 We're off and running. Steve, you've got a presentation for us, I guess. Well, I do. Do you want to say a few words of introduction and then I can go through the details? That sounds like a good idea. So tonight is the public hearing support. The first of the two required public hearings for the select board to consider this update to the town's municipal plan. The planning commission worked on this over a number of months. It was designed and considered to be a brief update looking for us to update sections of the plan that needed to be updated to remain in compliance with state law. But what it's not intended to be was a wholesale opening of the plan rewriting the whole thing, which was something that we did five years ago. Five years ago, we had a very elaborate public engagement process with surveys and significant outreach to the public. This particular time, we didn't do that. There was public outreach, but it was much more focused. We had some input from the conservation commission, for example, extensive input from revitalizing Waterbury and other people participated. We had numerous people attend the meetings. But the parts of the plan that we really looked to update and focused on were, number one, having a revised energy plan and energy chapter, which is really intended to help the town have enhanced status when energy projects go before the public service board. So the hope is, the goal is, that the town would be given what's called substantial deference under state law. We're not exactly sure what substantial deference means, but it's probably going to be more than what we had in the past. There were some other things that we did as part of the plan. One was, we updated the natural resources chapter. And this had to do with the new planning requirement for forest fragmentation. So that was the natural place, used that word for that to be. Since the town plan was last approved, we no longer have two separate governments here in Waterbury. So it used to be there was the village of separate government and the town, which was a separate government. So now we just have one town government. And so we had to go through the plan to change language to reflect that those are a change set of circumstances for the town. There are a few other things that we updated in response to some input that we got from the public, including updating some of the data in the local economy section. I mentioned we updated some language having to do with local government. And there were some action items that were added in attempt to, number one, help the town deal with things like visual impacts. And there is also an action item pertaining to the Shutesville Hill area and the sensitive areas around that. And again, that was part of some of the conversations we had with folks from the conservation commission. So that's sort of an overview. And Steve, you're going to dive into the details. Yeah, I'll make this presentation fairly brief. I've got an outline here if anybody would like a copy. And pass that down to Jane. And so there's some extra copies here to tell me if you could just set that up at the corner of the table. And so I'm going to just go through a brief presentation. I've got about 10 or 11 slides to illustrate some of the points that Ken has made. And the Planning Commission approved this draft back on August 27 and transmitted to the select board, presented to the select board. The process moving forward will be to incorporate any comments from this hearing. The select board can make substantive changes at this point, so they can direct the Planning Commission if they want help. The Planning Commission can assist them, but it's really in your court in the select board's court. And then there'll be one more public hearing scheduled for early December. The select board has to have two public hearings, and then they vote on whether or not to adopt this plan. And at this point, it will become an eight-year plan. We're on a five-year cycle now, but with a new state statute that was passed a few years ago, it will now be on an eight-year cycle with a four-year check-in with the Regional Planning Commission. So the purpose of this current draft is to update the fiscal plan as Ken mentioned, which is expiring on December 9 of this year. So that's why we're on this fairly tight schedule. And then this updated draft plan is focused on the selected chapters that Ken mentioned and the statistics to be consistent with the requirements in state statute, including the two new requirements for energy and natural resources addressing forest fragmentation. So let's just talk briefly about the goals in state statute. These are selected goals. There are others in section 4302 of 24 VSA. That's the book 24. And to plan development to maintain the historic settlement pattern of compact village and urban centers separated by rural countryside. That's kind of the tenet of planning in Vermont and it's incorporated into state statute to provide a strong and diverse economy that provides job opportunities and maintains high environmental standards to encourage the efficient use of energy and the development of renewable energy resources of the new energy plan. And the updated or rewritten energy chapter is designed to address that goal. And then a goal to protect natural and scenic resources and minimize forest fragmentation. So I'm just going to go through the presentation and then turn it back over to Chris for public comment and questions and so on. So these are the chapters that we focused on. As Ken mentioned, chapter 4 of the local economy, Alyssa Johnson, helped us with this. This is a picture of revitalizing Waterbury's business fair a couple of years ago. So the revisions include new text and recent statistics that have been added in part to reflect the recovery from tropical storm Irene. This chapter also discusses revitalizing Waterbury's role, including the creation of the Economic Development Strategic Plan in 2017, which was endorsed by the Select Board. It's not incorporated in the municipal plan. It's not a requirement to have this plan. It's more of an advisory plan from the municipal perspective. But it is something that the planning commission participated in and is an important part of revitalizing Waterbury's economic program. We mentioned natural resources. That's chapter 6. And revisions include additional text to address forest fragmentation as required in the state's Act 171 that was passed last year in 2017. The new forest resources and connectivity map, which is 2-7, is referenced in this chapter. And I think it's important to note that the requirements in the state's Act 171 is not designed to prevent development. It's designed to minimize impact to forest resources with the understanding that there will be some impact over time with development, with logging, with other activities. And the idea is to minimize that impact. And the new language in the plan is really consistent with that. The planning commission added this map with assistance from the Regional Planning Commission. This is called Forest Resources and Connectivity. And the shaded areas depict forested areas in Waterbury. There are a couple different categories of interior forest blocks, both of a high priority and more of a regular priority. And then there's also the purple area that you see right up in this area. This is North Hill. This is the Schuttsville Hill area. And that's what this data calls a Wildlife Connectivity area, a high priority. And then there are also wildlife crossings on roads, which are depicted in red, which typically connect two forested areas. So this is really designed to be an inventory map. At this point, there's nothing regulatory about it. We do regulate areas over 1,200 feet through our ridgeline hillside steep slope regulations. And certainly minimizing forest fragmentation is already part of those regulations. Energy, we work very closely with Duncan McDougal and with your colleagues at Waterbury Leap. Waterbury Leap, I think, is just a terrific organization. We're very fortunate, and they provided us with a lot of good