 Hey, thank you all for being here. I'd like to call this regular meeting of the development of e-bar to order. I'd like to introduce my board members actually starting up by right here. Kevin O'Connell board member. I'm Rob Goodwin, the chair. Meredith Crandall staff. Captain Burgess, board member. And on our Zoom platform we have Michael, are you here? I'm here. Michael, the board member. Thank you. Okay, and then we've got Joe. Good job, board member. Abby. Abby White, board member. All right, Gene. Keenley on high board member. Okay. Just want to do a one process real quick. So how many do four members do we have tonight? One, two, three, four, seven. Seven. So we have full qualms. Yep, full qualms. Everybody's here. Everybody's here for the party. Perfect. Okay, so I will turn now over to Meredith to provide a review of our remote meeting procedures. And here you go. All right, so everybody who's on via Zoom, I'm going to be sharing my screen. I went to the wrong thing. Hold on one second. There we go. All right, so the slideshow part is really for people who are watching via Orca media so that they can see how to log in. But there's going to be some other information that's for everybody, especially anyone who hasn't done a Zoom meeting with the Montpelier Development Review Board or Design Review Committee before. So for those viewing this meeting via Orca media, you can participate in tonight's DRB meeting via the Zoom platform by either using this video link. You can just type it right into your web browser and it should take you right into the meeting. Or call this phone number and plug in this meeting ID number here and you will be able to talk and listen. You just won't be able to see what's what everybody else is seeing on your computer or your smartphone. If someone is having... Oops, I forgot to update this. If someone's having issues getting in, please just email me. Don't email Mike. He's not on tonight, but I can help you log in. My email address is also on the city website. For those who are attending via the Zoom platform, turning on your video is optional. Please do keep your microphone on mute when you're not speaking. This will reduce background noise and please use the Zoom chat function only for troubleshooting or logistics questions. If you have something substantive to say about an application or otherwise have some sort of comment you want to make to the to the board, please raise your hand either there if you have your video on and we'll see you or use your raise hand button on the Zoom platform and the chair will call on you at an appropriate time and then you'll be able to make that substantive comment then. If the public is unable to access this meeting and I'll find that out via my email, which will have open, then the meeting will need to be continued to a time and place certain if I can't help them get into the meeting because we did list the online access as a viable option. I'll now hand the meeting back over to the chair. At this time, I will accept the motion to approve the agenda for tonight's meeting. So moved. Second. Motion by Kevin and second by Gene. Kevin, how do you vote? Yes. Catherine. Yes. Abby. Abby, you're muted. Sorry. Yes. Joe. Yes. Gene. Yes. Michael. Yes. Rob, my cell phone. Yes, that is unanimously approved. Thank you all for coming out this evening. She said, no, we do not have any participants, representatives, the applicant or the public in the room this evening. Just three, four members and one trustee staff person. And our Archimedia. Archimedia. So this is, that's where everyone's at. And I will turn over to Meredith because we only have one application this evening. No, we have actually have one thing we got to do. We have to approve the minutes. So, board members, if you have reviewed the minutes, we, I would entertain a motion for either comments or to approve it. Okay. We've only got four people that can do it. Yeah, I was not. That motion to approve. So that was Gene moves. Gene has a motion to approve the minutes from 222, 2022. Is there a second? Second. All right. Motion by Gene and second by Abby. So Gene, myself, Abby and Michael are those. No, Joe. Joe are those that are eligible to vote. So Abby, how do you vote? Yes. Gene? Yes. Joe? Yes. Rob, myself was, yes, the minutes for 222, 2022 are approved. You just look saying that. I do. I do like saying that. It was a great day. You won't be able to do that again. No, never again. Until, yeah, I won't be alive then. Okay. So we have one application this evening for 203 Berry Street for conditional use approval of a ceramic studio. And I will turn over to Meredith for a brief overview of the project and how we got here. Okay. So, as Rob said, this application is mostly before the board because it is a conditional use. Art studios are considered to be in the, in an industry. And so they are, hold on one second. Now my brain just puzzled out on me. This is what the exact term is. And everybody knows me. I want the right term. So it's considered to be in the light manufacturing use. And here in the riverfront district, light manufacturing is a conditional use. So the, this has to come before the board. There's a few other tweaky little things, mostly because the parcel itself is a non conforming parcel. It's a very small parcel. It's already fully developed with what used to be the Berry street market. And so