 Thank you. So I'd like to call to order the special joint meeting of Tuesday April 6th, 2021 between the South Burlington Planning Conference. This conference will now be recorded. And the South Burlington City Council. So the first item is the agenda. Are there any additions, deletions or changes in order of the agenda? Okay, seeing none. We're now open to the public for items not related to the agenda. Are there any public members who would like to speak on some other issue? Seeing none. Announcements and staff report? Is there any staff want to make an announcement? Do any members have any announcements? Thanks. Okay, so then we'll move on to the meet of this meeting and we're ahead of schedule. That's good. Presentation of the draft environmental protection standards with council questions and feedback. And I would like for the public to wait on their questions till the council has asked theirs. And then if there's we'll take questions or thoughts from the public. But this really is not a public meeting per se. It is public. But we're really looking for the two groups, the commission and the city council, to have an interaction about these standards, the work that they've done so far. So I will turn it over to Jessica. Are you going to do the presentation or is Paul? I'm going to start out with the environmental protection piece here. Okay. Okay. Well, welcome everyone and I'll get started. Although Helen did say that we won't be doing a lot of public comment throughout the discussion tonight, we have set a April 27th listening session as part of our planning commission meeting. We've set aside that entire meeting and are inviting the public to come discuss and we will listen and answer questions related to this item. Because I know there's limited time this evening. And then beyond that we will have our public comment period extended beyond that date as well as formal public hearings as well. So there will be plenty of time for comment even if that winds up not being as part of tonight's meeting. So with the draft environmental protection standards, we have quite a few materials as you saw in the packet. There are information available as part of the on the city website. We have a specific project website with information including links to map viewers. So the maps I'm going to be showing tonight as well as an interactive map viewer where you'll be able to zoom into your individual addresses. On there there's also a clean version of the draft regulations as well as a red line version that was in the packet tonight. So we started this work actually way back in 2012 really wanting to better define our environmental protection standards so that they were more legally defensible. There's been a lot of work done in this area in 2014 and 15 as part of the open space committee under the last round of IZ. That report actually created some really nice maps showing an inventory of primary and secondary resource areas. In 2016 we put those maps into the comprehensive plan and used them as kind of a jumping off point for this current round of draft regulations where we looked at all of those resources, evaluated them, and added quite a bit more to chapters 10 and 12 which is where the bulk of these changes are located in the environmental protection standards in the land development regulation. So a big piece of what we did was determine how to delineate those and kind of a brief overview of some of the changes are that we also commissioned a study from scientists at Arrowwood Environmental to look at better defining habitat areas, habitat blocks, and habitat connectors and how we could include those in our regulations. We then took that report and looked more closely and made a few modifications and set standards for how we were going to regulate those including some allowances for changing some of the boundaries based on really specific criteria that we've laid out. We've categorized our environmental protections into three different categories. I'm going to attempt to share my screen here so we can look at the table and this is this table is actually in the packet as well so if you want to kind of follow along on on paper on your screen you can also look at the the table there as well which may be potentially larger for you. So okay so first up on our table and I'm not going to read all of this but I wanted to just make sure that everyone had kind of seen this table and convert her back to it as well so we have some of these resources are ones that we have in the paper currently and in the past have already had protections for so what this table is doing is really categorizing into hazards the ones up on the screen of the hazards which are areas where we really do not want to have development. Only very very rare circumstances would be able to encroach into these areas and they're typically areas where there could be actually hazards some kind of public danger or hazard associated with them and they're often also regulated at the state and federal levels. Some changes in this category we've made some updates to the 100-year flood plain to be more consistent with state guidelines. We've added the 500-year flood plain and have restrictions on that. We have consolidated the river corridor and stream buffer standards to streamline those as well as make some changes so they cover a larger area. Our current regulations measure from the center line of the stream and now we're measuring from the top of bank or top of slope so it winds up being a wider area that we're now including in that regulation. With the class one and class two wetland buffers we are proposing to expand the class two wetland buffers to a wider area and areas outside of city center and proposing to regulate very steep slopes. So then looking down into the other resources included in these changes we now have something called a level one resource so these include our habitat blocks and habitat connectors which are are newly proposed to be new areas for for protection. The idea with a level one is that these are areas that are generally not supposed to be built on with very limited circumstances where that some encroachments could be the case. And these are the ones that are based on the Arrowwood Environmental Report. Then we have the level two resources including the 500-year flood plain outside of in the developed areas. Class three wetlands which we do already regulate steep slopes and some definition changes for the intermittent stream buffers so I'm going to stop sharing this table right now and actually I'm going to see if I can move into the maps. We have been working with we've been working with the Regional Planning Commission which has been extremely helpful to help us review make sure we're consistent with with state and federal standards and to help with the language and you know boost our staff resources which has been really helpful especially since the Regional Planning Commission helped us starting back in 2012. So I'm going to move into some mapping to show what this looks like kind of across the city in map view. So I know that these maps might be small on your screen and it might take a second for them to come up. These are the slideshow of maps is available on the project website through the city and it is you are able to zoom in and out to certain areas and you know be able to take some time after tonight's meeting to really take a closer look at specific areas as well so these resources are available on the city website. So I'm going to kind of ease these maps to demonstrate some change in areas. These are things that we've been using in our evaluation. So I'm going to describe what we're seeing on the colors. So the orange yellow color is all of the areas that are our current environmental protection standard areas. So what's currently regulated in chapters 10 and 12 and then the green is our southeast quadrant natural resource protection areas. These are areas that have very little development allowed and on most properties there'd be no development allowed in them if there's an area of the property that's outside of the natural resource protection area. So we've included these in these maps as though they're protected areas. So moving to our next view we've now added to that additional conserved lands. So this would include city parkland privately conserved areas, areas conserved as part of a development plan. So this would be kind of our currently protected areas. So taking a look at what that looks like in combination with what we would consider our built areas. So the built areas would be considered the gray areas and the property lines are shown with the very dark darker gray lines. And there's two different colors of gray here. You can see there's a few areas that have a light gray color. Those light gray colors are you can see in the title the approved or in review areas. So we wanted to kind of also include those areas that you might consider to be I guess in the pipeline for development. But they don't they aren't necessarily permitted. They're just a possibility. Is that what you mean? Yes and and Paul jump in here if I'm misrepresenting that. I want to make sure I'm not speaking wrongly but those those are yeah the approved or in review. That's correct Jessica and the light gray ones are ones where a preliminary plat has been submitted so the application is best to do the current rules. The board has not issued a decision yet so there's it's not necessarily approved but it is under review. Okay so is there just one on the map? I can't really. There's one large one and some smaller ones that don't really show up at this scale. Okay thank you Paul. So then jumping to a different view so the blue areas here are are hazards level one and level two areas and there's actually three levels of blue coloring. So the darkest blue typically kind of in the center of these areas are the hazards whereas the lightest blue you can see some of these kind of long lines here are the level two resources. A lot of these kind of little fingers are some of those steep slopes that fall into that level two category. We're also showing this with the natural resource protection areas. So adding in the conserved and parkland areas so this would be considered our proposed environmental protection areas. Overlaying that with our built slash approved areas. Wait for that to come up. So the idea here being that the white areas are the areas that would not be constrained by the environmental protection standards and therefore would be generally available for for development or other use. So starting to look at this together and what the change changed area really looks like the yellow orange color. Remember we had seen that on some of the earlier maps that is our existing regulations as well as the green. So the areas that you can see in blue are the areas that we are proposing for for new regulation under our draft. We had requested from the Regional Planning Commission a mapping exercise to try to define the change in area. I'm happy to report I did get some numbers back from the Regional Planning Commission just this afternoon so they are new and the Commission hasn't seen them yet but I'm going to kind of read a few of them for reference. So the change between the orange existing and the proposed blue areas across the city is 974 acres so that's the area you can see in blue. So looking at the percent of total area of the city it goes from 17 percent covered by the environmental protection standards to 26 percent of the city covered by the protection standards. So you can see that that's that change. Yes and we'll be able to send around the numbers as well. We had just received them just today so we didn't we weren't able to post those yet. So it was 974 acres is the change. In addition or subtraction? It's an in addition so 974 additional acres. And you talked about 26. Yes a total of 26 percent. Percent and was there another figure you provided? I said that the orange is 17 percent of the city. Orange represents the originally the current okay. Yeah so the 17 percent was the current the proposed is 26 percent and and I want to be clear that's that's what we're looking at on this map which is doesn't include the existing conserved and parkland areas so I'm going to add them on to this map. You can see these additional green blocks are going to show up which is our our parkland our parkland and other areas with different conservation aspects to them so that would add to that as well. So you know we were just talking about what was covered in those environmental protection standards. When you start to look at at this map adding in some of that additional land which has some level of protection on it the mapping shows that mapping exercise showed that we were up to about 42 percent of the full city land 42 percent of the land area in the city would be would have some level of protection and I know I might have used the word conservation but you know there's different levels of protection on these different lands you know whether they're city parkland or you know a level one or level two so and we'll have a full table and you know any mapping exercise is is approximate you know I want to point out like some of these resource requiring on the ground delineation such as wetland delineation so you know the mapping that we have is approximate on some of those resources so so there's a plus minus with those numbers. And somewhere in all of this are the TDRs but we don't really know where they are and how many there are. I don't have those in front of me. The TDRs are associated with the green NRP areas that we were looking at and would be transferred on to areas where there would be development available. We have talked as a commission about allowing those at least some of those to be transferred to other areas of the city and as you know in our our last round of land development regulation changes we had included one one way those TDRs could be used outside of the southeast quadrant. So this is kind of a last map here that's showing all of those different things layered on top of each other so we have our our gray build areas, green kind of NRP part and park and conservation and easement areas. So the areas that were that are kind of remaining for potential development would be generally the white areas on the map. I think Michael had a his hand up. Goodness just but it might be might be easier for everybody to see if you would point on that map which are the which are the things we've added you know use your cursor maybe say unless they're mostly habitat blocks but if there's anything else good for the commission for the council to do it. Yeah I think that that's actually a really good point Michael so a lot of these are and this might not be the best map to look at. I'm gonna actually go back to this one it's a little easier to see maybe even one before that. So in general the blue areas are the ones that we've added and we've added them in a few different ways. A lot of the areas where there's a large kind of blob of blue and you can see these in a few different places around the city. Those larger blobs are in most locations are habitat blocks. Habitat blocks are specifically areas where there's at least 20 acres of undeveloped area together primarily forest as well as adjacent shrub scrub transitional forest and wetland areas so you also can see around most of these kind of long fingers of yellow. Those are typically our rivers and water resources and you can often see kind of a blue area kind of peeking out around the yellow. You know those are areas where our buffers around water resources have been expanded or we're looking at areas where our wetland buffers have been expanded where you can see that kind of blue ring around a yellow area. You can also see a lot of these kind of lighter blue areas that seem like they're hanging out in the middle of nowhere. Those are areas that are typically our steep slopes so those are areas that do not really overlap with any of our previous protections that you see in yellow and I think that that