 Seeing as it's just past seven here we will call this June 5th meeting of the DRB to order. We'll start by introducing the members starting at my right. Gene Leong, board member. Katherine Burgess, board member. Meredith Crandall, staff. Rob Goodwin, the chair. Alex, if you want to just pull your microphone up right there. I thought we weren't using it. We are for everybody remotely and for the recording minutes. The microphones don't matter for people in the room so we still need to speak up and speak into the microphones and when people come up to testify they'll have to speak in the microphones too. It's taking me like four years to figure it all out. Yeah we and people have to get reminded all the time so don't worry about it. Okay well so meeting is called to order. Just turn it over to Meredith real quick for a brief review of our procedures particularly related to the remote aspect of this meeting. Okay so I'm going to be sharing my screen. The stuff on the screen is mostly for anybody who is watching the meeting over Orca Media. Oh and of course it's doing all sorts of fun stuff here on me. So for those viewing tonight's Development and Review Board meeting via Orca Media you can participate in the meeting via the Zoom platform either through video or telephone access options. So if you want to be able to have it all integrated with video and you can see us and we can see you you're going to want to type this web address right into your platform. It will bring you into the Zoom meeting. I'll just need to let you in but I'll get a notification of that. Alternatively you can dial this phone number and when prompted type in this meeting ID and again I'll get a notification and let you into the meeting. If anybody is trying to get into the meeting and having problems please email me at mcrandallatmotpillier-vt.org. For those who are attending via Zoom note that turning your video on is optional. For everyone attending remotely please keep your microphone on mute when you're not speaking. This will reduce background noise and note that the Zoom chat function should only be used for troubleshooting or logistics questions. If you have a question or comment about an item on the agenda please raise your hand either physically if your video is on or by using the raise hand button on your toolbar. Then once you have been called on by the chair you can state your name once you're unmuted and then ask your question or make your comment. For applicants that are on remotely Paul you've done this before you understand that the system is a little different you'll get a chance to talk and not necessarily have to raise your hand for it. So if you do get called on to speak please make sure to provide your full name and address for the record and sorry just scanning because there's some stuff I don't need to say. And then note that if I get noticed that the public is having problems accessing their meeting and I can't walk them through and get them logged in then the meeting will need to be continued to a time place and certain specifically for whatever hearing they're logging on for whichever application. I'll now hand the meeting back over to the chair. Okay thank you Meredith. I'll take a motion to approve the agenda. Motion by Gene second by Catherine. All those in favor of approve the agenda say aye. We have an agenda for tonight's meeting. Thank you everyone for being here. We want to welcome our new board member Alex. Alex would you like to introduce yourself to a little bit about yourself for tonight's meeting. I live in Montpelier on Balkan Street I'm actually a neighbor to 149th State George's property. We moved here about 11 years ago but I've lived in central Vermont for almost 50. I'm about to retire from a 30 year teaching career at Dartmouth College. Before that I taught at Union 32. Wonderful. Well thank you for joining us Alex. It's great to have you. So we have three applications this evening. Two of them are sketch plan applications that were you know we had we reviewed those on you know May 1st and and then also included in tonight's package are some draft rules revised rules of our procedure for the DRB that we've been working on revising. There'll be no vote on that tonight but board members take those and review them. Those are also made available to the public via the agenda and the website. If you have comments on those please contact Meredith. We'd be interested if you have any input and that being said we can review the May 1st meetings from the DRB. I have no issue with voting to approve these. We don't have everyone here but you've got three. Yeah right you need but it's it's you don't have to have been in attendance at the meeting to actually vote on minutes. Technically I've conferred with counsel on this. You don't necessarily have to for minutes as long as you have some people who are voting for it. I know it's procedurally. Most boards and committees do require a quorum who's been there. It's not legally required from what I've been advised and the DRB's rules of procedure don't actually say specifically right now. So it's up to you guys if you want to wait until you have four members who were at the meeting or if you want to do it now. Well maybe we post points a nice meeting Joe can't necessarily vote on it either because I thought of it was his application anyway. So right. I forgot about that part. No that's actually probably a good point. It's not like we have a situation where we don't have members anymore like we've had that happen before members were no longer part of the board. Yeah. All right. So we will move that to the next meeting of the DRB and move on to a first application meeting. George Estes if you want to step up. Hello my name is George Estes. The residents were implying about this was 149 State Street Montpelier. Okay great. You want to just hold on one second. Thank you for the introduction. Do we have anyone on our electronic platform that will be testifying on this application? Seeing none. We will swear you in as a witness to this application and then move along here. So those interested in providing testimony on this application, raise your right hand to be sworn in as a witness. Raise your right hand. Great. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth nothing but the truth under the pains and penalties of perjury? Yes I do. All right. Thank you George. So yeah if you want to as you were as you were doing just give a brief overview of your application here and okay. I purchased the building in August on 149 and the building has commercial office space now and right now the space because of the way the world is I can't seem to occupy all the office spaces that are in the building so I'm trying to come up with some type of revenue to keep the building afloat and keep it with in compliance with everything that I need to do and then try to offer a BNB situation for short term like legislatures or Friday, Saturday, Sunday rental to offer for the weekend for people or families to come up. It's just a short term rental units per one. It's not like I'm trying to get a long term rental monthly on each one of those individual spaces. It's basically a short term rental to try to bring in extra revenue for the building. That's on the smaller unit. Excuse me. The short term rentals on the smaller unit? There's actually three different spaces. Basically the biggest one is about 210 square feet and the other ones are all 176 and the other ones like 169 or something like that. There's two smaller ones. Okay great. Well thank you for the context of the project here. Meredith do you want to give us a little technical analysis here of what's going on and we can then proceed? Yeah. So this is I think probably the first time we've had a congregate living application actually come before the board. So the way our regulations define congregate living, which is what I've brought this up to you as, it is where you have dwelling units that are sharing a key or key element or elements of a dwelling unit. And in this case there are kitchen facilities, there's bathroom facilities, but the different units are really sort of bedroom spaces and they'll be sharing a communal kitchen bath space. And so that really that fits in with what we call congregate living under our definitions. So that's come here. It's in the this zoning district in mixed use residential. It's a conditional use under our current zoning any congregate living. So it's before the board because I can't prove it. I don't really see any red flags. I feel there's a lot of red in the staff report because there are places where the board has to make the determination. But there's lots of parking. The use isn't really going to overlap with the commercial use that's continuing there from what I see the existing office uses. But the board has to make some of these final determinations, especially in the conditional use chapter of 330 where I've given some suggestions. But I think, you know, digging a little more in discussion with George about a few of those items just to make sure things are on the record. To design review, have any recommendations? Oh, thank you for reminding me. Yes. So a subset of the application was some changes that George needed to make to railing for a second story porch space balcony space for life and safety code and insurance code requirements. The design review committee was fine with those railing changes. The DRB sort of has to checkmark on it so that I can issue the permit. They made one optional recommendation, which was that if George wanted he could paint the new interior lattice black, which especially from a distance would make it so that what you're really paying attention to is the historic lattice that's up in the front. But that historic lattice is had the holes in it are too big for insurance purposes. But the design review committee and our standards really don't want to remove that lattice and completely replace it. You've got to do something so you can keep that historic material that was probably that was spent on there as far as we can tell since the building was built. So that they were they were fine with that aspect of it. Thanks for reminding me, Rob. Okay. So I guess on to digging into our review here. Does the board sort of understand the congregate living definition and do you feel comfortable with the staff's analysis of determining that this is a congregate living situation? Am I right in understanding that there's still going to be office spaces that also have access to the bathroom in the kitchen? Yes, there's four bathrooms in the building to our ADA approved downstairs. The upstairs is not ADA approved. But there's two bathrooms upstairs that are common bathrooms for all the tenants, not tenants, excuse me, commercial people that are there that occupy the offices. Now they share the common spaces, the common entranceways, the common fire exits and fire entrances. The common hallways, the buildings open from the each end so they can use the downstairs or the upstairs as they will or wish. This isn't a question, but just for the record, yeah, I think this makes sense. You know, to categorize this as congregate living, I know you're always thinking about, continued refinements to the code. I think textbook congregate living would be full-time occupants. So to me, this is short-term congregate living. So I think we have the information we need to make a determination for this and to discuss it this evening, but that might be something to think about longer term. So since that point was raised, can I? Yes, Meredith, go ahead. So the Planning Department, Planning Commission are going to be working on some tweaks to some of the residential use definitions. You're going to want to keep an eye on the Planning Commission agendas, but one of the points that has been raised several times is that we really don't feel like we can dig into the type of residents that are going into a residential use, whether it's a long-term lease, a short-term lease, Airbnb, once you start digging into those details, the question of who is using that space starts coming up. And so we're honestly, at least Mike Miller and I are feeling like we really need to stay away from that. And there's some discussion about even stepping back and looking at trying to make sure that congregate living uses are regulated more in parity with the other dwelling unit uses so that maybe you're looking more at the scope of the size of the congregate living to determine whether or not it is a conditional use or a permitted use versus right now a mixed user residential. Once you go into congregate living, no matter how many square feet of it you use, that's immediately a conditional use, whereas there are