there is no space there for off street parking. And most of the parcel is already built out. There's a little bit of space back in the back. So even if it wasn't a conditional use, if any new use were put into this building that needed off street parking, it would have to come before the board for that exemption to the minimum number of parking off street parking spaces. So that's another thing that's here before the board for. And then there's also because of there's a little question about the landscaping that comes in where I've made some suggestions on how they might be able to meet the total site landscaping requirement because of there is so little green space on this parcel already a little tweak. But those are the biggies. It's in my mind. There's ways to approve it. And I've put some suggestions in the staff report. But I think that probably handing over to Frank and Heather to describe the business plan would make a lot of sense. Perfect. Okay. Frank and Heather, welcome here. First thing first, anybody that wishes to make public testimony tonight, in addition to Frank and Heather, we need to swear you in as witnesses. So other than Frank and Heather, is there anyone else that wishes to speak tonight on this application? Trevor, I mean, it's just going to be raising your right hand and saying that you're going to whatever you say is going to be truthful. If you want to then comment later, we'll need to swear you in at that point. I can't read who it is. So Trevor Cole and Kelly Taft, they submitted a letter. So that's already in the packet. And Kathy, you don't think you're going to talk? Okay. Okay. So we have no actual representative. Frank and Heather, Frank Salani and Heather are here. So they need to be sworn in too, right? Yes. Yes. So we have four people and essentially two parties being sworn in here. So all those interested in providing testimony on this application, would you please raise your right hand to be sworn in as a witness? One, two, three, four. Okay. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth under the pains and penalties of perjury? Yes. Yes. See four nods slash guesses are good. So yeah, so Frank and Heather, I just like to give you this opportunity to sort of give an overview of your project and provide us any information that you think might be pertinent to tonight's meeting. Well, we plan on converting what is now the Berry Street market into my Strannick Studio. And it would be a private studio. I would use it to produce my work. There would be a small showroom where I would store work. I would have limited shop hours while I was there working. And I would use the space primarily to produce my work and to sell it. Most of my work now is sold online. I also sell at the partner's market, Montpelier, and I have several galleries that carry my work also in other parts of the country. So I should work to them and they sell it. We've reviewed the report, which is very thorough. We, no, I mean, it's wonderful. We agree with the recommendations. In terms of the landscaping, that's not an issue. As I mentioned, we mentioned we have plans to get a bunch of shade-loving perennials anyway for our own house. So providing those perennials in the back for landscaping is not an issue. I think we were also prepared to address the PH issue for the Department of Public Works, but maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. We're excited. Thank you. Thank you for having us here. We're very excited about the project. Yeah, no, it's great that you were able to have some time to look into those comments from the staff and the staff report. It will certainly be helpful. If you just back up for a second. So my understanding is you're planning on to doing a little bit of a modification to the staircase in the back. Could you kind of walk us through like the reasons behind that planning? Yes, there's an apartment upstairs that is accessed from a stairway on the exterior of the building and a back porch. And the back porch is so thoroughly deteriorated that it needs to be replaced. And in replacing it, the stairs are going to have to be replaced as well. So that's the real reason if we're going to be serviceable, we would certainly prefer leaving it exactly the way that it was. But that's not really possible considering the state of the structure that's there now. And in the course of replacing that porch and the stairs, we need to remove a small shed structure in the back of the building. And that will not be replaced. That will be removed. And that removal will actually produce the space, the little bit of extra green space for the property. And the stairs will also have steel grates, which will also increase the permeability a little bit. So if I may. Yes, Kevin. The upstairs is currently in the apartment and will stay as an apartment. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. And downstairs is, I mean, it was Barry Street Market. What's its current use? Right now, it is the market. I mean, no one's using it as a market. Okay. But yeah. Okay, that's fine. So the stairs in the rear, is that the primary access to the stop or is there multiple access? Yes. Okay. And we'll continue to be. And we'll continue to be. Absolutely. Okay. Actually, I had a curiosity, but I think also important for context. So it's matter of like scale, like a pottery studio like this, you know, how many machines do you have and how much clay to you, you know, you go to in a year or a month or. I have one potter's wheel. Most of my work is actually stuck cast. So I make forms, I make molds of them and then I cast the parts and assemble pots from those. As far as machinery goes, the only machinery, I guess, is really a kiln. Nothing that really is extremely loud or produces vibrations or anything like that really. It's, when I think about it in terms of an industrial process, I don't think of myself as someone who runs a factory. I guess mostly people would refer to me as an art potter. Yeah. Oh, yeah, thank you very much. I think that's very helpful to place it within the light manufacturing use here, but not before we get into sort of diving into the step before it. Do board members have any sort of additional questions of where we're at now? I've got one. Could you talk us through the foot traffic and the other people who'd be there aside from yourself? I know you'd mentioned classes in the future. Right now I don't have any concrete plans to teach classes. Invariably what happens is that people ask me if I teach classes and in the past I have worked in places where there are communal studios, so I would not have been teaching in my own studio, but I would have been teaching at the community studio affiliated with the school I was at. Running a communal studio and having people in a communal studio is a very different thing than having your own studio. Something as simple as switching the type of clay you use, most of my work is made out of porcelain, and it tends to be a hard material to work with if you're not familiar with it. So things like stoneware tend to be used more in community classes, classes I would be teaching, and just something as simple as someone introducing stoneware into the studio means I'd have to clean everything down before I switched back to porcelain. So teaching classes is not something that I really plan on doing, it's something that I wouldn't want to tell you, oh I'm never going to teach classes, and then turn around and say, oh I'm teaching classes. If I did teach classes the space is so small there wouldn't be more than four to six people in there, and I can't see myself having open studio hours beyond the hours that I would be teaching in class, so the only time students would be in there would be during class hours, and the class is typically between two and four hours long somewhere in there. It depends on where you're teaching, I've taught places where a class is five hours long, at top places where they're 45 minutes, at top places, you know, but they're somewhere between those two, but it's a very different thing to run a teaching studio and to run a professional studio, and running a teaching studio is often a hindrance to a professional studio. Does that answer any of those questions? Okay, well so moving on here, we can delve into the staff report and just make sure we cover all the bases here with some of the issues that were bulleted. So on the first issue we covered the first part, which is sort of the general nature of the project, and we talked about this is like manufacturing conditional use in this district, and so I guess the first thing is talking about the dimensional standards, and as Meredith mentioned briefly, you know, there's an existing nonconformity, which is not uncommon and immobiliar and whatnot. And the particular area of like focus on this nonconformity was the 80% maximum lot coverage. So maybe it makes more sense. Meredith, do you think you could just sort of walk us through the, you know, the nonconformity of 80%, it seems to make sense to me, but you know, I think you could probably explain it better. So I wasn't going to ask Frank and Heather to get an exact square footage of how much of the property is currently pervious surface or water can flow down through because when you, I mean, just looking at the parcel and with the stairs currently being roofed, and the deck in the back mostly being roofed in the shed, it's obviously, it's obvious that more than 80% of the parcel is covered with surfaces that shed water. I mean, there's no question about that. And the good thing here, though, is that that's a current condition, right? That's an existing nonconformity where the parcel currently doesn't meet the standard. And with what Frank and Heather are proposing, they're proposing to remove the shed, change the stairs to a surface that lets water through and the upper landing where those stairs then meet the covered new covered decking porch, that's going to let water through as well. And so they have decreased the coverage maximum. It may still not be meeting the 80% standard, but they've improved it. And so given that situation that this was an existing nonconformity that they bought purchased, my suggestion is to say that because they're at least improving the situation, it can be approved. I would agree with that. Thank you for the great summary. Absolutely. So moving on, so section 30004 of the regs pertains to a demolition, which I guess you'll be demolishing the shed in the stairs, and then rebuilding the stairs largely in the same footprint, or exactly in the same footprint. So coming to this, I guess this is a question you have for Frank and Heather, and I'm assuming it's yes. But would you be willing to sort of a condition that within 60 days of