is a lot of the areas. Some of the areas where the blue connects this is actually a really good example here. This blue connection here and this blue connection here are an example of habitat block connectors. One thing that we did was we went through and looked at each of the habitat block areas and made sure that they were adequately connected to the adjacent or nearby habitat blocks so that there was a path by which wildlife would be able to travel back and forth in areas where that connection wasn't made we did draw them in and you'll see them on these maps. Just to remind Jessica that this is a live map so you can zoom in anywhere as can anybody else if they're using this. Yes, okay great point. So there is the habitat block connector that I was talking about. You can see that kind of medium blue line connecting across and down and you can see you know the expanded buffers around the water resources and wetlands through here as well. Thank you Paul. Jessica, can I ask a question? Yeah. If you could zoom out Jessica just because I was looking at the bigger map when the question came to mind not that far. Sorry. Happy medium. All right hold on let me just recenter the map. Sure. It goes as you flip pages on it. It does go back to the whole city view. All right I think I can see it and I can certainly zoom in on my own little screen here. And I believe it is around Spear Street and Swift Street there's that skinny little yellow line that goes from the you know the swamp area. Yes that that's I'm assuming some kind of brook. It must be it looks like a river like some kind of stream yes. What is the width that that represents that would be protected? It should be 100 feet plus the width of the stream itself so that would be 50 feet on both sides plus the width of the resource itself. Does it is that number based on what kind of land surrounds the stream whether it be forest or or grassland? It is not. It's all of the all of the buffers are based on the type of resource. So in the case of wetlands there's different width buffers based on the the classification of wetland. So it's it is independent of what type of development might be next to it or or non-development open space. Okay we have a question in the chat box from Andrew Chelnick. It says the blue seems to be overlaying some of the green the NRP. Can you show this so that it only shows blue where it's not green already in other words so that we can see only the additional protection? So in this particular slide show I don't have a lot of control over that but there is a separate interactive web page where you can individually turn on and off of each individual layer and see that better. So that is available on the city website. In this case no so it is a good point. So there are areas so so this is probably actually a good location. So so here you can see the green NRP kind of is on both sides of of this this resource area. This is likely a habitat block area. Actually no that's probably a wetland. Let me zoom out. So so this is actually a good example here. So we have a large green area and the green does extend underneath these resources here. So the change between the yellow and the blue in this case is kind of not relevant because it was already green it was already NRP. So so there are some nuances of the mapping like that so in this in this case here it's it's maybe not considered newly protected. I would just just add quickly to that that that it isn't is not a coincidence in that when the NRP was set up back in 2006 it was trying to capture the largest areas of natural resources and so you know where Jessica just circled there it's it's not surprising that that big wetland area including some some forested areas there were put into the NRP because that's what that's what the NRP was trying to do at a large scale. And just to clarify the NRP does that designation what does that eliminate developing on on those properties? I mean is it as strong as the wetlands and the hazards? It's not is it? It's not as strong but it is quite strong. So the the rule is um a parcel that was in existence as of 1992 if it's less than 15 acres it can have one house placed on it and if it's more than 15 acres in size it can have three homes placed on it. If it's been subdivided since 1992 it is not allowed to have any additional homes. Um and so it's it's quite restrictive and the uh the green that the yellow and the blue add to it in terms of determining in the rare instances where there is a little bit of potential for those one or those three homes they cannot be in the red the orange or the blue areas as proposed. Can I ask a question following up on that Helen? Yeah. So the way our LDRs are written regarding TDRs for any new blue area that isn't necessarily in what was in the NRP or the green area do those landowners now by default the are they able to use TDRs or does it might that I don't even know how many acres that is it's hard to discern where the blue and green don't overlap but do those landowners Paul have the ability to transfer the development rights of blue land that was not engulfed by the green land? So um I guess the the answer to that will depend on the second part of this conversation about where you decide to go with planting the developments as written right now if it were just adopted as presented the um those any blue areas that are not also green areas would not be eligible for TDRs however as a planned unit development the development could shift around on the property to a buildable portion of the property just like elsewhere in the city if there was today a wetland on the property you can take the density from that wetland area and build the building elsewhere. As a quick follow-up that density you can find to that one lot though not transferable across the SCQ to a different plot right? In that instance yes. Thank you. Paul this is Tim for those individuals who have already surveyed land to create the TDRs but haven't sold them yet with in this current presentation would those surveys then be moot and not be allowed to be TDRs? Nothing in this draft changes anything about how the TDRs function so there wouldn't be anything relegated to being moved here the the NRP district would be the same as it was previously and the Planning Commission draft at this point does not does not change which areas can be sending or receiving areas so nothing becomes a moot of what of a of a current action. Okay we have another question in the chat box from Roseanne what about the connections I think she means the habitat connections but I'm not sure I see an orange strip but it seems to cross the newly approved spear meadows development so would it be cut off? So an orange strip in a in for many years shouldn't have been cut off completely. I mean Paul is that something that we want to address? Yeah I guess what I would say is that the the orange strips or the blue strips are typically a stream are a stream and so something like let's say the spear meadows neighborhood would have required approval for getting a crossing of a stream and or wetland as proposed the draft regulations would call that a restricted infrastructure encroachment and the draft includes a higher bar for determining whether such a crossing is is necessary and and whether it's warranted that there's a demonstration to the Development Review Board on five or six different criteria as to why that crossing needs to exist so that's how something like that would exist in the future. And what is that called again a restricted? Restricted infrastructure encroachment so it it is the largely the only significant exception to these to these rules and it's only granted in the instance that there's no alternative to get to a significant amount of land that is otherwise unrestricted from development. And what's the definition of significant or is that a DRB determination? There's a number of criteria it has to they would have to demonstrate that there is no feasible alternative to get to that land they would have to demonstrate that they have communicated with any adjacent property owners that might be able to provide access without crossing it and that that has been refused they would need to demonstrate that there's an economic hardship created by it they would need to demonstrate that at least 30 percent of the developable portion of the property is on the other side of that so you couldn't cross it just to go just to build one house and I believe that there's one more criteria but it's it's all of the above there so you have to meet all of them okay correct and then if that is all met then each individual resource has its own standards associated with it such as if it's a wetland crossing it would need to be the narrowest road available it would need to have if it was a stream crossing it would need to have animal the culvert would be would need to be sufficiently sized to allow for small animal crossing underneath it etc okay so I do have another set of maps I don't know if you'd want me to move through with those or it looks like maybe there's some questions yeah it looks like I can't see Michael yes I had a question going back to the the data that Jessica mentioned which she only got today I think she said now the the blue areas include certain areas which are already not already protected in some sense like the Wheeler Park is shown as blue Red Rocks Park is shown as blue the University of Vermont properties at Edelund and so on are shown as blue were those a part of the 900 acres that that whoever gave you the data calculated and the percentage because there's quite a few that would would have an impact on that total total amount of land that that we were talking about earlier a great question Michael and I'll take this one just because Jessica only saw it about an hour ago so we calculated it both ways Michael so there is a calculation of the total area of land covered by the proposed articles 10 and 12 the hazards the level ones the level twos and there's a calculation of the the total area of land covered by the proposed articles 10 and 12 outside of what is considered conserved areas so that would be the parks the natural resource protection district the third party conservation areas and the private association land so the second category of areas outside of what is considered to be conserved is that 974 acres if you take out all of those areas and you just say how much land is covered by article 10 and 12 period it's 1708 acres the great stop shown as blue which category would that be hold on Michael can I that doesn't make sense paul i'm sorry 1708 acres so if you were to take out the conserved areas because if we move from 17 percent which you're saying it's into that 1708 acres and go to 26 percent which is nine percent more right now does not let me let me try to say that again so i'm not comparing proposed regulations to future regulations in in the two numbers i gave there so the two numbers i gave were if you if you didn't consider anything that is conserved it by it's in the nrp it's a park etc and you just said how much what how much land in south burlington is subject to a hazard level one or level two resource um the things that jessica went through that would be um a net change from the old rule to the new rules of 1700 acres and a total of 4500 4449 acres of land total that sounds closer to the nine percent increase right so that's that represents that 4449 acres is the total land covered by articles 10 and 12 and that's 42 percent of the city of that a portion is already protected in some manner by being conserved land and so that's why we take that um uh 40 4449 acres and it becomes 2740 acres for a net um of 974 so that's i know it's hard to sort of take these numbers in the air um but we try to run it both ways okay i have to just say that jessica's initial presentation was a lot clearer to me so i i just want to understand i understand that some people might might understand more clearly what what you're saying but um i'm going to go with jessica sorry paul no that's fine i was just trying to answer michael's question of what what's included and excluded can i just say these numbers will come out like in a follow-up for us to all look at because nobody's seen it in writing yet right so some kind of breakdown is something that we'll all get to see as an addendum to this yes yes and you know i just know it was something that um the the planning commissioners had requested these numbers so since i did get them today i wanted to um you know give some of what we received ahead of a later thing okay so paul unless you think otherwise i'm going to move into how this relates to the comprehensive plan sure unless okay unless anyone has other questions seeing none okay yeah i mean we're we're still on the same topic but just kind of related right comprehensive plan so um one of the our legal tests um with the any change in land development regulations is to see how our our proposed changes relate to the comprehensive plan and it is a big focus of the the report that goes out with any change um prior to a public hearing so you do see a draft of that report in your in your packet um and we have some mapping to go along with that so up on the screen um this map is intentionally fuzzy this is the comprehensive plan future land use map um this map was adopted as part of the land developer as part of the comprehensive plan in 2016 um we did do significant uh public outreach with this map at that time and the different colors mean some different things i know the legend is a little fuzzy up there but the green generally means that we are planning for very low intensity and principally open space so areas that would stay green um whereas on the other end of the spectrum the red areas indicate a medium to higher intensity area typically use similarly the blue areas would also be medium to higher intensity principally non-residential so this might be industrial or commercial areas as well and then the orange is medium intensity principally are medium intensity and yellow is a lower intensity principally residential so so in general this was in the comprehensive plan and what we will be looking at here in these next couple maps in relationship to our proposed regulations so first i put on the green areas here are the same um kind of conserved areas that we were looking at on the last map so this would include city parks um privately conserved areas and then we can add into that in the lighter green the southeast quadrant natural resource protection zoning as well and this is adding in um and you can actually see some of the legends you know we have in our darkest green we have hazards um and in fact that is very confusing to have this legend up with only some things open so i'm actually going to close the legend um so you can see the whole map there so we've added in in green our proposed environmental protection standard so on our last set of maps these were the blue areas and i i do apologize for changing the color but we wanted to be consistent with the comprehensive plan coloring so these would fall into that um kind of principally open space category of green on this map that that's the deep green yes yes and underneath a lot of it is the light green yeah okay so you can't really yes and you know you can see a few areas here um you know that have that fuzzy very light green underneath those are areas that the future land use map and the comp plan does show green um but we don't have that darker green over them um we um those are generally lands owned by uvm such as the hort farm and the wheelock wheelock farm so to reset this map to look again so just back to our our base comprehensive plan map we're going to add in our built areas so these are the same gray built areas that we were looking at on the the previous map mapping slides so you can kind of see where those came in then all of those things together so we have our gray built areas our green parkland conserved lands nrp and proposed environmental protection standards and we then have some other colors showing