multiple options for a full-size dwelling unit that is just permitted, doesn't need to come to the board. So if you start looking at short-term rental versus long-term rental, it starts, we don't know if we want to go there. Ultimately, it's going to be planning commission and city council decision. And I think that makes sense. So to me, it's always important to raise that for the record since we haven't had an application like this. Perfect, agreed. Thank you. Thank you, Catherine. I think it's important to include that into our discussions here. So I think the next area of analysis here is looking at parking and loading as it relates to our regulations in this project. Meredith, do you reference a 1993 blueprint of the property? Yeah, but it's in your packet. Is it in the packet? Yep, it should be in the packet. Um, there should be a fold-out. Did you guys get this? No. Oh, it's on the computer. Oh, okay. So let me just rip mine out. Sorry. No, that's all right. No, that didn't get printed. I didn't know this, so we get an email. So, so I got you too. Yeah, so, um, so that's the site plan. From there, and there's just some additional pictures that I put in that should have been listed in the staff report. Yeah, I see the pictures. I just the... Okay, so, yeah, once you take a peek. Yeah. So, huh, that's because I printed this one out for myself. Yep, I can do a screen share for sure. Yep, let me do that. Give me one second. I got it. You got it online. Yep, let me simplify my options here. I'll close a couple things out. So let me screen share. All right, so there is that. So those thicker lines are where I just sort of highlighted some parking lines that were on that site plan. So here's State Street. Here's the building that's existing. This was a site plan that was put forward when they were doing the new ADA ramp. Under those regulations, once they did the new ADA ramp, they weren't actually evaluating parking. That wasn't part of the decision, but they had to adjust these parking spaces down here to become parallel. Parallel? Yeah, parallel spaces, sorry. So that there was room for the ramp and access here because this bumped things out. So that's why that was on here, but they didn't actually mark all of the available parking spaces. But that shows a minimum of what's there. And then there are some images that I included that show. Those are from different time periods. So this is the sort of existing 2023 image from Google Maps. And you can see some of the parking lines that were already in here painted. And then a little bit, it looks to be maybe a little bit older image just from the quality of the quality of the image. There's clearly, I mean, there's been parking all along both sides here. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, because there's no, the only change is that railing. And so in the design review review, they had to consider the historic nature of the building when looking at that railing. But otherwise for the change of use, there's nothing else changing on the exterior of the building. And they, you know, even just this one line of parking provides sufficient parking for the two uses that are going to be happening here. Tender group has stopped. Much sufficient parking on this parcel, especially as it relates to this change of use. So I don't see any real change there than what's being proposed. I'm okay with that. The next item would be landscaping and screening. And are you proposing any changes to the exterior of this building? No, we're basically, I'm going to put some hostess and some plants and buy the front sign and buy the front handicap entrance because it's got that ragweed. And I've been pulling it out trying to get rid of that. So it's one of the things. It's just the front of the building on the street side that there's where the signs are. And it's just this disgusting ragweed that I've been pulling out every year. And now I'm just trying to better the appearance of the front of the building. So just some clarification on your comment here. On my comment? Yes, your comment. Sorry. Okay. Were you suggesting like a sketch of the interior of like what? Okay. What page are you on? I'm on, sorry. I'm on page 10 of the stop report. Okay. I'm referring to the starting the conditional use standards. Were you suggesting a, you know, a detail of like the layout inside of like? No, no, no, just just the description that was given earlier that the bathroom and the kitchen are going to be shared with the three congregate living units. Gotcha. And how how that use was going to happen. So that's that's all I meant. Yeah. No, I didn't, I didn't think he needed to submit anything in writing on that. Okay. Wonderful. Drawings. Yep, that's fine. Very chime in board members if you want, if you if you want. I'm seeing this is quite a minimal change here from the current use with, you know, good, yes, Jean. I'd like to entertain emotion. Oh, so just just make. We got to go through that. You guys have to go through the conditional use ones because I can't make those determinations. So I've made suggestions, but on those you got to actually talk about the the capacity of community facilities and utilities, traffic, the 3302 on so page it starts on page what so not nine 10, you know, just it can be sort of a check boxy thing, but officially those are the that's why it's here. So my understanding is that you're working with the city to look at your water and your sewer allocations for this project. You're looking you're working with the city to look at the water and the sewer capacity for the for the project. Yes. And no no real concerns there about the change of use as I understand it. Yeah, I go from when I talked to him basically though I was proposing to do it and they said the occupancy of the 14 tenants that are in the building now offices that right now the building isn't occupied fully. So the water and the waste has actually been lower than previous years that it's been used. So now that the usage is less than it was three years before COVID there was the building was full. So the amount of water and sewer that it was being used is more than it is now. Sure. So I mean okay I tend to agree with staff on the facilities of water and sewer. I think when it comes to the traffic in the area I don't see any issue either. I think there's plenty of parking. I think we