input. This is the solar array that Ben and Jerry's installed. It's about a half a megawatt array. And you can see the plant over the top of the solar panels there and the hunger mountain. And the municipality also has a half a megawatt facility up in the Wellfield on Sweet Road. And solar has really become the predominant renewable energy generation source in Waterbury along with hydro. And the municipality even is in on the hydro act with a little micro generator in our water supply line on Guptell Road. So we worked on an energy plan with the Central Mont Regional Planning Commission that attaches Appendix B. And the chapter, the energy chapter, and the energy plan are intended to address the standards in the states Act 174. We have to address those standards. The energy plan is optional for municipalities. It's required for regional planning commissions to have an energy plan. But for us, it's optional, but it does help us in looking at where we would like to see renewables and where we want to discourage them. This is the solar resources map. It's a little hard to see from your vantage point that there are two different tones. There's primary where there are no environmental or natural constraints that are known. And then there are secondary sites that are possible constraints where the natural resources need to be investigated to make sure that that's a suitable site. And these are the known constraints. They're built into the energy plan. They're things like vertical pools, which are a form of wetland, river corridors, floodways, rare threatened endangered species sites, and class one and two wetlands. So we really try to discourage the installation of facilities, in this case, in solar. And there are other maps in the plan that deal with wind, biomass, and so on, hydro. So that's an example of the maps that are in there. This is a picture of our new phosphorus removal facility. It's a little dark, but the drawing beds are on the right, and the control building is in the back. And so in the facilities chapter, we focus quite a bit on the creation of Edward for our utility district. I think most of you know that this utility district assumed ownership of the former village of Waterbury Municipal Assets and manages them now. They include the public water and wastewater systems, and of course the plant is a big part of that asset. And then the chapter also addresses the provision of townwide police services with the beginning of our townwide police force with the contract with the state police. Local governments clearly, we now have a new scenario with the village of Waterbury no longer existing as a municipality, so this chapter bill helped us to completely rewrite and update that chapter, bring it up to date. Land use, which is the last chapter in the plan. Our revisions include text addressing forest fragmentation and the implications for land development. This, I'll show you the land use map here in just a minute. And so again, this is not intended to prevent development. It's really intended to concentrate development in suitable areas and to minimize impacts to the forested areas in our town. This is a picture of the Harvey Farge. Good example of a plan unit development shows up on some of the state grocers as a poster child, you will, for what you might say is good development. And then a future land use map. We mentioned this forest area, which was our conservation and forest area previously just to focus on some of the goals there. And then we have our two growth centers. Steve, before we get out onto the next chapter there, Act 171, is there anything that you can tell us about the state's rules or considerations that maybe may help us out here with understanding perhaps what they're looking for? As far as what is it that they're trying to achieve here in a nutshell? I understand the forest fragmentation issue, but I mean, they've gone to the extent to put together this Act 171. And I'm just, is there anything you can tell us that may give us the highlights of what that's about? Well, I think the science behind it clearly, Vermont has gone from being probably all forested in pre-colonial times to being largely cleared in early colonial times, and 70% or more cleared to now 70 to 80% forested. And I think that the goal of the Act is to look, especially at wildlife, they're dependent on interior forest areas, everything from bears to interior dwelling birds and make sure that those blocks of habitat remain viable for the wildlife. And I think the focus in the Shootsville Hill area is a good example where that's a connection between the main spine of the Green Mountains and the Worcester Range. So some areas are more critical than others for wildlife, but I think that that's really the science behind it. I think from our perspective, it's really a matter of appropriate development. And I think our ridgeline hillside steep slope regulations are a good example of how we address that through the regulatory process. And there's no prohibition on development, but it definitely encourages development in suitable areas and tries to minimize the amount of clearing in some of these critical areas. Does that help? Yeah. I mean, I was just hoping to maybe shed a little bit more light on it for the public as a whole. Right. But I think it is, from a state perspective, it's really based on a lot of the research and the state's goal to try to protect some of these essential interior areas to support the wildlife that depends on this, especially the connecting areas in Waterbury. Shootsville Hill's a good example. What I would add to that, Chris, is that what sometimes happens with the state's planning enabling legislation is there may be a new required element, but a municipality like Waterbury, for example, may already have been doing some things that address at least partially those concerns. And so what you end up having to do at minimum is to repackage what you were already doing to use the magic words that have now been, we've been told that need to be used and perhaps even include that in a chapter. Here's how we're dealing with forest fragmentation. Where in the past, we may have used a whole very different vocabulary. So that's at least part of it. The other is there's a, what the state wants us to do have some mapping that's part of it. And I think we probably already had some of that, but where you're mapping out your forested areas and you have some other strategies that you can say here's some things that we're doing to try to help to minimize the breaking up of forested land. At the end of the day, the plan has to be passed by the Regional Planning Commission. And so ultimately that's the litmus test of whether or not our plan has done an adequate job to address those things that states as they want us to address. Yeah, we can talk a little bit more about it when we turn it over to the public, but I appreciate that explanation. It's one of the areas that I have concern about, being in the business I am, we fragment the forest quite often and it does bother me a bit, you know. In doing what we do, it's kind of a consequence of the work we do. And there's some issues there that we can talk about a little bit later that, you know, it's the pros and cons of it. Okay, see. Yeah, I just, not all forest fragmentation is a bad thing. I mean, there are species like deer that require browse, so certainly in logging in particular, by nature it fragments the forest. And it's a matter of how you do it, where you do it, making sure that there's where habitat. So I think it's not a black and white science at all, but one that we address and as Ken mentioned, we've had the Regional Planning Commission review the plan already and take a look at some of this language and recommend. They've made comments, we've incorporated language to address their comments. Yeah, I guess that's my point. I mean, forest fragmentation isn't always detrimental to wildlife. I mean, it's detrimental to certain species of wildlife. And that's why I was kind of questioning what the state's goals were here if they were, you know, basically picking out and