't hold it. We have to make up for tonight. All right. Well, I will make sure to talk to Ben and Eric and get schedules or people will just be bumped. We'll figure it out because there won't be an August 2nd meeting. So we'll figure it out. Thank you both for letting me know as soon as you could. Do I hear and if there's nothing else do I hear a motion to adjourn? I move to adjourn. A second. All in favor speak your names. Martha. Liz. And Steve, meeting is adjourned.