discussed about the spillover onto the street of on street parking. Probably not an issue here and yeah. So any board members have any comments on the traffic? Absolutely. My park can then enjoy not using their car for a lot of the weekend. So I assess a little bit about character of the neighborhood. This is kind of a broad brush that gets painted over the city. I don't see any issues with character of the neighborhood. I think this is maybe the great type of transition that we should be looking at for changing times. Board members have any other comment? So we can move on here to the architectural compatibility. The designer review did review this for the railing. Yeah yeah it wouldn't be for because that's separate from the conditionally used review. I got you. Right there's no changes specifically associated with the use. Okay and then yards lots and landscaping here do not have any exterior changes to the parcel so therefore don't see any issue there. And so I guess ultimately here we have to decide for the regulations of this with this new use is compatible with the neighborhood and the you know the existing use and board members feel like this complies. Alrighty seeing none. I think we've hit the major major points on this like I said quite a sort of major minor change here to the current configuration and type of activity on the property. Meredith did we do we miss anything? I don't think so. No I think that's that's everything. Yeah it's one of those ones we're trying to come up with writing the staff report. I don't really need that many facts from George because it all just sort of works. I think it's yeah it's a pretty simple simple project easy to grasp and yeah. Seeing none I'll accept a motion. Motion go ahead Gene. The request for conditional use and minor site plan approval to convert the 600 square fee of office space at 149 State Street into congregate living rooms as presented in application number Z-2023-0057 and supporting and supplemental materials. Motion by Gene second by Joe. Okay is there any discussion on the motion? Okay seeing none I will start a roll call vote. Gene how do you vote? Yes. Gene yes. Katherine? Yes. Alex? Yes. Joe? Yes. Rob myself votes yes that's unanimously approved. Thank you George. Thank you very much. So George this is your verbal okay the official okay has to be in writing. Okay. We'll get to that decision as soon as we can and because there were no special conditions on the approval when we issue the decision and get Rob to sign it we'll also issue the permit so you'll get everything at once for zoning you can keep working with Michelle on the building permit part and continue to work with Kurt on any water sewer issues but feel free to come in and chat with me if you need to about any of it but I will I will reach out as soon as the stuff is ready for you. All right appreciate it thank you very much. You're welcome George. Before we move on Ben Merrill could you just unmute and let me know which application you're on here for tonight. I'm just joining as part of the Gove community garden I don't really have any input just spectator. Okay awesome thank you. Okay John and Maureen Miller good evening. Next application we have is 5 number 7 Vine Street which was a subdivision we did sketch plan on I believe on May 1st ish our last meeting of the DRB and they're here for a two parcel final subdivision plan so since we are on the record this time we'll be swearing both of you in as a witness is there anyone else on our zoom platform here to testify on this application seeing none those interested in the Millers providing testimony in this application would you raise your right hand do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give is the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth under the pains and penalties of perjury. Yes I do. All right thank you so I guess I will say to start of always start you know this application was a I think a very well-prepared sketch plan application that we had a good discussion on the last the last meeting. Meredith you want to give us an update on if anything's changed since since then where we're at. So as the board remembers this is a two-partial subdivision of already developed lands so that the ultimate proposal is to divide up a piece of land that currently has two single family homes on it so that each home has its own parcel with a shared driveway and there'll be a access easement so that the parcel that doesn't own the driveway gets to park there and use it and and all the necessary rights so the the items that have been added we now have draft language about that easement that will get recorded there's also a little more detail about where those sewer lines run because that was one of the questions raised and you know it's it all seems to have been been tied up as best you can without you know digging up the driveway to confirm exactly where the sewer lines run you know there's only so much you can do but I think that the the there's enough information in here so that anybody buying either one of those parcels is going to have the information they need to plan for any future future work there is a tiny bit of information a little tweak that I think should be made to the final plot before it's recorded okay that's noted in the staff report um but that's that's I think that was this one sorry having both both of these subdivisions on for the same night and sketch the same night for final has been a little hard to keep keep straight in my head sometimes right um okay would you guys like to give a little update on where you're at um yeah in terms of the the sewer lines you're close to the microphone I know you you you have a good carrying voice but I just want to make sure that in terms of the sewer lines we we did talk to our attorney Jim Palmezano on this he said these are the kind of things that are best left between the two people rather than written into the deed because things come up and you know the way he kind of characterized it makes sense to me is that nowadays if something happens to your sewer line or your water line they basically send a little transmitter down there takes a minute or two they know exactly where it is they send in the heavy equipment they dig it out you know a day or two later everything's back in business it's expensive but it's you know it's quick and maybe maybe