trying to suggest, you know, reducing the amount of fragmentation to protect X. You know, what species are they concerned about that the fragmentation is impacting in? And, you know, what limits are those species at and just kind of those types of things that might give us more incentive to maybe look at those areas and being more protective of them. I don't think it was that specific. Yeah, that's why I asked. And that doesn't surprise me. Although, I mean, having said that about it not being that specific, I think this whole thing, I know that the Shutesville Hill area has been identified and it came up certainly when we had some issues recently about the Verizon tower. The ANR has identified it as a critical wildlife crossing and it has to do with large mammal movement and being able to connect different habitat areas and by severing that connectivity, you definitely impact the, not only the migration, but ability to reproduce and have more genetic diversity. So I think some of it is very specific, so it's important to understand that our town is part of that. This happens to have that connectivity right on the edge of our town up in the Stowe area, so. Well, it's just a coincidence that today I was working for Gow, works in the conservation department for the state and she said that one of her goals was to, they're actually working on that particular segment of forest right now, trying to achieve easements to put off the ability for development. And of course, that was always been one of my concerns as part of the municipal plan. The zoning part of it or the zoning regulations still allow for housing development in that area, which kind of seems like an oxymoron to what we're trying to achieve there. It seems like it's at odds with the goal of trying to. Exactly, yeah. Prevent a fragmentation. I'd also say that as climate change impacts us, animals are gonna be moving and seeking out food and maybe places that they haven't in the past. So that's another reason to try to prevent forest fragmentation. Okay, well, we probably should let Steve get through this and then we'll. No, that's fine. I'll just make one more comment and then I think it'd be good to get some input from the public. On this forest resource and connectivity map, there are these blue or blue green areas which are the riparian areas. And these areas are critical for wildlife migration. And this came out when we did our study of our Ridgeline hillside steep slope areas back in 2000, around 2005. We did a natural resource study and inventory of our higher elevation areas. So I just wanted to point out that this map also maps these areas and the plan does talk about limiting development in the riparian areas, floodplain areas and so on. And they're important all the way up into the, from low elevations into higher elevations. Some of you may have seen some of the mapping of wildlife movement where they put collars on bobcats and other wildlife. And the patterns, it's amazing how they follow these streams, especially in open areas. So I just wanted to make that point as well. Okay. So are you through your short presentation? Okay. And I guess at this point, we can turn it over to the public that's here and see if they've got any concerns, comments, suggestions. So feel free to come up to the mic and speak if you have anything you'd like to say. My name is Duncan McDougal and I'm one of the volunteers who works with Water Relief. And we are very appreciative that the planning commission had asked us for our input and we're happy to provide. And we were really impressed with the document that was put together with regard to the energy plan. But having worked with organizations that have put together long extensive plans like this in the past, I know from experience that if you don't have some mechanism to follow through, that most of the things that are recommended to the planning just aren't going to happen. They're nice words on the paper, but we really feel strongly about them, which we certainly do. I would strongly recommend that the select board and the planning commission come up with a small group of folks, maybe one representative from the planning commission, one from LEAP, one from the central one, mutual planning commission, whatever it might be, a core group gets together maybe twice a year just to go through the recommendations of which there are about 60 or 65, quite a few. But they're not going to have quite in and of themselves, they're not going to make themselves happen, people have to make them happen. So I would really strongly recommend having just a small core group of four or five people who let's say twice a year get together, look through and say, okay, these are some that we need to talk about. One thing that the planning commission did, which I think is a great idea, is not only did they have a task, an implementation task, but they recommended who will be driving that discussion and how long it should take, what the time period is. So some say like three years, some say five years. So you have a sense of what the priorities are and who should really be leading that. So my strong recommendation, if you feel strongly about these coming to fruition, which I really hope you do, is that you assign a small group of people to help drive that process. And they're not going to do the work themselves, but they may say, okay, so you need to talk to someone at this group and we need to get together and make the implementation task number seven move forward. Because otherwise, honestly, I don't think many of them will move forward at all. So that's my recommendation. I thought that the pieces was put together as well. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Chris, can I just make one comment? Absolutely. We did add some language and I'm pretty sure we shared this with Duncan and Lee. And I'll just read it real quickly. You don't mind, but you may have some more, you may want it a little different too. So it is agreed that a working group is needed to implement the energy plan that will be representative of various entities in the community, including the town of Waterbury, Waterbury Leap Energy-Related Businesses Building Contractors Transportation Providers and Private Citizens. So we added that language in the introductory paragraph to the goals and objectives. Now I realize that's very general. No, thanks. I want to mention that. Thank you. So Duncan, seeing as how you seem to be so heavily involved in this field, I have asked, had asked a question in the past. One of the questions I asked was, if this 2050 strategy, does that also include, I mean, was it 90, 90, 50, 2050? So the state? 90% renewable by 2050. The state energy goals. Yeah. Okay. So does that include the current use, energy uses of today, or are they anticipating progressive, progressing uses up to that time period? So I don't know the exact details. I believe this is probably set at a level some years in the past. Sorry. I can't put you up. Yep. So you should verify this is not my expertise, but I believe that this is, the goals were set at some period a couple of years ago and that they are looking to reduce by 90% by 2050 based on those levels. And it's across a variety of energy areas, but the state plans online, you can read specifics. Yeah. That's the question that I've been looking to have answered. If you like, I can take a look and send you a link to what I've asked. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. It's, yeah. I appreciate it. Sure. Anybody else like to talk about anything? I'll take you to the municipal plan. Tracy Sweeney. I was just voted on to the Waterbury. Speaking into the mic, please. Waterbury Conservation Commission. Last meeting. Mm-hmm. And I just want to welcome you to sleep with us. If you'd like to know more about the Schuethville corridor and the impact. It has a lot of life. You seem to have a lot of questions, but I can't answer because I'm hearing you. But the biologists on the commission, it's correct. Thank you. Thank you for putting forward the importance of the corridor. I have some questions. Specific to the section on demand and affordability, which is on page 38 of the plan. You know, the data, I looked up some of the data while I was sitting here and my concerns are that the demand data that we're referring to might be significantly updated just through conversation I have with realtors in the area and also, you know, employing about 50 people in this town. I think we do have a supply issue that I don't think is represented well here. And my concern is, is if this is an eight year plan to move forward, that maybe we're not addressing some of these demand needs as aggressively as we need to consider. Stated in the remaining part of the demand section is that there was some growth goals of additional units in Waterbury that most likely won't be met. And then we get into the affordability part. I haven't reread this new one, but I assume that it's a similar scenario where the only response to demand or for the affordability was to rely on third party nonprofits. And I'm just concerned that we might need to get, and I know we are talking more about increasing density in areas like the downtown. I just would like to know if we think that we need to reevaluate the demand section and if there's anywhere we can get more accurate data to represent where we are in 2018 and also how short term housing like Airbnb rentals, how they affect the data. Because I know that I'm seeing it in Stowe and in Waterbury that I think that short term rentals are really affecting the rental market for available units for people to live that can't afford to buy. And so I'm just, I fear that we're running into an issue that people can't afford to live here, which I know I hear through conversation and I'm just wondering what we can do to try to create more supply to avoid these demand issues. Did you want to say something? Yeah, so first of all, this chapter was not rewritten. We did an extensive rewrite in 2013. We worked closely with the Regional Planning Commission. The targets at that point in the regional plan were very aggressive. They were following the state guidance at the time. And so we did add language to kind of explain that some of the targets were probably unrealistic, but I think some of the principles continue. Certainly the nonprofit sector has been important in Waterbury, but I think the reality is that we're seeing a lot of private investment in housing, both in multifamily and single family. I think we're lucky that we have the development that we have, lots of Vermont municipalities would beg for the kind of development we have. So I think a lot of this to me is outside the control of the municipality. I think we support projects through zoning and with the rewrite that is certainly one of the goals is to try to provide opportunities, especially for multifamily housing and density in appropriate areas that can help in terms of the affordability side. But I personally, I feel like the pace of development is something that the economic factors that drive that are not something that the municipality really has that big a role in. We provide opportunities through zoning. They're certainly with affordable housing, we have strongly supported the affordable housing projects through the loans from our Revolving Loan Fund facilitating CDBG loans. And that certainly creates or fulfills a certain niche, but I think the demand for worker housing, if you wanna call it that, or people who are making $15 an hour or something is a huge issue that I think this has to be dealt with at a fairly large level. We can do the best we can, but I think creating opportunities and I think the zoning rewrite is a good place for us to address some of those concerns. So I don't know if that answers your question. To that I would add, if you look on page 46, which has the implementation actions for this section of the plan. And if you go down the list, and if you see in number seven, it says explore the expansion and infill of the village growth centers allowing higher density residential and mixed uses that include housing, which I think goes directly to Steve's comment about the zoning rewrite. So this is the town plan, updated the town plan, it's not an update of the town's regulations, which is a whole separate project. The second thing is if you go down to item number nine, it also calls for the creation of forming a housing task force with local regional partners, including those identified in action seven, which I just referenced. So that's certainly something that would be within the purview of the select board if you wanted to create such a task force. And that may be an appropriate action. The economy is very strong right now and employment is low. Housing supply has been a long-term problem, I think in Vermont and certainly in the places that have the strongest local economies. There's certainly been a major issue in Chittenden County, but here as well. So there are some action items that are in the plan. Again, echoing what Steve said about this was not a focus of what we were working on given that we had a limited time horizon. Yeah, I would say if this housing task force request has been in since at least 2013, we as a select board take this pretty seriously and look at putting this together and making it a priority. Well, when I read through this municipal plan, I made several notes, probably too many to touch on tonight. As part of this housing chapter, I made probably more notes in that one particular chapter than any, but on the goals on page 45, where it says ensure the availability of safe, decent and affordable housing for all current and future Waterbury residents. Number two, to create new housing in locations that maintain the integrity of neighbors while increasing density, respecting the natural environment and minimizing the needs for infrastructure improvements. My note next to that was two goals almost impossible to meet. There was a thing on the news here just a little bit ago, Chittenden County, their goal in the next five years, I believe was to produce 36 new units, 3,600 new housing units and a portion of those were supposed to have been affordable. And for whatever reason, and we could have a long conversation over that and I believe it's the way our system, government system is structured and the way the rules and regulations in this state and the hardships that are caused by living in a state that has huge fluctuating temperatures and just a lot of different things that all come together to make it impossible to produce affordable housing, they're not even gonna be able to meet the small goal that they're trying to meet with affordable housing. So it's not like we're sitting alone on this problem. The other thing that I was wondering if we could get some statistics on that concern me was how the tax rate, I don't know how to say this, how the tax rate increases over a five-year period, a 10-year period, property tax rates increase based on a specific priced home with incomes that relate to the affordability of those types of price homes because what I was looking for was some kind of proof or at least information that could show why housing is becoming out of reach for certain people in specific income brackets. You know what I'm saying, if that makes any sense because I think moving forward in this state we've seen an increase in our tax rates and just cost of living here that is becoming more and more unaffordable to a lot of people and this municipal plan does a lot of commenting on the good side but it doesn't show any statistics that kind of open the door and expose some of the difficult reasons why people are having a tough time finding affordable housing and other things and I didn't know if there was any ability to have some of that type of information also put in here. Well Chris, sometimes what municipality has done is partner with groups like Down Street Community Development, which is formally central to my community land trust, they do marketing studies and whatnot especially to look at affordable housing. So sometimes those kind of in-depth snapshot studies look at some of these different issues can be