like we were saying there's a few areas of green over in this area typically the uvm lands and then we have other colors that are showing through we have some yellows some reds in the village commercial southeast quadrant we have some red up in the city center area some blue um around in meadowland and some so basically anywhere we're seeing these these other colors shining through there those are the areas um that the comprehensive plan would show those other types of uses um kind of proposed and say that again it would show what other uses so so generally like if this is shown as yellow um generally the comprehensive plan would would indicate that that would be a lower intensity primarily residential land use that would be affected there in the future by the community you know or you know over in in this area we have some orange red you know that would be kind of where we have designated the village commercial area where you might start to see some medium to higher intensity mixed use area kind of in this area or you know you have a property here that has kind of a variation of colors through there so some some non-residential some medium intensity some lower intensity so so i think that's generally what the the comprehensive plan is showing um kind of in those areas that aren't covered by the green or the gray snap and again just clarification and i'm sorry i might have cut michael off earlier and i apologize michael if that's the case is the blue lower intensity development so the blue is um medium to higher intensity but it's different from the red because the red would indicate more mixed use with residential um and the blue indicates principally non-residential so the blue would be commercial or industrial um kind of a principally non non-residential and that's the two parks the two um development parts like metal lands and technology right yeah metal lands and technology is is generally what those are on here and then a little bit on the hill farm a little bit on the hill farm you can see the red with the higher intensity mixed use for city center i might ask a question yes so this is great i love this color coding and thinking about the recent conversations about burton right on the border of south brilington with red rocks i'm curious does such a map exist where we incorporate shell burns hindsburgs and willis stens color coding along the boundaries i just would love to know if there's a major contrast and how we fit with our neighboring communities that's a great question time you know i have not seen one but it does remind me of something that i did not say in the um earlier you can actually see a few locations where we show some green areas extending beyond our city borders those are areas that are habitat blocks um that we are not regulating you know we are obviously not regulating over in williston um we're outside of our borders but we are showing them on our maps here because um it was important to the size of and the definition of a habitat block to have that that mass of of forested area um so you know the animals using that habitat would be able to move back and forth across the border area so it is on our map for kind of context even though we're not regulating most and paul i don't know if you know of a kind of bigger regional map other than the ecos map i don't know if that's something to reference uh there is an eco the ecos plan is the regional plans um that is the regional plan they have a compilation map that breaks um they have about four or five total different land use categories generally rural uh what they call enterprise which is our business village um residential i believe and um downtown's and it's a compilation of all of the future land use maps essentially brought together um i can link this in the chat um or everyone to see if you'd like okay um yes monica yeah i was just going to say this is such a this was a very helpful visual for for me when we were looking at all of this that when we get to the point in our agenda where we're kind of having the big picture conversation this image may be a good one to call up again it's so just put a little sticky there yeah i agree monica i think that um getting to that point in the agenda where we're having kind of a bigger picture conversation is important and i i agree with bringing this map back up i do have two two more maps that i'd like to show as well um it looks like can i ask a question too i'm sorry yeah i ask a question with this Jessica because i i'm seeing the blue off of kimball there in the technology park and the blue off of heinsberg road east of heinsberg road in our business park and i'm i'm really curious why housing isn't allowed and and you know intermix with with those businesses and industries that are there already yeah it's a good question man one thing that we've talked about in the past when discussing these areas is um although mixed use is really wonderful and we're we're very excited about mixed use it's important to reserve areas that are available for the types of land uses that aren't compatible with with people um we do have certain businesses that might make some noise or might have um unsightly storage outside or you know i don't know i mean paul can probably articulate this better but um if you all of a sudden build a lot of houses next to a warehouse or industrial or manufacturing location you know those people might not appreciate the noise or the hours of use um you know so so that is actually one of the reasons why we've continued to have some areas that are specific to that industrial type of use and paul i don't know yeah i would just add to it megan that you know i think that there's there's an evolving um uh sort of um the the nature of business parks are evolving and i think it's it's something that's on the commission's work plan to be analyzing and reviewing um which kinds of business park things are compatible like office buildings that we're seeing in parts of technology park and which types of businesses and where do we want to save space for the kinds of things that jessica was just describing so an example would be the fedex building that is going up right now that will be having trucks at many hours and um you know without going too much into this subject um one of the subjects for discussion of the commission is um how much land should be reserved for those things that are really incompatible not just for today but for the next significant um user 10 years now 30 years from now that really would only be able to locate if it were not near housing okay i just wanted to note um a comment in the chat from sarah doft the champlain valley conservation partners group is working on mapping tom with adjoining communities to identify sensitive conservation areas on the overlapping borders and cc rpc is working with them so potentially that is being addressed in some manner can i just say on the blue as well to megan's question that having a place where south brullington can attract jobs is very important and that's part of what that blue is as well jobs okay so would you have two more maps that i think would be helpful to show before we get into the next agenda items um and maybe we could save a lot of the discussion related to them for our kind of bigger picture discussion um let's see so the other two are also comprehensive plan maps um so we have in the comprehensive plan map seven which is the primary conservation areas and i know this is also a little fuzzy with the legend um we have a few different things shown on here and then just for reference i'm going to add in our our green areas that we were just discussing on top um there's a few things that are kind of peeking out from behind we have some purple blob areas those purple blob areas are rare species an area where a rare species was found we our draft does include an evaluation of rare species in the case that there's any intrusions include um the habitat block areas as well as the we've we've asked um the uh natural resources committee to see if they can think of some other ways that we might incorporate those into the maps um they are regulated at the state level um and would be regulated on any properties that um are are go under the act 250 review although that we're seeing some of these isolated areas you can see some little kind of blue areas hanging out in the middle of nowhere those are really just the some differences in mapping such as our steep slopes and then there's some areas where there's some blue cross hatch um which on the background map is called riparian connectivity as part of our work we have kind of moved away from this um kind of state level uh course level mapping of riparian connectivity to delve into specific areas where we are protecting areas which is the riparian corridors which is um areas immediately adjacent to water resources as well as did the the city specific study on habitat and habitat connectors to get at that connectivity piece as well so I think although it's not the exact same mapping um we've kind of looked at the goals and have some some different uh kind of definitions of those those resources and how they're delineated to get to that riparian um and habitat connectivity piece so then looking into the secondary conservation area map from um the comprehensive plan um this has multiple um farce areas actually I'm just gonna skip ahead to this next map here um and I know there's a lot on here um we have a few areas where there's not a lot of not um kind of exact matching of resources on here um but quite a bit of overlap um there were a few of the resources that show up on the secondary resource map here that we had quite a bit of discussion about um how or or if to incorporate into the chapter 10 and 12 um and have not included them at this point for the the public comment draft those would be the primary agriculture soils grassland and shrublands and farmlands so there's a few areas where you can see where those are not covered by the green and you know I think that that is one of the things that would be good to think about in our kind of bigger picture discussion um which is the agenda item six kind of what we want to see I think one of the things that we were struggling with is you know if we we put protections in all the areas shown in dark green and then we also put additional protections on um kind of all these additional resources and goals you know are we meeting kind of our our balancing goals um with uh regards to housing um and you know other other city goals so you know I think that that's a kind of bigger picture question for as we get into that next agenda item um and I think the other piece that I wanted to point out and I might I might unshare my screen because I think we're gonna start to transition into the next agenda item but um it's just one other follow-up piece so um chapter nine we we do have a change to the chapter nine which refers to the southeast quadrant zoning district that I wanted to call attention to um when it was written um it referred to a map that showed a few conservation areas including the the Great Swamp um when we redid the comprehensive plan in 2016 we we changed maps um to kind of replace that map um of the southeast quadrant conservation areas with maps seven and eight the two we just looked at um and it was kind of brought to our attention relatively recently that uh in the southeast quadrant zoning district um we referred back to those comprehensive plan maps um seven and eight the ones we just looked at um this also came up recently in some um some of the drb hearings and I think um one thing that we have in our draft right now is we've removed the reference to map seven and eight and are referring specifically to the resources that were regulating in chapters 10 and 12 so that there's there's no longer a kind of legal confusion as to how to define resources um what those resources are um what an encroachment um may or may not be allowed to do so there's no longer kind of confusion in um how the interpretation of those maps may be uh you know in front of the drb so so I know that most of our changes are specifically in chapters 10 and 12 but there are some kind of related uh references to resources um in other chapters that we have some um changes to as well including definitions in chapter two and you can see all of that in the the draft in the packet Jessica map coda has a question or a comment I don't know which sure both both that's okay excellent presentation uh but I know there's more to come I think that change in article nine is critically important uh and I'm glad it's there the question I had is regarding habitat blocks and habitat connectors we're referring to the new natural city natural resources map um but it's still a fuzzy line of course so is there a field delineation or some way that we can look at the map and then get on the ground and determine where that habitat blocks or habitat connector begins and what it adds and what what resources do individuals have they their own land or live near the land or actually party to determine where that fuzzy line starts and where where where that's so it's a good question so the the edge of a habitat block is not fuzzy it's a it's a solid line on a city-owned map and we have uh GIS that would be available to a property owner to overlay on their own um site plans and then because that line was delineated based on um remote sensing um we felt like it was important um to provide a landowner with some ability to to be able to uh make some modifications to that land so we have a list of um five different options um in the in the land in the draft that are very specific to how that line could be adjusted potentially on a particular property without compromise to the habitat block as a whole so so one example may be um that there's actually not very much forest in one area but there is more forest in a different area on the same property so they could potentially kind of change the line to carve out that area with the small trees and include the area with the large trees you know that's an option um so there there's specific criteria on on how that would work um larger changes would require um an analysis by a bi by a biologist to actually kind of weigh in on on the changes so habitat thank you habitat connectors are a little different in the um we wanted the the point A to point B to stay the same and the width to stay the same but there is the possibility to to shift the location from where it is on the map and Paul do you want to I may have missed no you didn't misspeak I just wanted to add one note to to everything that Jessica just said which is that um a field delineation in some areas of science are very well established across the country so a wetland field delineation wetland scientists there's there's very good you know 50 years of of history and litigation to determine where that line is and so there's really not a lot of debate on where that line is um the habitat blocks forested areas are a newer area um in in regulation and so um what this draft tries to do is create certainty so that um there aren't battling ecologists that go all the way up to the supreme court for projects and at the same time give a little bit of flexibility and those are those options that that Jessica was describing at an applicant's discretion to say you know my my layout would be a little bit better if I did this but not sort of push things into what would likely be a um you know a contentious back and forth between competing um scientists um so that's that's why that is done in that proposed way thank you hey um Megan sorry Jessica I'm just trying to digest all of this what's his chapter nine specifically address and I was looking for the LDRs on my computer and couldn't find them sorry chapter nine is the southeast quadrant zoning district so one of the things that we really set out to do was to consolidate all of the environmental protection standards into the um kind of well-defined new chapters 10 and 12 so there's you know other locations in our our regulations where we also