it's kind of a mess for a few days but but what what Jim was saying and what I was when we discussed this was you know the house is like 20 feet or 30 feet 20 feet from the street there's on street parking everybody uses it right nearby it's not the end of the world if somebody has to dig up their sewer pipe in the back house the front house will still be able to access the house I mean if a day or two might be lost so those are the kind of things he thought would be best served by just leave just setting up the easement in the parking and making it very clear which we did it's actually designated where the front house would part where number seven would park and it is truly the driveway is owned by the back house so if he's got to dig up the driveway for his water pipe I mean nothing's going to stop that anyway so you know it seems to me like it's probably it's probably a non-issue and it's just you know not everything is perfect yeah sewer lines things can happen we just hope they don't yeah did you get a chance to review the staff report yes you did and so it looks like got sort of one issue we should just discuss briefly I think we did discuss it before is the sort of the frontage of the two the two parcels these parcels are accessed by shared driveway so it's a little bit of a different situation than if they both had their own own driveway board's okay with the analysis of staff here but I think that the shared driveway does put it into much a different category and I'm okay with the frontages of the two parcels here okay the shared driveway is the frontage for the for the parcel on the rear yeah yeah that shared driveway is is the frontage for the rear parcel yep okay along here for those following along I'm on page six of the staff report and we have a couple notes here on the vehicle access and circulation and I don't think there are any major issues here but thank you for providing the the parking easement and that information I think that does address the issues you know brought up in you know the sketch plan and so I think we'll accept that as addressing that issue so then the next item would be the parking and loading areas this is also on page six and I believe this looks like this is also addressed by the easement that you drafted up between the two parcels and the dimensions here Meredith can you give me a little update on the dimensions you have notes here the so we have a 50 foot long driveway and a 16 feet wide is that what we're saying is the limit no no so so so if you look on the plat oh yeah right so there's actually a dimensions on there now this is the actual plat versus the site plan right oh existing conditions plan versus the survey plat so and that was the one of the things that the the survey plat is going to need to show that those easements right so that's the that's the final tweak right is once the board's okayed it the item that needs to come to me for recording is going to need to include that um like that parking area and and easement bit on it but if you look on the c1 Miller family trust existing conditions plan you can see designating parking area for seven vine street it's eight and a half feet wide by 54 feet I think that's 54 feet sorry I need bifocals 54 feet long so it's that fits you know parking spaces need to be at least eight and a half feet wide and they've just spelled out a length there so it's flexible depending on what happens to that front front building um so that that fits that makes perfect sense um any questions on that um well it's it's been the parking situation if the property yeah for 35 years and there's just no issue sure yeah it's it's um yeah it's nice parking yeah there's plenty a room for everybody I've never seen a lot of us an issue we had parking I mean these are small houses so we're not talking about families with three cars or you know we're talking about one car families or sometimes two car families and there's room for more if they have to be but well there's room for a visitor right they can have grandma come to visit and park there's also parking on the street yeah yeah when I when I go there usually that's where I park on the street great so moving on to the design configuration of partial boundaries we talked about the front edges and we uh we see no issue with that um public and private utilities um we you know I think talked to some about the underground utilities I think thanks for your due diligence on that you know on that part I think it's good that that process happened there's yeah it's underground we can't see trust me I'm a I'm a I'm a surveyor myself and we don't like dealing with underground stuff because we can't see it so well we've enjoyed living with the survey markers oh and we've been over there working a lot and it's it's good it makes you look at the you look at the property a little differently because you know here's oh this is this is the end one property and the start of another but wonderful um and so uh moving along um one just keep part to highlight and this will be conditioned in the decision is that um you know do you need to make sure that the markers are installed on the the new proposed line as shown on the plat um you know prior to well recording of the plat I guess is what when we specify that yeah I mean the all the new any new pins anything like that that are noted in the plat need to go or are going to get put in the ground yeah they're in there now they're about three feet high with a flag on the so that's been done yeah that's been that way so they they're in the ground but then they've got the higher notices still on top of them wonderful oh yeah and then the the actual metal unit is below the square the stake is yeah yeah cool um yeah rick's pretty rick's pretty thorough about getting that stuff in and then go back and move it if he has to later but oh yeah um so I I think we we've hit the key points here I don't I don't see any any issues but some of the stuff is just related to the one condition here of the um just including the um easement um on the plat as we discussed um board members have any other questions or comments concerns okay seeing none I would accept a motion here a motion to approve a two parcel subdivision of parcel number 161-007000 including memorialization of a shared driveway as presented in application number z-2023-0058 and supporting and supplemental