done as a special project and sometimes in conjunction with an organization like that that has resources and the municipal plan is really more of a long-range plan so we're really trying to look at some more long-term trends. Certainly taxes are one factor in affordability. There's absolutely no question about that. There are a lot of other market courses that are values that are factors as well but I think the idea of having a task force to engage organizations like Down Street and the private sector is important. How are the rest of you going to do it? Can it simply supply and demand? Well I don't think anything simple about the housing we're seeing but certainly that's a factor, yeah. Well one of the things that I would also add is that when you talk to the housing developers what they will tell you is, and I'm talking about some of the larger housing developers, the things that they talk about that are difficult for them to navigate, one has to do with the cost of land. So if the supply of land is constrained it's going to drive up the price and we have certain constraints here in Waterbury for example we have limited areas where there's municipal sewer service available. That's going to limit your density, just the fact of life. There are all kinds of other constraints so the amount of land is limited, that is constrained and the other has to do with the cost of infrastructure and that can also be related to availability of municipal water services but even if you have them available they're not cheap. And then third, the other major factor that I hear outside of say the cost of materials is any sort of uncertainty especially regarding the regulatory climate and the cost associated with that. So the cost that somebody might pay to get a permit in Waterbury probably going to be fairly modest in terms of its impact on the overall cost of a project but if you have to go to Act 250 the cost of just submitting the application is very, very steep. So when you're talking about developments of a certain girth or scale those become much more difficult but those are the things that in my experience that I've heard the housing developers identify as making it very difficult for them to bring in housing product what we would consider to be an affordable range. See we have Ms. Forger here tonight. Do you have any information? You could shed some light on this particular topic. About affordable housing? About housing in general, yes. And then the shortage of it and could you step up to the mic for us please? Appreciate it if you would. I didn't mean to put you on the spot there but. But he did. I just feel all around the country not only in Vermont, there's just a shortage of housing that's right across the board. Particularly to this area as far as affordable housing I think much of it is also tied into the cost of materials. They have gone up despite everything they've gone up more. I don't know about how much labor it's got you wouldn't know that Chris but I know to build a nice house I think you're probably talking about $200 a square foot $225 a square foot and that's probably not counting land. Maybe you can build something for 175. Perhaps you can shed light on that Chris. I don't know, but what do you think? You build it? Yeah, it's from the labor's perspective I know that myself and others are trying to hold the line on costs because of that reason. I mean there's only so much the public can absorb when it comes to spending money on a home. And if you allow not only your property but everything around you to get too high then your business suffers. Well in Waterbury I think anything under 400,000 generally is very active. I think there's a real market for that. Above that there's still some market up below 500, not too much, 600 there's resistance. But it's going up here too, you're seeing that. Well you have to just look at Paul Arnott's development and see what is happening there. I mean one of the houses he built has come in at $550,000 and that land was very inexpensive that he bought. And maybe 1600, 1700 square feet, that's quite good. I think probably the price range, I mean I know that there's people out there that are struggling to even afford anything in the two to three range. And three is really pushing it. And I think probably what Mark Friar's concerns are about are in that lower range and what can be done. But Chris there's also existing houses that I've seen and Howard Avenue for one. The house has been sitting there, some of them for just months and months and no one's touching them and they're very affordable. So there's two sides to Cohen, I think there is houses that need doing but at least it's a house so they can start there. Yeah, that's it. Thanks Judy. From what I'm hearing here, it sounds like there's no real substantive comments concerning the plan, however it appears as though there are a couple of action items for consideration by the select board and those relate to working groups, the working group on the energy issue and also the housing task force recommendation that is listed in the existing plan. So from my perspective anyway, those are the two takeaways that I've gotten from this discussion thus far but as far as commentary related to the plan itself, I think given the lack of any substantive commentary to the contrary looks in good shape from my perspective. Are the board members? I would agree. I guess the third thing I thought it was interesting. Thank you for the conservation commission member coming stepping up. Maybe this far as fragmentation issue, at some point we could invite maybe a couple of people from the conservation commission to come and talk to us kind of what the status of the Shoesville Hill area is and because I know there's some issues going on to try to conserve land up there and just talk about this topic, I think would be illuminating. Well, I'll make it real quick here because I know we got to kind of close this out and move on but the other day when I was reading the force fragmentation chapter, it just happened to be a program on DEV where Dave Graham had a couple of professionals or experts in on specifically that and I called in and talked a little bit about it and it was a quite interesting program and I said to myself, it's too bad we couldn't get those type of people in here to talk about stuff like that. Maybe we could. Yeah. I have one quick comment before we close out. Back to the question on regulation when it comes to development. Is there a section in here talking about reviewing and potentially moving towards a 10 acre town for Act 250 instead of a one acre town like similar towns our size have gone to? I don't think we address that. The history of the town beefing up is subdivision regulations has been a checkered one at best and so certainly at the planning commission level we've been a little reticent to reopen that Pandora's box because of past efforts in the past where planning commissions and a lot of this goes back to before my time have spent a lot of time and energy trying to craft proposals that then just got shut down here at the select board level. And so my own position on it and this is just my own personal position not necessarily the position of the planning commission is that given the amount of time and resources we have and the amount of things that are on our plate I would be loath to encourage the planning commission to dive into this unless we get some sort of direction from the select board from you folks that you were open to that prospect because otherwise it's quite frankly it's just not a good use of our time. And the last time it happened with the planning commission there were a lot of sore feelings that resulted from it. So we're all just citizen volunteers. We show up on our free time we roll up our sleeves twice a month we try to do the best we can but at the end of the day we wanna spend our time our resources wisely. And again my own position is I wouldn't encourage us to spend six to eight months to go into an elaborate process that had a snowball's chance and you're not aware of making it to March. So. Understood. Yeah. Maybe