referred to different different standards so we're really trying to streamline and maybe streamline it's not the best word but not refer to a fuzzy map um in a different document it just what's this chapter nine cover then with regard to the seq zoning district um as it remains now as it's proposed to it refers to and maybe paul corner wants to weigh in but um article chapter article nine Megan is written a little bit differently than the other ones it's sort of currently uh it's it's a self-contained chapter for the larger for the most part and so it has its own road standards it has its own building standards it has its own um uh layout of lots um park spaces all those things um the change in this amendment would only be as it relates to natural resource open spaces to referring to the new article 10 and 12 the rest of uh all the things in the southeast quadrant tdr's amount of development all of that is um untouched by this draft thank you crystal clear thank you paul can i make one reminder or just background comment um if you go to the ldr's right now and you look at article 12 it's actually called surface water protection standards so just as a whereas chapter nine article nine kind of did refer to more than just water protections because that was that was the goal for that area and basically everything that we have done is said well we're going to add to 12 to not just be about surface waters anymore and that's why it can more consistently cover everything in the ldr's and be more consistent so so Helen i know um we have a hard stop um i think it's seven i know and i so i guess i i think that there is definitely room for more discussion specifically of the environmental protection standards and i do want to get to the bigger question of you know what the shape of development looks like in the areas that are not covered by um you know these green areas the areas we were just looking at on the map so you know paul is going to cover kind of a quick overview of the pud work um that we've been working on to give you an idea of what other things we're considering for those other areas um and i i think you know it's a good place for us to be able to step back kind of as as both groups and see just try to think about did we hit the mark with what we have and in the environmental protection standards are we are we achieving all the city's goals um you know does it look like neighborhoods make sense to be in the areas that you know weren't covered by these environmental protection standards or or do we have more work to do on resources so um you know i want to make sure we leave room for that discussion as well as paul's presentation which i think is next on the agenda so okay i have one question from tim barrett are there any restrictions today on landowners to prevent them from logging a forest block uh the answer to that tim is no um so long as they meet um the water quality requirements at the state level forestry operations just like agriculture are exempt from local regulation in vermont um however um it does need to remain an active forestry so if somebody were to remove trees for instance what is left has to be the regrowth of the next generation of trees it can't just be turned to lawn that would not be considered to be a forest re-operate ongoing forestry operation as far as the state's concerned what if it wasn't a uh you know a a managed forest area you know defined by being in current use right what if it was just their private land but it happens to be in one of the forest blocks is there anything to prevent a landowner from cutting down all the trees in their forest block i'm just curious what are any restrictions today um there again uh an operation like that would be exempt from local regulation because it is considered forestry whether it's a small patch that is privately owned or it's something in current use um what the state would be looking at carefully is a is an ongoing forestry operation as i said just converting it to lawn afterwards would not meet their definition and b they would be looking closely to make sure that the sort of um staging area is appropriately scaled so you know if you have a 200 acre wood lot and you've got one acre of that is your you've cut it down to be a staging area and parking that's fine but if you had a four acre parcel and you said oh i'm going to make three of those acres my staging area that wouldn't meet the state definition of forestry okay Monica i just to clarify that though because i had similar questions to him before and to be clear once the habitat block and connectors are adopted however that's there so even if somebody did opt to then get into forestry it doesn't change where the line of the habitat blocks is as in in the ldr's that stays okay so are we going to move on to the next topic sure so the next topic is um an overview of the planned unit developments um i did ask paul connor to kind of lead that discussion he has some images to show um from our last couple meetings is he still did we lose paul still here just loading it up okay oh no oh well we would sign plenty to talk about i'm yes we do have lots to talk about i just didn't have the imagery ready so you're seeing your email looks like yeah no i know multiple screens hang on one second well this looks familiar you sort of went through this a long time ago yeah so um just uh for some reason i can't get rid of the band but i think you can you can see it so this was a slide that you had seen last year this is just sort of the breakdown reminder of a hazard level one level two resource and then the the white is the remainder that's the area that could be a subdivision or planning a development in the future um so i'm just going to very briefly uh sort of talk about the major qualities of what makes traditional neighborhood a tnd and a conservation pud and really um this is partly an update to show where the commission's at but it's also partly to sort of think about the character of how you all might want to see land that is developable in the future how you'd like to see it built so traditional neighborhood the um uh idea of this is just principally residential it's fairly compact um the first thing that you will have done is you know using that anatomy of a parcel you've removed anything that is a hazard or level one resource and in the southeast quadrant you've also taken out anything that happens to be in the in the nrp so this is only about the buildable portion so from that buildable portion um and for some reason my um little percentage numbers are not correct in there but the chart is correct it's largely residential it should be saying 65 residential minimum 15 civic space minimum so that's 80 of your property civic space is active usable land for parks or things like that um five percent mixed use mixed use could be something non-residential if allowed it could be a community building and then the remainder is called unallocated an unallocated could be uh resources so you might have um you might choose to have a um orchard in the middle of your property it may be that um the shape of your of your neighborhood has some class three wetlands in it and it's just you know it's it's easier to put it into your neighborhood but then protect them um it could be additions to any of the above or in some cases it might be something like a storm water pond it's something that doesn't fall easily into a category michael did you have a question yeah i i just wanted to be clear you said 80 percent or is it percentage of the building correct it is the buildable area when we want to ever i'm talking about percentages here it's only at the buildable area now because you said all your property which we didn't confuse all right thank you um so here's a little chart that um our consultant put together that was just sort of walking a property through um how that how they would run this mass so they started with 16 acres there were wetlands and a um and a habitat connector on the property there would be roads and rights of way and what they wind up with is um about uh that's that equals seven acres and what you wind up with is a developable portion of nine acres 9.1 acres of that and this is to the to the point that michael was just raising um a portion would be residential a person would be open or civic space and then um a developer would then figure out how to place the land on there um place place the developer on there so in this case they're doing a mix and i'll talk about that in a minute of some single families multi families cottage court and a duplex um the target density described in there that's the developer's target this is this is our consultant trying to put their hat on of i'm a developer i'm and i'm going to try to build something at this care at this scale we'll talk about density in just a minute um so here's a sample of what a traditional neighborhood could look like this is just sort of allocating space by by the categories the green is the civic space the yellow is the single family homes and the other colors become different forms of multifamily duplexes etc and then i'm just going to slide forward to this is a sample um of how something like this could be laid out um so you know here is the output of a traditional neighborhood with a mix of single families two families cottages some of them have garages facing off the back because they're very narrow lots some of them are a little bit wider and so they've got a garage that they're able to just have a driveway off the street and a big part of this you'll see in the top right hand corner you see that there's a habitat connector so that's been left out entirely and in the middle of it is this civic space and that's really intentional to be sort of a focal point of the neighborhood to really think about making neighborhoods not just places where houses exist but places where people know each other as neighborhoods and there's a bunch more features of this this is a highly condensed version of a longer presentation that the commission got talking about the sort of wise and lairs but this is sort of the scale that a traditional neighborhood could have quickly here some key features as i mentioned hazards and level one resources are excluded there are land allocations as we just talked about density density in a traditional neighborhood as proposed is an output of the layout and what i mean by that is there are specific standards laid out in the in the draft regulations that would determine the minimum and maximum block size the minimum maximum street length the relative sort of design of of of lots that they need to be deeper than they are wide for instance there would be a series of specifically allowed building types and building types would have characteristics to them so single family homes duplexes small multifamily buildings that look like single families townhomes that kind of thing each of them individually would have their own lot dimensions with them and this is something the commission spent some time on looking last fall about um the challenge that exists today um with using density is just a numerical number for designing neighborhoods because what happens is that if somebody puts say four single family homes on an acre four units an acre and they lay them all out then what you get is sort of the spacing of four single family homes but if you took that same um four units and you made it one small fourplex like the fourplex that's going in the habitat for humanity is building on heinsberg road for instance you wind up with a big giant green area around it because the the numerical density is still only four units an acre and so you get things that wind up being very out of character for what's around them um uh and that's sort of a specific for instance of that is um when the curvy cottages went in on on curvy road there's seven of them in their their single family homes which are sort of scaled of what's around them um after they got their approval the developer came to us and said hey just fyi for your regulations um at the time that could have been one sixplex that was just sort of taking up all that land or or or position sort of plopped in the middle of the land with a bunch of green area around it but having no sense of scale of the neighborhood and that's what this is trying to address of making sure that neighborhoods are enjoyable walkable environments where um it's not just about housing um i want to speak briefly about both minimum and maximum density so um maximum density would be determined by the allowed mix of housing that is put on the property so you might say that you're allowed to have single families two families and um and small multiplexes uh each of them have their own lots sizes that are associated with them and each have certain um characteristics of where they need to be located um that the mix of what is put in there and the minimums and maximums that the planning commission and the council would establish uh of you know you could be no more than say no less than 40 single family homes let's say just making a number up that would determine the actual numerical density rather than the number being the starting point the only exception to that would be minimum density and the idea of a minimum density would be that uh you for a traditional neighborhood to function as an actual traditional neighborhood it needs to have some base of the amount of housing otherwise there's nothing wrong with a different form of development but for it to be a traditional neighborhood to have the characteristics that we talked about having a central park having the infrastructure there it needs a certain amount of housing to create the scale importantly for both the developer and the city long term it needs to have an appropriate ratio of infrastructure to amount of development so that the developer can afford it up front and long term very importantly for the city that we don't have these be net losses as we have to maintain these roads forever into the future and then lastly a minimum density is sets some certainty for everybody it creates greater clarity for everyone at the beginning of the development review process as to what to expect for a neighborhood i'm going to very briefly speak about conservation pudds and then move into your your larger discussion the conservation pudd here's a here's a schematic image of it the idea of a conservation pudd is that you're prioritizing the conservation of land so 70 percent of a parcel in in this at a minimum would be for conservation purposes and the remainder of that land would be for a neighborhood and the idea generally is that if you were to compare a conservation pudd to a typical standard subdivision you know take a butler farms or something like that then what you're doing is you're allowing the same amount of development that would otherwise have been allowed across the property onto a smaller amount of the of the land this is something that really grew out of eastern pennsylvania really and and a person by the name of randall errant who was looking for ways in which a municipality could conserve greater amounts of land while still protecting and meeting state regulations in in pennsylvania that were very clearly you know assuring property owners the same amount of development it's a tool that um uh the residential density is based on the underlying density excluding hazards the neighborhood is laid out based on the subdivision rules typically speaking a conservation pudd works best when the underlying zoning district is somewhere in the one to two units an acre density once you go a lot above that what you wind up doing is squeezing uh a lot of development into a very small area um and then you you might find yourself into large building types that may not fit the character of what you're after so there are two different tools in the toolbox and to sort of jump into um what i i know jessica wants to have is the larger picture of conversation is there are two different ways of thinking about um growth and development in the city and um as you think about