materials subject to the following conditions of approval the final survey plat recording in the city land records as submitted to the zoning administrator for signature and recording shall include the appropriate references to the shared gravel drive parking and utility easement described in the draft language provided in the application and approved by this decision and within 180 days of the this decision applicant shall record one the final survey plat modified as required by condition one and two the parking access and utility easement provided herein in the Montpelier land records office per the procedures detailed in section 4405 of the zoning regulations including the locations of all apical survey rods and markers okay motion by joe uh second by alex um i will any discussion on the motion seeing none uh let's accept a roll call vote uh joe how do you vote yes alex yes katherine yes jean and rob myself votes yes um that's unanimously approved thank you so much once we uh go ahead maritah if you're better at explaining this than me so we'll get you the written decision as soon as we can um and uh yeah so for this one the condition is a after permit condition so we'll be able to get you the we'll be able to issue the permit with the um decision with the written decision but then you're going to want to work with rick to get the final details on the survey plat that'll get created into my larn sent to me so when if you want i can talk you know we can talk to rick ahead of time or on there he just said he was wait till the meeting okay great so he can send it if he wants to send it to me to just look over via email first before he prints it on mylar um that works great so you can talk to him have it sent it to me and then i mean even if you get me the mylar before the decision's out we'll just wait till the decision and the permits issued and then there's no rush nope there's no rush i don't know you know if you aren't yeah you just have you just you just have to do it and get it to me for recording with the easement within six months of the decision the written decision so you've got time um if you want to wait and do that you know when there's a transfer or not whichever you want to do we won't forget oh oh yeah make because that's that's not something i necessarily track i don't necessarily follow up on that we actually had one recently where everybody was like wait what happened so yeah don't forget because then you got to do this whole process again it's been great working with the board i especially want to call out all the help we received from mariner thank you you're welcome i'll comment something absolutely well thank you thank you for your question your process have a good night i'm sure i'll see you soon john uh oh now you just we or at least talk to you we talk all the time i think so yeah i think they're renting out both properties and both houses okay uh paul are you there i am here can you hear me yes we can and actually just so you know chris is here too okay so chris is coming up to the table so the two of you can tag team this one hey chris and we also have a couple other gardeners on the phone michael ruella and um ben merrill all right so michael and ben do you plan on uh speaking on this application are you just here to observe or even if you just think you might speak um just be here to observe and support probably won't speak okay yep same here this is ben all right wonderful so uh chris and paul um paul i'll just assume that you're raising your right hand we can't see you um but i trust you yes it's being raised right now wonderful uh in chris um so um you got right to it raise your right hand to be sworn in as a witness do you solemnly swear and affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth under the pains and penalties of perjury yes yes chris yes from paul um and we are on to our application here of 24 81 elm street um said it wasn't too long ago we had a sketch plan application on uh on this and um we'll go with you guys first this time because you want to give a little update of what's what's happened since the sketch plan and uh we can go from there um i think the main chain we made a few there you know in the staff report from the sketch plan there were some suggestions um some of it related to what the state wants to see relative to the wastewater permit we understood from the state that in dc that we were not required to get a wastewater permit but we had to document on the survey plat the conditions that mean it's basically the distance from the existing house to the lot line was exceeded the minimum which is 500 feet and so we talked to our surveyor and that's now on the plat which should you should have a copy of that i think the plat um was updated so it has all that information um i think there's also a reference in the notes on the survey plat um i think it might reference the deed that says that the that the property the smaller parcel that's being subdivided off is really just meant to be exclusively used as a community garden right and also chris if i can add that we have since added specific language that the dc asked us to include basically saying if we do anything different with the property we have to come in for a wastewater permit and then land is to be used right so that that language is now incorporated into the draft deed right i mean it basically says in the deed that you acknowledge that you know basically the property may not be percolable and may not be developed for septic and if you want to go that route you got to go through this whole process but i think it's it's an acknowledgement in the deed that we we recognize that there may not be you may not be able to put septic on that on property which was understood right from the beginning yeah and there's two different places on the survey about the limiting of the use of the way don't trying to see you said it was on the survey about the distance to the yeah so it should be marked it's like an overall sketch there um they've got a 640 yep thank you i was looking at the the close in that's on the becky added yep yeah and other than that i don't think there was any any other issues we came back chris uh they uh the city asked us for information about what was it the um impermeable surfaces the amount of impermeable surface on the where the existing houses we provided that we did calculate