I could just add one thing that we could do in conjunction with the zoning rewrite is to have a joint meeting at some point just to focus on this issue. I know there's been pressure from the private sector in Waterbury to address this. I think we should address it. I agree. I think there needs to be consensus on how we would move forward. I don't think the municipal plan is necessarily the right place to highlight that issue but I think the zoning rewrite is the right place because I think that's where we would need to resolve this. Ultimately it's up to the slide board on how you wanna move forward with all this by the way because there's an ordinance but. I thought I was gonna ask we kind of prescribed by an ordinance to be subject to Act 250 right now because we do have subdivision regulations. Right. And I think that the planning commission has done what was necessary to get us probably 90% through that door. And it would be more of an act of the select board as opposed to the planning commission at this stage to get the rest of the 10% of the way through. I haven't looked at the subdivision rates for a long time but I think they would be adequate probably to do what Act 250 requires, right? Yeah, their rewrite has a lot of good information, additional criteria both in subdivision and I think we could look at site plan review as well because that's the other area we could address. So I think a separate meeting to address this issue is a really good one. And then I think ultimately as Bill said it's up to the select board how you wanna move forward. And it's not just been the select board. I mean there are private citizens in the community who waived the flag to say, let's keep Act 250 to protect us from ourselves because if we were doing it ourselves they wouldn't be happy necessarily. So it's not just the select boards of the past. There have been members of the public who have said we don't wanna be in Act 250. We don't wanna leave Act 250. If I could add to that. Most input we've had so far in our zoning rewrite which we put aside to get to the municipal plan and then we'll go back to has been around increasing what the regulations might change to increase density in the village areas and changing various zoning requirements, site plan review and land use that might allow for more dense housing. So that has been the biggest pushback we've gotten so far. Even though that's the direction we've been moving that's where the voices come out and tell us, no you're not doing that. Yeah and I think there's a lot, Mark hit on one thing that I heard about just today and Ken has made some points. But when you look at the map and you look at the 40% of the land area that's all in state land. So you're constrained right there. You can hear Waterbury to say Barrie Town. Barrie Town has been able to do a lot of housing outside the ring of Barrie and some of it they've developed water systems and wastewater systems and the like. And we're kind of constrained both in terms of the ability to build on a lot of the land that we have in town. And then we have the very constrained village district nearby the river and the interstate and the hillside growing up the hill. So it's really, the density issue is the key to additional housing. You can build housing up where I live but as Judy has just alluded to, when people have to buy, spend a lot of money to buy a piece of land, they're not gonna build a house that sits on the Wiesel Mountain up on a five acre plot up in Waterbury's set. They're just, they're not gonna do that. They should not. They would but. Well. From the tax perspective. From the tax perspective, but from the idea of getting your money back for the land, you're not gonna build a, you know, a three bedroom, seven and 80 square foot house or something like that. And the other thing that Mark said today, and I just had a guy in my office today who was asking about 51 South Main Street. And I told him that it's really probably not available until after the Main Street project right now and even once the commissioners have decided they're gonna do. But he was interested in buying that property. So he could develop what an Airbnb on it. He said, I've got four or five Airbnbs in downtown locations. He's got a couple in rural locations. But he said, you know, Wienewski, Colchester, places that are, you know, people, they come in. That's what the fellow who did the. Chris Parsons. Chris Parsons was talking about, you know, temporary housing for transients. And I think that really is something that we need to consider. Because he said, I can get four times as much money on my rentals from Airbnb than I can get in the standard housing market. And it can just allow it. Yeah, I know. For example, cities like Austin, Texas have put in rules surrounding new construction that it's limited in the amount of short-term rental housing. It can be used for to help thwart that. Cause I think Stowe's seen it in a big way. Waterbury, I think it's seen it. Even I have friends who have a one bedroom unit. They're off, you know, in the hills, but now they have a way to rent it, making way more money than they would if they just rented it out. So years ago that would have been rented as an apartment. Now it's not. And you take that unit away. And however many other units, you look on any of those short-term sites and they're all over, they're all over the place. So from a timeline perspective, should I just mention the planning commission is meeting next week. And I think you've given some good to-dos. I've noted down some of the comments that should be addressed. Would you like the planning commission to come back with some language to address those issues for your next meeting? We have a timeline where in order to get this plan through, we'll need to have you worn and hearing at your next meeting for the first meeting in December. So that's what we had anticipated in the timeline. If you'd like the planning commission to address some of these concerns that have been raised with some suggested language, I could work with them at the meeting next week. We could bring that back to you for a final draft. Hopefully, I had a warrant for it. Just to throw out another option, and I do appreciate how much time the planning commission has already spent. And if at the next select board meeting, we have to warn a hearing for sometime in December, it really seems unlikely that the planning commission can really do a lot of work now before you need to adopt this. We've done a lot of work here. As Mark said, there haven't been any substantive comments except for these things regarding the two tasks for energy and housing. There are issues clearly that need to be addressed, but they don't have to be in the plan that we adopt after the hearing in December. And if it's really rises to the level of importance, just because the town plan won't expire for eight years, doesn't mean you can't revisit it before that period of time. So I would just say, respect the work that the planning commission has done. I think it's a pretty good document and move forward for now towards adoption. And then we can talk about these things in a reasonable timeframe. And then if you wanna ask the planning commission to address a section, they can go back and readdress it and you can readadopt it after that. There's no crime in doing it. But would you still have to go through the public hearing process and all that as well? Any time that you're going to amend or readadopt the plan, you have to go through the same process. It's just that it's October 15th now, this has to be adopted by December 3rd and to ask for real heavy lifting between now and December, I think it's a little unrealistic. And if we set up these tasks for us maybe early next year and get them going a little bit, then you can work with the planning commission. And if you have to, you can readdress, reopen the plan. Certainly for housing because the statistics are based on census data primarily that are in the housing. So if there's a housing task force that the select board forms that can give us input