uh the remaining tracks of land that are unbuilt what are the city's objectives for those areas to have a small amount of development and large area of conservation or to foster um compact neighborhoods and it doesn't have to be a one size fits all it can be different areas are appropriate with different tools so that's my as quick as i could do at summary so can i ask when you say one um you can have different kinds of pudds in or a limited kind of pudd in particular areas is that what you just said um yes so determine that right so a simpler one way to think about it would be let's say there was an area of the city that was very well served by infrastructure um i'll pick the o'brien because o'brien's you know under under construction right now um that is an area where you might say what we're looking for is a traditional neighborhood um that's the city's objective there um if there were parcels say along shulburn road something like that there could be other parts of the city where you might choose to do to allow um a conservation pudd because the objective that you've got in mind is largely conservation oriented i would say that you know not to complicate the conversation but the southeast quadrant is sort of one giant conservation pudd already that's what the nrp is and so it's sort of that that's what that is in a really big picture if you consider the entire southeast quadrant so what you know what the discussion here i think going forward for you is in a place like the southeast quadrant do you want to take those areas that have been that are not in the nrp and have them be um compact neighborhoods across that entire land or are you looking to see uh ways in which additional conservation could be achieved above and beyond the nrp and i think that's sort of the the fundamental question here and conceivably you can do both the commission has talked about allowing both the the challenge there is of course one property owner might decide to say i want to build it fully and the one next to them might say i would like to be conservation and so from a city design perspective you know that would be something to just keep in mind monica yeah just paul can you clarify um between the two pudds the end result in either one may have the same number of units it's just that in the conservation pud they would be more compact i i guess um what i would say monica is that um if this written in the best way it can be they should result in different things one should be fostering towards a compact neighborhood that has that is fairly fully built and the other one should be achieving sort of the amount of neighborhood that the property had at its base reallocated so so um we've been trying to not have them overlap too much because the traditional neighborhood provides a lot of opportunity but it also sets a fairly high bar in terms of design features and you wouldn't want somebody to do all the compactness but not have to do any of the design features that make it a quality environment so that's we're trying not to have them overlap too much but i think the footprint of development would be different between the two right paul so so in the tnd you know you you're setting aside obviously the hazards and the level ones you know the things in environmental protection standards and then you have the rest of the land and then you have an additional 15 percent of that which becomes the open space or civil civic space and then and then roads and things and then you have the the part that would become kind of the developed piece right if you had a property with a lot of natural resources on it then it might start to have the same footprint so if you had you know 60 wetlands on your property then you probably would wind up with a very similar footprint and you might choose to your advantage to be a conservation pud in that case so that's that's how that that piece is supposed to work for a highly for properties that have a lot of natural resources okay megan i have a couple questions let's start with this one first so if you are currently you know an owner of a parcel that falls under the natural resource protection right and so you have tdr's how does that work with the traditional neighborhood design uh sorry traditional neighborhood design and the conservation puds great um thanks for that question um that's that's a really important question and a really good one thank you megan um so um the southeast quadrant zoning today sets an assigned density of 1.2 and it's an acre and then anything above that average um needs to buy tdr's if it's in a district where it's allowed to do that um in a traditional neighborhood that could remain exactly the same so you could say that there is no mathematical number um as the maximum density as as discussed a few minutes ago but anything above an average of 1.2 in its nacre must buy tdr's and the way that we would deal with that for somebody who chooses not to buy tdr's is that in their master plan they would decide they would determine the small portion of the property that is going to be compactly built and then another portion of the property could be reserved for future design or development and so they wouldn't be required to buy tdr's if they didn't want to but it'd be up to a future generation so you can now use tdr's on your own property even if it's natural resource protection no natural resource protection is excluded from a traditional neighborhood it's it's the only way in which you can use it is to bring in tdr's okay so let's do it now on the housing block so the new acreage same scenario do those property owners now have tdr's or there are no new tdr's in the mix here as um I guess I would say that um the there are a handful of areas where there's habitat blocks extending beyond the nrp it's not very many of them there are a handful and I guess I'd say that that part of the conversation has not been fully sorted out by the commission yet um it's sort of one of those you know as the puzzle piece has been coming together that's a that's a puzzle piece still to be placed but this does not add new tdr's just to be clear we are not currently adding more tdr's thank you so I got I got the answer to that question and we just approved language to be able to move tdr's so existing tdr's outside of the southeast quadrant along the transit overlay district and you might have a different name for it that's how I remember it is it the transit overlay or is it something else uh you are what it's similar it's the urban design overlay but it's very similar geography thank you um and looking at the map six I believe Jessica that you showed with the blue the blue areas the yellow and orange areas right the residential versus the industrial commercial are there areas in the urban overlay design urban design over the district sorry it's a mouthful um that show that blue orange and yellow too can we see that map again yeah I'm gonna bring it up I know I said I would for this part of the discussion oh I'm I'm somehow no longer a presenter I don't know how that would have changed leave oh th is still there he's at the top of the screen hang on one second I'll get it for you yes my period ended okay you should be good now yep okay so it's so this is that slide seven um as I said earlier this will be on so did you want I think that I refer to it as slide seven so if I were to write an email to you I would refer to slide seven I suppose so it does say slide seven here um and then if I zoom in so this is uh Shelburne Road here um you can see there are some red areas along here um there are also areas for infill I can't see very clearly you're showing the southern portion yeah okay so I'm sorry I was moving too fast so this is the northern part of Shelburne Road um one thing I just I think is important to note here the the the gray that shows built areas is a pretty crude tool it's just intended to show an amount of land land that is um not greenfield I think what we're seeing in the last decade in the city is there is tremendous opportunity for infill development on areas that are built so for example um last year the city approved in front of the Holiday Inn on Williston Road essentially on their parking lot a uh additional five-story building um that's going to show up as gray on this so I don't want I want to make sure that as you think about the gray areas don't don't think of them as it's built there's no there's no room um it's really intended to be it's not a greenfield area there is a lot of opportunity for infill development in the city and we've been slowly seeing it over the last decade because I guess my question is and this is the vision question and I understand what you are saying uh Jessica and Monica about bringing in jobs and making sure that land uses are compatible with residential use but I I've got to say that those areas along Kimball Avenue and Hinesburg near our technology and our business parks um I I don't know what kind of restrictions are on other than our regulations I don't know who owns the land all of that I I leave to you but um I it's my vision I I would ideally uh since I've been in those areas and they are not unpleasant areas I I would like us to look along those major transit areas along Route 7 uh for more industry noise it's a busy road it is noisy um we have uh you know what's the former magic hat um we have manufacturing plants um I think that in my vision we want to bring residents close to Tilly Drive where we have hospital you know the the UVM Medical Center um is there I see it as a place for you know just mixed populations um including employees for Dyna Power uh for and I know the name changed Roland's business um for um you know Rihark and and all of those businesses in there um we have an empty building in there as you know maybe that's changed but I can't believe it has changed since COVID um and we also have businesses along Kimball Avenue there um there's the you know planned mixed use uh with with commercial gross restore all the rest on the new hill farm area I just I I really would like us to think about where housing should go I am a believer in the use of public transportation I I do not um uh you know see that the future is going to get any easier with regard to fossil fuel use and and more carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and so if we could look to where the that mass transit is going to go and really put our residents there um I think it's smart environmentally I think it meets a need I I've been to uh the you know the the visioning meetings held by CCRPC and this specifically came up in those meetings uh you know employees uh of you know Roland's company having to you know drive down from Milton I think um and I I just I I want us to look at our infrastructure our our traffic infrastructure I cannot imagine adding hundreds if not thousands more cars on our roads um with this full build out I would like us to so that's point one point two I would like us just like how you said we have to plan for the future we might get noisy you know kind of ugly just you know in terms of you know we all like flowers as opposed to dumpsters right um unattractive visuals so we're we're thinking that way in the future and what might come right we can't say right now what's going to come but we think to the future what might come so what I would like to say is that I would like us to do the same step by step process for residential um I am all for density when there is transit when you can get those people on buses instead of having all those cars and and I I really would like to leave areas outside of the transit area for the future for a future planning commission a future council to say now it's time for infill now we're ready if we're ready right that's for them to decide I think that there is something to be said for variety where we look for where density is appropriate and where that it might not be one point two homes per acre might be two homes per acre it might be you know whatever we can think about it but I have seen calculations of up to 10 homes per acre and I am not comfortable with 10 homes per acre throughout our lands where there is no access to that mass transit and I just I wanted to put my vision out there I think that we have to think about the the dual goals that this council set out when we agreed to and voted for IZ which was let's get these new PUDs out there and let's get these conservation goals so we can meet those those you know I and I don't want people to see them as competing that's why I'm really speaking at length here I want us to see where these goals overlap I want to see that we can see incremental changes we're not planning for 100 years out that that's not our role here and if we are then we should be just doing conservation in many more ways than we are so let us meet those those goals thinking about transit and and really fanning out where as you get further along the fans you get less and less density as you get further away from the center further away from those transit areas you get less and less density and as we know it's a lot more wealth perhaps to have 10 homes per acre but at the same time you could have a different style house you could have perhaps a mixed use you could have a business where you could have a farm you could have writing stables you could do other things that would bring in wealth to those property owners I don't think that there is one size fits all kind of wealth since I have the floor and you're being so patient with me I have to say that inclusionary zoning is one tool in the toolbox and I really want to make a plea there are all kinds of ways to bring affordable housing into fruition I've come from Chicago I was raised in a very working class neighborhood and when I was young I moved into a more middle class neighborhood but we never were wealthy and I grew up in an area where there were a lot of Hispanics and I know the importance of that identity of living in an area where you have that community and I wasn't from Chicago where you have those neighborhood parties you go into Hispanic neighborhood and you know you feel like you're in Mexico you go into a Polish neighborhood and you know you're in a different part of the world and but there is something to be said for people having just kind of ownership of of what kind of neighborhood they want to live in and I understand that PUDs some with yep can I just cut in so we have some time for perhaps some other thoughts or big talk we only have 15 or now we only have 12 minutes left so I don't mean to cut you off Megan but are there other comments for the time thank you for the welcome any thinking um I have a couple thoughts if you can hear me yes we can hear you um so my approach is a little different and and that is that um this is this is really valuable work for the city for the amount of remaining open space that's left in the southeast quadrant mostly right and and other connection blogs as well and it defines for us I think those areas that we need to pay particular attention to so that they are preserved so that there is the least amount of element around them that is balanced with our need for housing and with the desires of the private landowners to develop their land if they are able to um I understand Megan's concerns about you know too much transportation but I just want to say that I have never seen so many hybrid and electric cars in the road as I've seen today and it's just going to grow so regardless of what do you think people should be in small units and traveling or there should be an individual units right you know that more than a third of the carbon dioxide produced by the state is from transportation right and a lot of this from people traveling long distances to get to work but you know if you do some comparisons on electric cars versus combustion cars over 10 years the electric cars far surpass in the amount of CO2 that they don't emit period especially in Vermont so the point there is is that a lot of people are going to be driving electric cars in the next 20 years it may be a higher