the impervious surface on the remaining lot you know the buildings and the driveways which are questionable how impervious they are but we told all that up and i think it met the criteria for the minimum yep or whatever maximum allow it whatever yep wonderful um and then they added and so i'm just going to jump in they added in the details so that there's a map here in the record now about the river corridor yep um and the flood hazard area so that was one of the other items that the board had wanted to get get clear i also just want to add it might not be clear but the gardeners are really excited i'm excited about because we've gone from a place where we might not like last year close that we wouldn't even be able to garden there and then with the sale of the land imminent also we were threatened to close the garden so we are really excited just the concept that this garden is going to be you know protected in perpetuity so i just i just want to make sure that was clear the level of this excitement and happiness from some of us well and i think just on that note that condition in this type of application you know sort of makes much of the other analysis of it a little bit maybe easier to get through you folks have done a very good job of documenting in multiple places so that in the future somebody if for some reason the garden disappears and people forget there was ever a garden there and we have you know two parcels that it will be very clear soon as someone digs into it that you know there's there's one purpose for this lot and it was community garden and i think that's important for the zoning process important for other processes as well so i don't i mean i don't see any major issues here to address meredith was there any technical things that we're missing here for a final review um what i'm realizing is i think audrey gave you guys the wrong staff report oh really yeah this is sketch subdivision review let me know okay so it's final so somehow i got a wrong copy okay whatever good i'm glad you guys kept the right one you're so sketch the online all right so she posted the wrong one online oh my gosh all right so somebody who has one that has the motion because i'm sitting here what happened um all right so sorry about that goodness audres out for several days and i have stomach illness in my house and everything falls apart um yep yeah paper hard the hard copy never fails goodness gracious um uh so one of you has a motion uh but yeah this is all yeah you know it's it all seemed to be buttoned up you know this is a it's an it's a atypical subdivision but the reasons for it being atypical are documented enough that i think the board can approve it absolutely absolutely um so uh i can make a motion go ahead katherine okay are you all ready for a motion yes to approve a two parcel subdivision of 2481 elm street as presented in application number z 2023 0059 and supporting and supplemental material subject to the following condition that within 180 days of this decision the applicant shall record the final survey plat in the montpelier land records office per the procedures detailed in 4405 of the zoning regs including the location of all applicable survey rods and markers okay thank you captain second by gene um any discussion on the motion to approve seeing none gene how do you vote yes katherine yes alex yes joe yes and rob myself was yes that's unanimously approved yeah good lovely good that teach me not to check every single attachment on the online version this is why we have multi-factor authentication of these applications this is why i love getting the print out at the police station it's secure but what's printed out it's supposed to be what's online i don't know how that happens oh my goodness yeah i mean the two yeah yeah redundancies yeah so i'm glad i didn't read the staff report okay i'm just gonna blame it on the the stomach illness meredith can this is paul class question yes you just give us without putting you in a spot go ahead paul can you repeat a ballpark in terms when we might issue the rule whatever it's called the opinion the findings or the city on this i honestly i'm going to get to it as soon as possible but i have three coming out of tonight each decision is almost as long if sometimes not longer than the staff reports so a lot of it is same language but those all have to be created in amongst all the other work i'm doing and audra's out for the next two days so any questions that come into the office that normally go to her go to me so i'm going to do my very best to get it out as soon as possible i honestly don't know exactly when i i like i said i was you know i was out two days last week because of stomach illness in my family so i'm going to do my very very best um no no it's just a ballpark it was fine that's i'm hoping that i can get everything done in the next two weeks before we have to do staff reports for the next meeting that's in two weeks um i'll do my best but yeah you know i've got a i have to have a staff report for the meeting in two weeks so if i don't get all three done before then i have to switch gears to the staff report for that public hearing well i think board members can attest that meredith's highly productive just done a clarification our understanding is that once you get the permit there's a 30 day comment period oh there's a 30 day appeal period after the decision so because there's no conditions on here i'll be able to issue the decision and the permit in the same day so as soon as i got that decision ready and rob has signed it we can issue that and issue the permit and then there's a 30 day appeal period right nobody has come in to talk but because you're talking about then recording the subdivision and the land transfer attorneys usually say you should wait to do that recording of documentation right till after that appeal period is over for that so yeah the landowner's okay with that yeah yeah so that's that's usually i think what attorneys would would argue in favor and so then um so part of that process will be having that final mylar printed i think you're familiar with the process chris right and then she'll have to set the pins hasn't done that yet i think probably wait till after that comment period sure and then once the mylar is ready bring that to my office because rob will need to sign it so we'll need to coordinate