that can be addressed, you know that we can look along with the 2020 census data, I think that's a good timeframe for working on the housing issues. And our zoning regs that might help get us with your support can get us closer to some of those density issues. And zoning for temporary housing. I think the reason I brought it up Bill is I think if the select board wants to make any subsequent changes related to any of these issues, now's the time to do it before we warn a final draft. Once you, you're hearing an early December, you can't make any substantive changes in order to adopt that draft. It's like zoning once you do your final public hearing that draft other than maybe fixing a punctuation error or something. So that's why I want to, I guess find out more than anything, we want planning commission, I mean it's not a heavy lift or big changes but do you want them to tweak any of the language that's in there now to make the old data put the way it's written? Well, like I said, I've made a lot of notes but it's, you know, they were just, some of them were comments, some of them's like when it came to deer yarding and wildlife habitat, one thing or another. I would have liked to seen something in there that pertained to people in controlling their animals, their dogs, because that's a huge issue when it comes to, you know, the impact to wildlife and there's nothing in there that even speaks to any form of dog control. And I know we have an ordinance and all that but it's, I don't know, it's just one of those things that have been nice to see a little bit of information or comments about, you know, the fact that those are huge impacts on wildlife as well as the other things that were, but it's not, I'm not saying it's a do or die request. I mean, I think Bill's right. You know, if there's changes that we want to see in future date, we can certainly talk about it but overall I'm happy with the municipal plan as a whole and I think you guys done a great job. And I, you know, like Bill said, I appreciate your time and efforts. The task force are in there. So, yeah. Yeah. We can flush out details. Those issues later. If everybody's happy and there's no further comments, we can officially close out this hearing and. Okay. So Tracy Sweeney again. No, my other job, my real job is I work with a homeless down street in order to provide us, I can give you a personal side of it. We'll hear a lot about money. But I'm not hearing about what it's like to be on the front news or how all the restaurants aren't. Able to have their staff, they can't find staff because they can't house it. So just to keep that in mind when you're doing the task force that you have that side of it too. Okay. Just doesn't know if you want it. So I guess we will then, if it's all right with you, Ken will officially close out the hearing. It works for me. Okay. It works for me. Okay. So we'll also close during this meeting of the Water Break Planning Commission and let you get on with the rest of your work. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you again. Thanks. Appreciate it. Since we have a quorum, I actually have to go to work. Yeah. You told me you were going to have to bug out. So. I'll make a motion that we approve the agenda as presented. Okay. Call the meeting to order first. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So there's been a motion made to approve the agenda. Ane, would you like to second that? Okay. So one item to add a request for closing Randall Street for Halloween. All right. Put that right. It's his items. All right. Yep. Anything else? Okay. So there's been a motion made and seconded and with the change of talking about closing Randall Street for Halloween. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Since agenda items, all we have is a minutes for October 1st meeting. A motion to approve the consent agenda. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes of the October 1st meeting. Okay. I'll second that. Yep. No further comments. All those in favor of approving that say aye. Aye. All right. Public, is there anybody here wish to speak? Go ahead, Everett. Well, we'll be very brief at the Edward Farrar meeting last week, I presented Karen with two squash and a pepper. They came out from the kids' gardens at the community gardens on Ngunuski Street. And I understand and feel sorry that Deb was in a very difficult time with her health issues. I talked to Nick and there were some other vegetables out there, but if we go to do that next year under the Recreation Committee, we need somebody to lead it so that those plants like a little drink of water more often. I rototilled it before they started. I rototilled it a couple of times after that when they planted their basil and their various plants that got free from evergreen gardens. They didn't bother to put any sticks on them and it's a little hard to rototill like that. So my recommendation is it's a good thing because there are people in our community and other communities in Vermont that wouldn't know how to raise a carrot if they were gonna die if they didn't have one. So that's the garden situation. On behalf of the people on Ngunuski Street, the people who walk, run, and use strollers, finally we're getting some new sidewalks, which is a good thing. On the Edward Farah meetings, prior to becoming water sewer commissioners, they were water commissioners and trustees were the sewer commissioners. And it's seen because when you sign a project of water, often times you run into a sewer project. So the trustees moved to have the former water commissioners become water sewer commissioners. And now we have people in the town utilizing the water supply. And some, if they were pushed over into a village portion, formerly a village portion, they're in the Farah district now. And I think it would be very good to have Anne if she's willing. And the cost is not way of the line. Have the meetings of the Edward Farah utility district recorded as you have yours tonight. And I would strongly ask it's you as select board members encourage those other five commissioners to do so. And the other final thing, which is not to do with me, it's to do with who you vote for. I believe on Thursday night, Carla correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the six candidates for Senate for Washington County are supposed to be in this room Thursday night, the 18th for a debate. And looking ahead, we certainly have some things in state government that some of the senators will help control or have control over. And we need to get people out and learn what people are really standing for. And what they want in Vermont in terms of affordability. Questions? No, but I wasn't aware of that debate here. Thank you. Mike, you're right on that color. I'm not sure where we're at. It's been on either front porch forum or somewhere. I didn't dream it. Thank you. Thank you, Robert. Okay. I think the League of Women Voters is watching it. Okay, Bill, it's your turn. Okay, so Steve is here. He's gonna give us a report on the proposed nomination for the expansion of the National Reserve Historic Places. This is a historic district that's in the former village and because the Edward Farrar Utility District now has only authority for water and sewer and a few other specifically itemized things in the language that created it. The nomination that the process, the trustees started over a year ago and the historic district is now falling into the select boards anyway. So it's easier to tell you about this. Just briefly, we did mention this I think a couple weeks ago when the presentation was made here, but the trustees originally decided to seek expansion of the historic district to allow property owners, homeowners in particular, a little bit more flexibility with regard to the flood regulations if properties are substantially damaged. If they're in a historic district, they don't have to elevate to the degree that they would have to if they weren't. So that was the impetus of the trustees. So I'll turn it over to Steve. Okay. So I passed a letter that came to you, Chris, from