percentage than you ever believed and they're still going to want to drive their cars the question is how do we conserve the land that we have and and have the smartest development on that land that puts the right number of units on the property that's developable that that is a compromise because nobody is gonna not every party is going to be pleased here the landowners not going to be pleased because they're not going to get the density they want you know the open space people aren't going to get everything they want because there's going to be some housing there right and the affordable housing people will be disappointed because they won't get the density that they want as well this these two types the TND and the conservation PUD I think is is the city's best effort to try and meet all those goals at the same time and and I really support them if you look closely at some of these maps there really isn't a lot of big open blocks of property that haven't already been tagged with permits aren't being scraped for soil right now to put it in streets and homes there isn't that much left and I think that's why this is so important for a lot of people from different perspectives here right um but I just want to to point that out and you know I think this will bring new rules in which will force new developments to obey some really logical and responsible you know applications for for how they use the property and and how they protect those those connectors and those you know those streams and the stream buffers and how close that they can get to them I mean there there are lots of you know examples in the city where you know the 50 foot stream buffer or wetland buffer is it's just not enough it's not enough and so 100 foot is a really good idea that's all I'm going to say thank you okay Ted yeah one um you know with regard to housing density and so on and one issue that I I hope that that the city council addresses maybe with the school board is how many more homes do we build until we need a new school and keep in mind that trying to get a bond through for a new school can be a little dicey so I think that's part of the grand plan it's terrific to say let's have another 12 15 2000 more units that's terrific but suddenly I'm returning the dial to a 200 million dollar bond so it's I think whether it's planning with the city council whether it's the school board I don't know but here we're planning for density with X number more people and am I guaranteeing that I'm suddenly going to pay $3,000 more in taxes because there's a new school so I think it's something that we all have to really consider I think we're going to be having those conversations with the school board but I think it's a good point Matt you have your light on so I suspect you want to say something yeah just a clarification and I apologize if I missed this fall in Jessica and the rest of the planning commission but when a developer looks at a piece of land and can they choose that are essentially is it at their decision to choose a TND a traditional neighborhood design or a conservation PUD how was that adjudicated or how does that come before the dear bit Matt I think that that's um that's sort of part of the reason for this evening's conversation is they are different tools um there are circumstances when an option makes sense um all the time so you know you might have an area that is you know otherwise pretty ripe for uh being a traditional neighborhood um it's right along transit etc but it's 80% wetlands and so there might be a reason for why that property would be better served as a as a conservation PUD um elsewhere in the city I think that that's a that's a discussion that is that is ongoing of does the city want to allow that to be a developer's choice or do you want to um choose certain areas for one and certain areas for another um and I think that's that's a that's a discussion that the commission is is currently having and feel free commissioners to elaborate on that or or if there would be certain mitigating fact I'm sorry to interrupt the the commissioner wanted to answer that question directly but is there certain mitigating factors which would um a owner of a piece of land the developer would know that this is um this criteria must be met in order to have a traditional neighborhood here or I don't know I'm trying to figure out because I see the appeal of both but obviously I don't want a one-size-fits-all there might be opportunities where it makes more sense to do a traditional neighborhood versus a conservation PUD okay other um Michael yeah um I had a comment about this question of choice um let it let us say I have a 15 acre farm which um I've grown up on and uh uh I now want to do something with it but I don't want to be told that I have to build the minimum of x number of houses or I have to use a TND uh I would like to have a choice to build fewer maybe in a you know in a compact way fewer but um I'd like to have a choice between a TND and a conservation PUD I'm let's say I'm a conservation minded kind of guy so I want my land to be conserved to the extent that I can I don't want to be told as a land owner how much I can build and I mean I have to build a certain minimum and uh what kind of development I I must build it's a I'm not sure that we can in fact do that to a lander I don't happen to be a lander yeah but I think it would be an imposition on a lander to tell him he's got to do this and he has to do that but but couldn't that be accomplished by entering into a conservation agreement you know we saw this certainly on a property um viewing property where where the property owner wanted to conserve a certain piece of land and so they just subdivided it conserved the piece that they wanted to conserve and they developed the piece they want to develop and you would avoid that situation I believe well if yes if the lander has a choice that's all I'm um suggested and we did we did talk about that Michael because you brought it up about the the single subdivision so that is that is something that we have talked about and you know if there's interest we'll make sure to keep that in so I don't know if in the next three minutes we're going to solve this question but I guess one thing that I I just want to kind of throw out there is that um there's I think a difference between the the footprint of development and the number of units here that have been kind of separated in a way that they haven't been in the past and um you know because of the way that these tnd um areas can can calculate the number of units um there it's really based on um the footprint of development and making sure that we're we're using that land that we're basically giving up to development efficiently and I think that that's a really important part I I've been trying to keep myself from being hung up on number of units because I think a lot of people are concerned with what it looks like and what what open space we might be losing is kind of a bigger question that's a little bit different with the tnd than it has been in the past with our you know current regulations so Jessica I'm sorry there's just there's a question in the chat from Alan Strong for you um that I think is important it says I'm curious what you think about the loss of protection for riparian connectivity slide nine of presentation number two a lot of the new environmental protections are designed to protect water resources but it looks like we lose riparian connectivity in the southeast quadrant will this further challenge our water quality issues have you yeah and this is this is a good question it gets back to the the data sources so so that riparian connectivity was um kind of loosely pointed to in the southeast quadrant and there are a few areas where that particular mapping doesn't overlay with the more kind of south burlington specific land specific definitions that are protecting our water resources so what we're doing is we're looking at every location where there is a water resource whether that's a stream all the way down to intermittent streams as well as the wetlands and and buffering them and even buffering them kind of you know wider way than before and in fact we we've talked to the state wetland scientists and they say that there's been no other communities in the state that have as large of buffers as we're producing we're proposing here so so we're kind of going beyond what we have in the past um the standard for the state and what other communities have done in the past and then um what we've also done is instead of using that kind of fuzzy kind of state level data that's used for that riparian connectivity layer we did the on the the more specific analysis to figure out where there was actual habitat in primarily forested areas and we've we've chosen to um you know conserve or you know propose those for protection specifically so although it's not the exact same layer you know we have our habitat areas that kind of balloon out um with the connections in between so so I think we're going beyond the standard beyond what we've done in the past and and being really specific to where the best habitat is and that's based on guidance that we've um it's actually included in the document that that riparian connectivity data layer comes with um and the the kind of author of that document yens helki so I know that there's not exact agreement in that the map is different but I do believe that our our data is is better in that it's specific to our city um and specific to our land features okay um we're we're at 701 um I guess I would just say that I have some concerns with with your um some of the aspects of what you're recommending and I'm puzzled I think like map suggested so which type of PUD do you get to pick and what will it look like that's certainly a um a big question for me I'll have to really consider and think about the restricted infrastructure encroachment criteria because I um I'm sort of puzzled when you have an area of um of natural resource value that you can build a road across it um to get to quote the other side but it sounds like you have a lot of issues that people would have to um address and we'll have to um hold our DRB accountable to make sure that they are those questions are are answered and um considered before we start sort of I mean why have a natural resource area if you can just request a connectivity and build a road through it but um but I think you've also done some really really good work so that's my part I don't know if Tom Chitton then wants to put in his two cents but he doesn't have to um and we're at the end of the day and this isn't the last time we get to eat this apple right it is not oh go ahead Tom I know she called on you I was just gonna say I'm broke I got nothing to add so and I have to all right that's fine so so hon where our planning commission is going to stay on and um we have an agenda item to potentially warn this for public hearing um so I don't know if um the city council has a a preference on if we warn this for public hearing and go through the process to kind of get this wrapped up and to you to adopt um first or if you would specifically prefer if we do our kind of more informal public comment period um and wait to kind of advance it to you until we have the PUD work completed as well so I know you had an initial discussion with this before but right well I personally would prefer the latter that you have your semi-public listening and then decide as a commission if there's any adjustments or changes you want to make and then send it to us I don't think we're talking about a terribly long time frame to do that but I'm just one one person on the council so other people that makes that makes sense to councilor that that makes sense to me as well yeah I would go over that and I and I want to share I understood that correctly so so warn for public hearing complete the draft and get it to you for possible adoption was that or did I mix it up no I want I would I you had suggested you were having a public hearing I'm not a hearing a listening and so the public didn't get all that much chance today tonight to comment so I'd like to give them that chance and then if there are issues that you feel either the council's raised or they have raised that you want to work on you can and then warn for a public hearing for that final draft is that does that make sense um I guess my bigger question is do you prefer do you want us to wait to give you anything until we have all the PUD work done or not or would you like I'm okay with getting your final draft before you we get a final draft of the PUDs but that's me I don't know how anyone else thinks because we haven't had that discussion totally so I think I think we haven't we've left a question unanswered right Jessica which is which is do we designate certain areas as conservation PUDs or certain areas as TNDs or do we leave it up to the will of the property owner working with staff and the DRB to determine that correct and that's fine there's no more work to do yeah and that particular question is really included in the PUD work I'm really talking about specific to the environmental protection standards and if we should advance them to you ahead of completing the PUD work I'm sorry I maybe wasn't clear on what I was asking that that's my preference yeah that's I think what we have said at our council meeting right to put a pin in it right just to relieve you of you know that's no longer an open question right okay so you can focus so advanced environmental protection standards first put the pin in it as Megan just said and then continue to work on the PUD standards to get that to you as a second package okay correct sorry I was confusing on that I know there's a lot here I'm kind of as a follow-up though to Matt's comment I'm sorry to Matt's point though we do need that clarity from the city council which clearly won't come tonight because we're past time and you guys need to talk about it but that kind of direction is what we really need from you do you want to limit a certain part of the city to only be a conservation PUD do you not like your perspective on that would be very helpful and so maybe if you guys add that to an agenda a future meeting to discuss that kind of specific it would be very helpful to us okay good idea great idea good idea that makes sense that makes sense right now I understood what Helen is that we are going the commission will do the informal listening sessions based on the draft that we will have of the environmental protection standards and then and then move on once we've made whatever necessary changes I move on to do a public public hearing Dr. Blood said haha no worries yeah once you turn notifications on you can mute individual servers by right clicking them if that gets annoying particular draft that they have for many many weeks that all the comments are on I'm afraid that if we do another another because we've already had one draft for a long time with some edits and I think if we change it too often it's very difficult for people to get their minds around all of it so is your listening meeting the listening session I guess the listening session I was confused maybe what you know the listening session is to during our you know with this particular draft just to be able I mean I know there's a lot of questions in the comments here and I just really want to drive public discussion before the pressure's on with a public hearing Dr. Blood said does this link work straight to straight to the last second but I wanted to make sure there was question answering period of time kind of as part of the the review of this particular draft right so I guess the way to maybe to think about it is the state law sets a minimum for one public hearing there's nothing that stops a body from having multiple input sessions leading up to the public hearing to give so when the form-based code was adopted I think the commission had three of them during the period leading up to the the the public hearing so that people could come at a time that was convenient