this demolition to have that removed and all the way from the site that they can care of? Yes, absolutely. Considering the fact that there is no space on the site, whatever is demolished and removed from the building, I personally would want to have it removed as soon as possible. Okay. Well, thank you. So we're going to skip over the next couple sections outlines, because riparian areas, wetlands and steep slopes don't apply to this project along with staff did not find that erosion control was a particular issue of concern. And I believe that the board would agree with that. So we're going to flip down to access encirculation section here, which is on page nine of the staff report if you're following along. And I think we will talk more about this in the conditional use review. But I think generally the information that we've seen from the applicants and the current use of the building that we're not seeing much change at all related to the factors related to this. The board members, I'm seeing nods here that they agree with that finding. So the next section here, which we spend a little bit of time on here, is the parking and loading areas. And anyone on the board want to take a lead at this issue, or should I keep plugging along? So we have the ability here to have the discretion as a board to waive some of the requirements under this section. But maybe I'll start here by question to Frank and Heather. And let me just phrase this, figure out my wording here. As far as the change from how that building is currently being used in your proposed studio, do you feel like there will be an increase in necessity for parking and loading areas? I don't think so. We live just a couple of blocks away. So I won't be driving there. I will be walking there. People that come to see the work, they may drive there. But every time I've walked past there, there always seems to be plenty of parking on Berry Street there close to the studio. And I don't see more than one person, one quarter of people coming at a time. So there is on-street parking available on Berry Street, as was probably used for patrons of the Berry Street market. Nothing has changed in that regard in the last couple years. Is that correct? Yeah, there's always plenty of parking on Berry Street on both sides. It was a little bit different when there was a very street market in Kismet restaurant. And there was occasionally some tension between those two businesses. But that was years ago. And hours of operation will be different too. So I think it's somewhere here as staff suggests that the conditional use of changing use isn't going to be much of a difference from what has historically been used there, which I think gives me enough information. I think the board to sort of go ahead and not require any additional loading zones or parking or whatnot. So we're good there. Okay. So we have a little bit of a discussion here on the landscaping and screening requirements. My understanding is that you're proposing to do a little bit of work and replacing where the shed is and whatnot. Could you elaborate on that a little bit? Sure. Yeah, so I think it's either 36 square feet or 38 square feet of planting that would be required back there. That's not an issue. I mean, some of the things that we've been looking at, I don't know if any of you are gardeners, but we were looking at some verbinums, some Estilby, some Chara, like big leafy. I don't think anyone's going to see it, but still they're like big leafy, nice-looking jay-loving perennials. So we could get a little bit of life back there. And so my understanding from the application and the staff report that you might need to install a new event for the kiln or whatnot, and the suggestion was this could be painted to enhance the screening. Is that correct? It could be. Sorry. It could be easily painted. The vent is like a five-inch pipe that sticks out of the side of the building. It's not very big at all. It's like a kitchen vent or a vent that you have out of the bathroom, out of the exterior of your house. It's that kind of thing. It's not a big heavy-duty thing. And what side of the building would that go off, or do you not know yet? I'm not sure. I imagine it would go out of the back of the building. Okay. Well, I think that that takes care of landscaping and screening. We have certainly very minimal changes to the exterior of the building, which makes sense here. And so as we move along here, we can start our conditional use review, which is on page 16 of the staff report. This relates to chapter 330, which is the conditional use standards. So the first issue here, and I believe there were some emails that were distributed to the board. Meredith, would you like to share that information about the pH levels? Yeah. So just to summarize for anyone who hasn't read the staff report, when the Department of Public Works reviewed the application, they didn't have any big concerns. Their only real worry was with the wastewater. And from the glaze and the glazes that are used, some of them, depending on which you pick, can really lower pH values in the wastewater. And Montpelier's sewer system can't accept waste streams with a pH lower than 5.5. So I got that information to Frank, and he came back to me with some information that said that, hold on one second. One, the type of clay he was using, hold on, let me give you the right