on that because this is associated with a transfer if you want to them be able to record that at the same time as the deeds and everything let me know and i'll just tell you when it's signed and then you can take it upstairs to the clerk's office with everything else sometimes for those subdivisions where you want to record it before the actual transfer happens um i just take it upstairs and gets recorded immediately as soon as possible we have to go to the city council still for approval of the right right so yeah wait till you've got all that done and and i forgot about that aspect of the transfer too um but you know maybe bring me the mylar after you've got the city council approval sure and do all that but we'll we'll coordinate for sure great i think we're done we're not going to go to the city council till we have the permit and the approval from the city right is that you have verbal approval right now if they need proof we can cut out the the video of the you know there's going to be minutes of the meeting um by the it should be by the end of this week if our recording secretary gets done on time so that will be proof that it's gotten the approval i think you can go to council before you have the written decision i wouldn't wait we've got a lot of ways on that sometimes we post up coming here and like there's a conditional approval with city council and you know back and forth so i think yeah don't let it hold you up yeah don't let it hold i mean you have the approval it's just not in writing yet okay well we can i'm not sure about the council schedule and all that stuff yeah so work but you can work with the manager's office to to make sure you know what how to do that okay all right i'm i'm signing off thank you all right can you guys you guys make sure we get some rain the garden it's really nice so if you guys can look on that i mean you have all sorts of powers should we go up to the roof of city hall and do a little rain dance for you yeah that's a that's a city council matter so i have no no authority yeah i think i think i think we're gonna be okay that was a good job that's probably a jurisdiction i bet all right well thank you again i'll echo the previous speaker that it's been great to work with meredith thank you thank you you're welcome okay so well some other business um we don't have we have we have a limited quorum tonight um but i just do you want how that made us has put some work into um over the last several weeks i guess months maybe uh chipping away at it no i just couldn't get to it till recently yeah right um so she has prepared some draft um amendments to our procedures so i would encourage you to review that if you have comments let's i think it'd be great to uh to get that on our agenda for approval uh there are some quite outdated things in there and um and so uh just look at that and uh you know hopefully maybe have some feedback by our next meeting and week what's our process for that meredith as far as just a one meeting right yeah for for amend the rules of procedure it's not like trying to amend the zoning regulations these are your rules you can just have a vote on it um you know if possible i would have as many members here as possible get comments from people um just to sort of as an overview you know we've we had discussions six months ago about things in here that were outdated um you know there were there was some i've moved some language around because that the the item about um members not being current members of the planning commission was sort of buried so i just moved that up to membership um we have and alex wouldn't be familiar with this we had a situation where both our chair and our vice chair had to recuse themselves from an application because of complex of interest and there was no procedure in here for um having a temporary acting vice chair or anything so we have added that in here just to be abundantly clear i mean we were able to get attorneys advice and know that we could do it but making sure it's clear in the rules of procedures seemed like a smart move um and then there were some other tweaks about process because there were certain items in here that the board just hasn't done in years because how certain permits got approved by the city got amended in 2018 and so there were there were several tweaks in here like the references to the board during its agenda um having uh what was it reviewing administrative approvals or yeah the consent agenda items it used to be every single permit that went to design review came to the development review board as a consent consent agenda item every single permit so you know the board would have maybe three or four consent agenda items every um meeting plus many many more administrative permits right things are administrative now would come forth for the board so the board might have five six sometimes seven additional applications that they had to review every meeting this is much better volunteer this is much better volunteer management you know it's a little more for two people to handle in the office but we would have had to look at them all anyway to get them to the board exactly so yes that is appropriately in the packet um as a red line draft and I can also if you just want me to send you another version of it I can do that um so yeah there's a red line on in that packet at the end I think it's in the printed packet too and the printed one is soon this is all track changes correct so yeah that's all track changes hold on I've got another one I have a question about yes go ahead which I thought about before I came in since my husband and I ever bought her to the 149th state should I have said something about that you you disclosed it I did you did disclose it so that's that's sufficient nobody objected and it's not like you have a financial interest in that so you know there was no need for you to recuse the disclosal was disclosure sorry was sufficient and the appropriate thing to do okay yeah and you know the I didn't have to say that I knew George was a teenager no we would have fairly long meetings in this time so we had to go through that especially if you taught at U32 and other places I mean yeah it's yeah if we oh my goodness yeah no yeah um okay well on that note uh we would accept a motion to adjourn motion by Alex second by Joe all those in favor say aye all right all right wonderful