to them and make sure that there's plenty of opportunity for folks to weigh in yeah we're in the home stretch now let's not stumble at the last minute let's make sure everybody has a chance to okay the public has a chance to have their say okay and then you're getting some good feedback from the public about having that listening session and UVM also has a letter that they sent to you and me Jessica I didn't see it till the middle of the meeting I actually didn't see it yet yeah so they can certainly come to the listening they have their letter and they can come to the listening and we and we do also accept written or emailed comment as well and read those carefully right okay well thank you very much it was um it may not seem like it was helpful but it was everyone knows the planning commission is staying on after the council leaves I just want to make sure we don't lose people who wanted to stay on so the planning commission is still going to meet after Helen closes the council okay so I will um adjourn this joint meeting a few minutes late thank you all for giving up another oh are you leaving Megan just a big thank you a lot of work thank you okay so it's looking good we'll leave you all right thank you thanks hi everybody hopefully that was that was a lot to organize I hope I didn't misrepresent our work I know oh it's great Jess right okay so we are going to start the the planning commission meeting um we have on our agenda a little debrief I mean does anyone have any follow-up on that specifically I know we're embarking on a big public input session here so you know I think what might be really helpful is if we do a follow-up meeting to the city council and just make a list of like we talked about the one saying you know gee if you guys could have an agenda item where you specifically talk about do you want each PUD type everywhere or not period are there any other like big questions that we didn't get to that are very clear now that they have that very clear background what other big pieces is we may not have Paul for a while so yeah and as as we were moving through that discussion I was feeling like that if everyone agrees I'll reach back out to Helen and just say that we would be willing to do another joint meeting to get into more of that discussion and get some more feedback from them does that seem like a good good idea would we be willing to kind of spend that time well I mean can they can they meet on the issue and then you know give us our marching orders yeah you know I mean we have a lot on our plate still and I just hate hate to get meaded out now it's a good point and I agree so maybe that's a good approach we can have them do a follow-up discussion and if they if they're ready to do some more discussion we could maybe at that point entertain a second joint meeting is that yeah and if they if they do add it to their agenda we could know about it and try to be there and not I mean only to if a few of us if all of us whatever could also just be in the audience so that if that there's a can if there's confusion we can play the role simply of clarifying not not pitching or abdicating or whatever but just keep helping them be as productive as possible that sounds good any other specifics I mean that seems like a good good approach with the council you know I just I just want to follow up you know about with regard to the housing and in the schools I really think I'm still confused if we're planning but you know are we planning for an inevitable on vote you know so I just hope this the city council is privy and the school board is what that we're doing you know we're we're looking at this but we can't look at it and just from a small view you know it has to be this major view of all the implications that we're doing you know whether it's the environmental part or the fact that are we you know are we on route to a new school based on whatever whatever things that we do so just just as an aside I know it's not on our agenda for sure can I can I ask a follow-up to that and maybe if this is something Paul can help clarify or anybody else to that point when you were saying that Ted I was asking myself well how is that that planning different from our current regs right now you know it's really not our current regs right now would if if built out would result in potentially that happening as well so the the PUDs the environmental practice that stuff isn't it's if there if everything is built out according to our current LDRs it would also result potentially in something like that happening so it's I guess it's just to keep the focus on where is there a difference from our LDRs versus not you know or do they want a change right well I I'm not I don't have debate but my issue isn't the fact that the PUDs aren't going to create anything but the fact is that we should have we the public should be aware you know what we're doing whether it's TDRs or whatever is is that there is eventually probably going to have to be a school and that probably should be dialed in for people to know this that that's all and I'm not saying that there's going to be more with PUD or less and in your right they're probably it may very well be the same but I think that's sort of a planning issue I wish I wish junk and we're here tonight he had been on the the school committee when they looked at the future build out and the the need for future schools and Monica were you on and Pauling also it sounds like we maybe have some information that I don't know if one of you wants to weigh in or Michael has this hand up is it about the schools Michael or do we well yes it's it's about their their ways to manage manage the issue so that it doesn't creep up on you as as Ted has mentioned at all of a sudden oh my god we need a new school because we're out of a lot of towns and cities have what I call a development a management a development management cap in other words you they only do a number of permits per year so that they can manage the among others to manage the infrastructure things the infrastructure that they have to provide and not be overwhelmed in a year so that they have a you know a fairly organized plan we're going to do x number per year and that's that's planning I mean that's good planning because they don't end up with some surprises they know what's coming every year so something we might talk about at some point I don't know if it fits fits in with what we're doing now but it's something we should bear in mind okay um any other follow-up from the joint meeting or do you want to kind of talk about our the potential kind of warning for public hearing well the only question is the only additional piece of clarification we need from them the PUD choice everywhere or limited or are there any other big questions like you know there were questions going back to the um that just the discrepancies with the level two map in the plan in the comp plan you pointed out very clearly what our work is has done and it shows what we left off of those level twos I mean that's the path we're going if the city council has a strong opinion about that we should know that soon because that will have a big impact so that might be and if they don't answer it then we'll continue going down our path and get public comments right but that might be helpful yeah Paul did you want to yeah I guess I just say that you know to me to a certain extent those are the same question um you know in terms of what um you know what what do you want to see in the what does the council want to see what do you want to see in the unbuilt areas if it's a conservation PUD then you would if a property did not have a lot of natural resources on it you would build up with additional ones prioritized by you that might be those things that are on map 8 if it's going to be a traditional neighborhood then you might want to say that you want to see those areas become future neighborhoods so to a certain extent it's um it it's it's the same big question there's different tools but it's the same big question in my view at least of you know what's the city looking for in these unbuilt areas maybe just to be really helpful to the council then is to take just a few of those images you know the one comp plan overlay map that was very clarifying and maybe a picture of a conservation PUD and a picture of a TND and just give them those three visuals and then summarize exactly that issue and that that would probably take up a good chunk of debate and agenda in itself so essentially I think that's what we just did do we put that all in front of them and ask the question and they and they know that it hasn't been answered yet so I think that that's what Helen was saying that they're going to do the follow-up discussion I will follow up with Helen and see if she feels like she needs any additional materials I'll find out when they're going to do that meeting and I'll you know attend if I can't I'll let people know if I can't attend to make sure someone from the commission is there in case they have questions and kind of remind her of the question okay then so next on our agenda is the review on possible action to approve advancing LDR 20-01 the draft that we've been discussing in the accompanying planning commission report which was in the the joint meeting packet so I think we got a pretty clear direction that they were interested in us kind of moving forward with this as a separate package to them so so I think that does make sense for us to move forward with the public hearing I get our last meeting we talked about kind of not doing not setting a public hearing in the case where they didn't want us to kind of advance it separate so I guess we would in order to do that make a motion to warn the environmental protection standards and the accompanying report for public hearing and we would choose a date for that and I see that that public hearing as kind of a like an end date where we would have all of the informal listening sessions and question answering kind of leading up to that and then you know at that point we'll have all of that input kind of on this particular draft and we'll be able to really talk through that and make changes you know and you know kind of have that discussion on what things we want to change at that point Paul and just to note that as part of your public hearing notice you can certainly let people know about the listening session leading up to it they're not they don't have to be different things think of as being a public hearing with multiple sessions to it and then just a reminder that after the public hearing you are authorized to make any changes that you so choose to based on the feedback that you've been given you're not locked into a set of regulations so you can you can certainly do that so Paul Paul in terms of your timing I'm just so concerned about your timing is June 1st is that that's after your your time but before your next time right I'm just I don't care what the date is but is that you had a spring yeah I anticipate being out about three weeks from when the kid when the kid is comes around which will happen sometime in the next couple weeks so you know out or most five weeks from now and then you're gone again August or I'm sorry just July July okay so I potentially June 1st if anybody likes that timing so you have a meeting scheduled for the 11th of May and the 25th of May so those would be your two regular meeting dates you could choose to have it at one one of those if you wanted I think I was originally thinking kind of mid May you know which would give over a little over a month and then we'd have time to really delve into the content comments as a group so maybe that May 11th Jessica we have the listening session first at one meeting and then at the next meeting we warn a public hearing I'm proposing to warn the public hearing tonight and between now and the public hearing we'll have the listening session and potentially other other listening sessions as well to make sure there's multiple times when people could be coming and answer asking questions and giving feedback and all the comments would all be kind of considered as part of the input not only is limited now that answers my listening sessions will be will happen before the public hearing yes I wanted to make sure that there was you know I think it's hard for people to formulate questions until they see everything so I wanted to make sure that we were available for a big chunk of time in in a less formal situation really be able to talk through things and answer questions and and not have it be just one public hearing but I did picture that any any I mean we've already gotten some comments and any comments that we got during the listening session or by email in the whole period as well as at the actual hearing would all be considered input on the that we would be considering altogether as part of it do you want to check into your motion monica oh is that I was sure was that emotion yes I'm I yeah I uh so I'm gone June 1st just in the 25th so that's my two weeks of vacation so when I would like to be here because I'd really like to hear all of the public input so um I guess that's why I was thinking the 11th um you know kind of before I was away for vacation but May 11th for the listening session or the hearing hearing because we have we've already posted on our website the the listening sessions April 27th the hall most likely won't be here um if you wanted me there the 18th would be a good day I know that's an off meeting day for you but you could do that um and then yeah and then that would give us maybe an additional time to do an additional listening session in there potentially as well you know and if we do it as early as the four five 18 right no four well I'm sorry now I'm losing track five 18 so if we were to do it on five 18 and we had a few listening sessions Paul and then we had questions about some things and wanted to make changes though it seems like we want to have time with the planning staff to make any potential edits before we right because even if we we um if we release this package now do we have to have that same package for the hearing or can we make any same package so you can be discussing changes that you would want to make but you're warning a hearing on the set that is now and I think you know I understand it's it's it's sort of a it's a catch 22 because on the one hand you want to be able to make changes on the other hand as Jessica said letting people know this is the draft to comment on so they're not sort of chasing uh chasing rabbits around the around the yard trying to figure out which one is the last one that they're looking at I think that's the challenge okay well I'll make a motion that we warn the meeting for May 18th okay great any any is that worded well enough Paul I know yes as long as you're also um approving the report that would go with it you can always change the report afterwards if you find later that you um want to modify it um how do I refer to the the package I think just the accompanying planning commission report the two uh the public meeting on the accompanying public commission pet planning commission report wouldn't it really isn't the question really advancing for a public hearing the report we're not really voting on the full report right now are we no no we're it's true I think we might need to nix this motion and start over and use the word hearing in the report if that's so well I would say that we we would just uh I would move that we advance the the draft environmental protection standards for a public hearing of May 18th I'll second that okay that um so any discussion or was that Paul um I understand that the distinction that Ted is making about not necessarily approving the report but um I would the state law does require that a report accompany the draft so you could say and advance um the report at this time also something like that but it is required under state law that a report go with the draft and is the report the the draft memo that is in the package that we've looked at in today I thought we