one. One, he uses and touches the clay all the time. So that's one of the ways to tell that it's not a really low pH. And he got some pH test strips and checked those and the wastewater from his clay water buckets where he reclaims clay, right? So the clay he doesn't use is going to soak in that and just keep it from getting dried out. That water was a pH around seven or eight. And the same with the, you call it glaze water, Frank. I don't know if that's like water that when you rinsing off the glazes. Yeah, like often you'll have to just sponge off excess glaze in an area. And I save all that too. Yeah, so he saves all the wastewater. And he also has a system. One of the things he, other pieces of information he gave me was that he also recovers the silt. So even though that wasn't something that the Department of Public Works was worried about, he made sure to let us know that he uses slip traps in his shop sinks. So this allows all the silt to settle out of wastewater before it's discharged from the studio. And he says he usually actually collects his wastewater, pour off the clear water the next day. So he tries to, you may have to explain this, Frank, but he said, once you have a full bucket of leftover slip, you dry it out to plastic consistency and press tile with it. So there's no, almost no waste from his process and very little other than clear water goes down the sink. Everything else is left behind and recycled to make tile. And he'll have one sink at 203 Berry Street that will be equipped with one of these slip traps to help collect everything. So I think that that, I haven't heard back, I sent this information on Department of Public Works, but Kurt Modica, I think was out on, as a day Friday and today. So he has my name to respond back, but it sounds to me like we have a lot of information on that, where the board could potentially just approve it, knowing that, you know, he'll still need to get potential with adding the new sink. There may be a new connection with Department of Public Works to get approval there. I guess on this issue, I'm just trying to think like, you know, in perpetuity that for the future of the current operations of, you know, of your, you know, business, you know, seem to be fine in a nonissue, but, you know, maybe we conditioned something to say that if there are changes in the process or whatnot that that would trigger a conversation with Public Works, not necessarily back here at the board, but just to make sure that we're covered there. Yeah, I mean, we can also, the condition, there can be a condition that the waste stream can't be below that 5.5 pH without, yeah, however that works. Right now the Public Works won't take a wastewater with a lower pH than 5. Right, but once the sinks in, if the, if the, say this, you know, Frank no longer is at the Ceramic Studio with somebody else buys it, but uses a different kind of clay, having that condition in here protects it. Yeah, would that be okay with, yeah, that would be fine. And then you can use it in the same place, you know? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so the next conditionally used item here is traffic. Just ask what, what do you anticipate any changes in the traffic pattern with your proposed studio or what not? I don't anticipate that many people rushing out to buy coffee cups. I really wish. Having a traffic circle. I don't anticipate increased traffic. I would imagine that the traffic would be less than if it was operating. It's the market, the way that it's configured now. Okay, that's the, if it were, if somebody were trying to reopen that market because the market has been out of use for over a year, they'd have to get a new permit and it would have to, it would be a higher just parking requirement now because a market sees much faster use. People are in a rush. People are in a rush. It's, that's more of a moderate to high traffic use, whereas the Art Studio is a limited customer traffic use, especially when Frank already has such a high internet presence. Sure, sure. Well, yeah, I mean, I just, to generalize here, you know, it's like we have, you have the apartments upstairs, you have, which generally the need for parking is, you know, at night when people are not at work, at least in normal times when we're not all working from home. But, you know, and in the business hours of the, you know, the studio are obviously during the day. So it does seem like a pretty good match as far as, you know, two different uses in one building and the location that it is, which kind of transitions into the, you know, the next conditional use item here, which is, you know, does it fit with the character of the neighborhood? And, you know, my experience with Berry Street is that this is sort of the exactly the type of thing that Berry Street is for. But, like, did Frank and Heather have any comments if they'd like on that? I agree. You see Berry Street changing, you know, you see Berry Street changing and all these wonderful things coming in. And so we would really like to be part of that, you know, otherwise we'd be like pizza. Yeah. Does this go through design review? It did. It went through design review for the stairs and the decking. And they were good with everything. They didn't have any tweaks to the plan. They were quite happy with what was being proposed. So there's no conditions or recommendations from design review for the board to accept here? Nope. I mean, it's ultimately it's your, you know, if this were an administrative permit, I would be issuing that design review permit. So ultimately the board is okaying that design review aspect of it. But there were no concerns expressed under those standards whatsoever. So I do the little yellow, right? The staff. This is your that's the staff. Yeah. And then everything else is filled out by the DRC. I mean, the chair does the circle. Yep. Yep. This is a copy of their form. Just summarize what you're talking about, Kevin, so that I don't want to. Well, design review is already, it's already reviewed, if I could know, no reason to duplicate the work that they've done. So my recommendation is to just accept the report. Absolutely. Yeah. So for anybody who didn't go into the packet, I know I'm, I know Frank and Heather did, but I don't know if Trevor and Kelly or Kathy did. The application packet that I circulated to is as part of this meeting materials, in addition to having my staff report and the application itself, I also included it to four three page form from the design review committee where they evaluate all the applicable design review criteria and say whether or not the project is acceptable or unacceptable under that. And then there's a vote recorded at the end. So the design review committee approved the exterior changes going on here, including that rear vent forward to nothing in favor two weeks ago. So, um, so I, you know, at the staff, the board, the applicants all appear to sort of agree that this very much fits with the character of the neighborhood and be a great addition to Berry Street. And at this time I'd like to see if any of the members of the public would like to comment or speak at this time. If so, just speak up. So Trevor, Kelly. Just expressing my support. Thank you. We do have your letter, your email. So thank you. I just want to thank you guys for coming out tonight. It is helpful for us to know that the neighbors are in support of the project or not in support of the project. You know, it's like your perspective is very important. So, so thank you for taking the time. I got the information I need. The board members have the information they need. If so, I would accept a motion. The only thing I remember is that I was still operating under quarantine rules, which requires us to make the final recommendation in or the final decision in a closed door session. Right. So this is nothing to say about the particular application and here, but as we've done with every application during this pandemic, we've done it in a deliberative session at the end for the ease of just the Zoom environment, but the hybrid environment. And so that's what we will be doing. Okay. So that being said, I will make a motion to close the public hearing and retire, the board retire to a deliberative session of what we've done here this evening. There's a motion by Kevin. Second the motion. Second by Gene. Kevin, how do you vote? I vote yes. Catherine, how do you vote? Yes. Abby? Yes. Joe? Yes. Gene? Yes. Michael? Yes. And Rob, myself votes yes that unanimously approved. See if there's anything else before we start on this meeting. I don't believe so. Just a little note. So one, I'm sending out the deliberative session link, so you're going to give me a couple of minutes on that. But we do not actually have an application for the March 21st meeting. So if the board wishes, we can just take a day off. If there are things that the board wants to talk about, we could always have a meeting as well for administrative matters, but it's up to the board. Okay. Well, I will be out of the country on March 21st. So maybe a night off. I will be returning by March 4th, but I hope to be posted whether I am in any shape to participate in a meeting on March 4th. Where are you going? I'm going to Norway. What do you mean April 4th? April 4th, yes. Okay. Cool. Wow. Good for you. My sisters. Nice and nephew that I haven't met yet because of the pandemic. So that's awesome. Awesome. Okay. Yeah, so your motion to adjourn. Okay, I'll make the motion. So moved by Catherine. And there are second. Second. Second by Jean. Kevin, how do you vote? Yes. Catherine. Yes. Abby. Yes. Joe. Yes. Michael. Yes. Jean. Yes. Rob, myself was yes. Thank you all for joining us this evening. So hold on one second. Frank and Heather, just to let you know, so the process here is the board will go into deliberative session and vote on the actual application and, you know, what conditions to put on the approval. And then there's 45 days to actually issue the written decision. We work really hard to do that much, much sooner than that. And but you and I can, can, can talk. But the, the, you know, if you look at the bottom of the staff report, there's a sense of what types of conditions might be on the application, on the, on the approval. And I'm just looking, chances are good that we'll issue the permit with the decision, I think, but we'll find out. Okay. There might be a little lag between the two. Yeah, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Well, if it's approved, I can't say yes, it's approved at this point. Right. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Sorry, I'm multitasking. Okay. And you will move to a journal ready, right? Sorry, I was doing too many things. Okay. Have a lovely night, everybody.