were in the last meeting we did but we have to specifically include it in the motion to go with the with the draft language they just they have to go together and yeah and I don't think we have question about that right Ted well I'm just well I mean there are there's still issues within the report that I have and so I'm not willing to say okay blanky I'm absolutely going to unequivocally without any changes past this report as as it stands now until I would make the vote and and at the end probably advance it but you're still so that's no that makes sense Ted so um so I think what you're saying is you want to have the public input and then really talk through that and have the ability to make changes before anything goes to city council and that that is the process so so I think although your word said so yes that that is how it works but we we want to put something in front of the public for common um and then we would be able to before it goes to city council make edits yeah possibly just see right so you do you do need to approve a report to go with the hearing but you can change that does not lock you into future changes okay if you're uncomfortable with the report then I guess I'd say you know that should either be modified or not hold the public hearing because the law does say shall prepare and approve a written report on the proposal so no I wish to not well I it was to advance it so I'm whatever wording you just said sorry that approving the report you said it must must have a written report you didn't say it has to have an approved report the state law says when considering an amendment to the bylaw the planning commission shall prepare and approve a written report on the proposal right but we and we did in the last meeting approve the report for this phase we approved this report and these draft LDRs to go forward to the public knowing that after the the hearing we may have changes but the report and the draft LDRs have been approved for us for this stage to move to the public and I think the motion is to then move that LDRs I don't remember what you just said not I'm not unhappy with advancing I don't think we had a motion to approve the draft at our last meeting we two it was like two meetings ago we we did we had a motion to to proceed with the LDRs as they were written and then you had the counter Michael that was no because of the nine and then that yeah so that that definitely happened I guess I'm not to not to mince words but I agree with what Monica said but that was not a formal approval of the warning for public hearing or the report it was a statement of clear of intent but not the not the vote we wanted to wait for the direction with council on kind of their expectations first so um do we is is Ted's motion as worded acceptable to do what we want to do to warn a public hearing Paul and accept the report that's what you wanted to have added to it right Paul yes so I think reading the state law it's approved the report but if you're comfortable in saying warn the draft for public hearing and approve a report with the understanding that both may be modified following the public hearing that would be great that's fine that's what that's what the motion is okay was that seconded I seconded it okay um any discussion on the motion did we want to add dates within that right now for the listening sessions or do we want to just approve the hearing itself as a motion and then if you want to talk about dates supplemental go for it okay okay any any discussion or comments on on the motion okay on favor of advancing right okay any opposed so it's four any opposed I'm I'm I'm abstaining for now I think we're rushing but that's just my personal view with some of the abstaining on this one okay very good so um motion passes with four and one abstention thank you so Monica you wanted to talk about some additional listening sessions we have we have one set for April 27 which is shown on the website and and one of your idea of having a separate website for this project was really good and Paul you know the it's great it looks really nice and it's fantastic yeah thank you yeah I don't know I mean I air is there a way I mean I'm happy to participate in as many listening sessions as as people want one thing that we've done when it's kind of a really big thing is to try to schedule one at a different time so you know April 27th is during our regular Tuesday evening meeting um and then you know our public hearing the official public hearing of the 18th is going to be during our official kind of Tuesday evening slot I'm wondering if we want to do one that's more of a kind of a lunchtime um time frame just for people who the evening a Tuesday evening may not work for um maybe on one of those I think that would be wise because apart from anything else I'm not sure how much we can get through at at each listening session so more than one and having them at different times is a great idea you could possibly more participation that way okay I think that sounds like a great idea um should we try to pass we've also not necessarily um tried to have all commissioners attending each one also you can set you can you can have a smaller number and have notes that are shared with everyone else now we can even record it so okay so so maybe um a lunchtime either the first or second week of May maybe that first week of May um and then we can try to have as many commissioners as available I know some aren't available for work reasons so you know if we weren't all able to attend others could um listen later michael yeah uh maybe maybe paul just answered it somebody asked how when and how will the public get access to the draft regulations and paul has already answered that great um so that is on the website as well as the the first listening session is announced on there and then any others we're kind of talking about are going to get added to that website as well as an announcement um there's one question in the chat about are do we need different types of listening um sessions for different groups of people this chris chris tromboli's question pertains to like different neighborhoods um but i'm i mean i don't um well so neighborhoods um are there other different types i don't know that there are and oh i had a question actually paul is there a um is it possible to do a session in person we we still can't do that right uh at this time i would say no you know monica i actually um so we had gotten one of the public comments i saw came in was requesting that um i don't i don't know i think i did forward that to everyone but so i asked paul to look into kind of how our meeting attendance has been so in the 20 so we've had 20 meetings since august when we restarted and in that time period um so he did a comparison to the 20 meetings um prior to covid and our attendance has actually been up between 15 and 20 percent above the average public attendance in our meeting so so we are actually including 15 to 20 percent more public members in our meetings in this format and i'm not saying that it works for everyone but this format we are actually hearing more voices um or at least they're hearing us so yeah i i would venture a guess um that it's going to be this the same people have been following this through uh or a large percentage of the people will be at these listening sessions i would hope that that's not the case but i think that's the reality um you know unless people out there really are conscious of of the changes that we're making and that's the big question is you know are we able to i mean we can't give them this 50 page document and have them go through it they have to they have to be aware of the bullet points of of you know what changes that might impact their neighborhoods so i still would guess that it's the the groupies that you know people are watching this carefully and not in very few new people i'm i'm not sure that we need different listening sessions for different populations like i do i do feel that um you know we really want these to be applicable to the whole city um you know i know sometimes we do things that are really targeted to a particular area of the city um so does it sound like an in like a listening session on a Tuesday night in April 27th and then a kind of lunchtime first week of May one day that week maybe making sure we're not overlapping with a different committee and then our official hearing on the 18th then does that seem like a reasonable schedule and then plus plus written i mean we've already been receiving some some emailed comments as well so i think we'll obviously continue to take those and read them and jessica can you define for us and for the public exactly what we mean by a listening session like is it is it a place where people can go to ask us questions so that they can then articulate their comments at the hearing committee or are we to be listening to their comments in these meetings as if and then report back to everybody as if it is a comment during a hearing like what yeah i think i think it's both i want to make sure that we're available to answer questions because i do think there are questions um and then you know so that was why i thought a more informal listening session but i don't think we want to just be talking at the people and presenting and only answering questions i do see any comments that we hear during those listening sessions being part of our official listing of comments that we're getting during the period um and and sharing them and that's why i do think that both of these listening sessions should be an official planning commission meeting with as many commissioners in attendance as can um you know knowing that the noon one or you know a lunchtime one that we may not all be able to because of work so it may not be all seven of us but um i do see them being of able to take in official comment as well as answering questions because i think we owe that to the public okay any anything else or any other items um next week is go ahead to michael and you have an idea how such a public public listening session might be managed you know who who speaks when and obviously somebody has to be a moderator which in most cases it's you uh you're going to watch for people told up their hands uh how how do you do you plan to manage if there's a lot of people there well you know maybe we turn them together maybe a few more yeah it's actually a really good question um michael and i i think we could choose how we do that as a group i mean one thing would be the um similar to what i what i have been doing you know looking for people to raise their hands and or put something in the chat that then we can kind of go down down the chat in order just that it's a good question we haven't done something like this in this format but we have been managing questions and comments during meetings yeah no maybe using the chat in the order in which the questions are being posed would be a a good idea it's just that i know that it's very difficult to hold this kind of that kind of session virtually you know it's difficult enough to do it in person but it's very difficult to do it i i do agree and you know i always as you know i was resistant to going back to meeting in this format i actually really was hoping that we could hold somehow hold off till covid was over and we could meet in person which obviously didn't happen which is why we started meeting again in august and but i guess what i've come to realize is that ideally in a well-organized meeting there's only one person talking at each time and there's kind of a queue of people who are lined up to say something in an orderly fashion so like it kind of seems like maybe this is working okay like we really shouldn't be talking over each other anyway so i don't know what your perspective is and if you feel like it's been if we're we're missing a lot i do think we missed some visual cues and maybe if somebody is really trying to respond but it seems like it's been working pretty well Jessica one thought for the listening session is the chat is a really useful tool but one one advantage of sort of the in-person meetings and and the visual is that you make sure that you're hearing from each person who wants to speak one challenge with the chat is that it can sort of insert itself in between and so you might want to say you know we'd like to make sure that we've heard from each different person who wants to say something whether it's something short or something long if you put something in the chat i may not come back to you if you put multiple things in the chat i'll prioritize hearing somebody first for the first time just to make sure that everybody gets a chance to weigh in it's a new format we'll have to figure it out but i just want to make sure that you know um yeah it is it i've seen my question i'm sorry i was just not looking um but one thing i have noticed is that there are some people who do use the chat as a as an actual chat like a respond to a lot of different things and i think you're right that that may be hard to manage um because it can wind up more like a conversation uh michael yeah and the the chat has has its advantages but it has a lot of disadvantages particularly for people like me who speak a lot quicker than they can type and i think it may be a disincentive for people to speak up if i have to type something rather than just put up your hand and speak so uh it's a mixed bag yeah i mean maybe maybe not using the chat i mean what paul just said is actually a really good point i mean maybe maybe it really should be verbally listening to one person at a time in the order we see their hands come up and then maybe the chat because it can be used as a sidebar conversation maybe we discourage that being used i don't i'm just trying to bring i think that's better yeah i think that's better to see people's hands and then they can switch on their camera and we can see their body language all the rest of it does that does that seem like it makes sense to paul paul yeah my body language is telling me it's hungry i know me too i have a little secret to tell you all about this i actually have a master of science degree in this kind of stuff public telecommunications planning and i've had that degree for i think uh 43 years and when i was in graduate school we talked about replacing transportation with communication and this is the first the pandemic there's been the impetus for that actually happening after all these years so i think one of the silver linings of the pandemic is this kind of stuff and i think we'll see lots more of it probably driven by um global warming you know the necessity to really eliminate transportation as much as we can and replace it with communication which is what we're doing well it's it's pretty i'm actually joining you from pennsylvania tonight which i'm i'm so excited to go on vacation this summer we can still go to meetings it's fine i actually to that point um the the survey that they're doing for the swift spear um that presentation was so excellent and i'm wondering if there isn't somebody who could help us create an interactive way for the public to provide comment in a way that's easy for us to digest some kind of survey like that um maybe whoever created the survey for the swift spear it could be a really good model and without without it getting too complicated but it might be a really good way we can we can look at a thousand emails but if there's some kind of easy way for the community to give us information and then for us to output it in a way that's organized um that could be very very helpful yeah and the questions obviously are critical it can't be rhetorical i think i wouldn't deny chat to people i think people now have an expectation that it's going to be there and there are some active participants so so i discourage them you know it's just another facet yeah you did a great job jessica good meeting tonight yeah oh i'm all worked up over it are we just are we dismissed yes thank you so much you are dismissed adjourned thank you all thanks everyone good luck in the future