the state and this is a notification that there's a proposed nomination to the National Register of Historic Places for an expanded Waterbury Village Historic District. And so Bill mentioned the areas. I'll just go over this briefly. I know you've already had a presentation by Scott, but this is going to the State Historic Preservation Commission on November 15th. We don't have a time yet, but the nomination materials are available on the Division for Historic Preservation website, including this map. And this shows the entire proposed district, including the existing historic district, which focuses primarily on North and South Main Street down just past Fatshelder Street, also includes Randall Street, the state complex and Thatcherburg Primary School and the houses up along Stow Street. So the areas that Bill referred to are South Main Street from just beyond the Hunger Mountain Children's Center and the South entrance into the state complex and Battshelder Street all the way down to the Maplewood Convenience Store and including that building. And then the other area that's also in the 100 year floodplain is the lower end of Union Street. So when you get down below the former square house, those properties are all within the 100 year floodplain and so that is proposed as an addition to the historic district as well. And when this was reviewed by the state, by Devin Coleman, who's the State Historic Preservation Specialist, he asked that the area of High Street, Hill Street and Railroad Street be added as well to the district because there are numerous historic houses in that area and it's in between the existing district and the Thatcherburg Primary School. So that area was also surveyed. I think they're about almost, well I probably shouldn't say, it's well over 100 buildings that are in these new areas. On the map, the white outlined buildings are contributing structures. So when a structure is contributing, it means that it has an historic designation in the district and then the black ones are non-contributing structures, typically less than 50 years old or historic buildings that have been very seriously modified, if you will. There are also some interior courts like the Adams Court, the Parker Court where Ann lives, Locust, Terrace, I believe, there are some interior areas, well that's part of this block, but there are some interior parts of Moody Court that were not included in the original nomination. So those areas have all been added, so all the buildings within this outline are part of the nomination. Bill mentioned the benefit to houses that are designated as contributing historic structures within the 100-year floodplain. If they're substantially improved, the building is not required to be elevated. Utilities do need to be elevated, but not the building itself. So I just wanted to really be brief at this point, answer any questions you have and let you know that the process is moving forward. And just to be clear, there's, except for the nomination that's been done, there's no obligation on the municipality's part to do anything. We have flood regulations that talk about what happens in the flood. We specifically exempt these structures, but in terms of maintaining this district, if this passes, there's not gonna be any financial burden placed on the town to accept what the trustees have asked for, correct? Right, that's correct. There are really no restrictions that come with designation. If the municipality decides to, let's say extend our design review district to take in some of these areas, that's up to the municipality to take that step. And there are benefits for income-producing buildings for tax credits, federal and state tax credits. So it doesn't obligate the town really to do anything at this point. It's really quite beneficial. All of the property owners in the expanded area were notified by the state by letter. We worked very closely with them to make sure they had all the proper mailing addresses for all of those people. And so they were notified, they can come to the hearing. Interestingly enough, and this is outlined in this letter, more than half of the people in that expanded area would have to object in order for the commission to be required not to accept it. If you have an individually nominated building, let's say like the seminary building or some of the other buildings that are very prominent and nominated, then if the landowner objects, the commission will not move forward with the nomination. But in a case like this where it's a district, people may object or may have questions, but that doesn't obligate the commission to withhold that property from the district or something of that nature. I think we've only had one call from the people who receive the letters to date. There may be other questions that come up. So there's no impact from a cost perspective to any of these additions to the district. Directly to the owners, right? Right, that's correct. And in fact, if there were blood damage or something, they were in this district, it allows more people to take advantage of the flexibility offered to not have to elevate their buildings. Right, so that would be a potential cost savings to someone who is substantially improving a building. Right, and we also found out when we considered elevating properties on Randall Street that the flip side could be the case as well, that you get pushed back from the historic folks about trying to elevate something that's historic because then it becomes out of character with the rest of the neighborhood. But I think the flexibility for the property owner not to be required to do that is much more helpful. And I did ask Steve specifically because I did feel the one call that we received. You know, if somebody say up on High Street now if this district was approved, if they decided that they wanted to put replacement windows in or put a new roof on their house or even tear the building down, they would not be prohibited from doing that because of this designation. All of the regulations with regard to that would only come from the local community. So if you're in the design review district, which is on Main Street, there's a lot of areas there. You know, those people, if you're in the design review district, you have to get permits and in the light to do certain things, but it's not because they're in the state's designated historic district that they have to have that. So just a quick question talking about historic. The barn that left you, Seah, had. Right. Was that a big loss as part of being part of the historic nature or the, you know what I mean, the buildings down in this area? Was that, how significant, I guess, was that building? Well, it was an accessory structure and those are shown in the nomination and described. So, I mean, I can't tell you, I know it was damaged in the flood of 1927 and really never quite recuperated, but to put it mildly. But yeah, I don't know that I'm really the one to speak to that. I mean, our goal, certainly in the Missville plan, is to try to encourage people to retain and maintain historic structures, right? And the tax credits typically go to income-producing properties, right? So that's a residential property. It's just a residential plan. So I think it's an aesthetic loss and it is a historic loss to the community that that once, I'm sure, a beautiful Byronite has now fallen in, but no more so than the beautiful Byronite Luton 100 that was there once before. It's no longer either, you know? Yeah. Any other questions from the board? Nope. Okay, good. We'll keep you posted. All right, I appreciate it. Thanks, Steve. Rock. Thanks. Super report. Okay. So at your place is the report for September from the state. I typically send this out to Mark. I'm not sure if he had a chance to look at anything, but I'll turn it over to him. Sure. I will consolidate this into a graphical image as we did before. And actually what I wanna do as well is put the whole quarter together so that we'll have a look at the quarter's worth of activity. The question I guess I would have is regarding placement on the website. When we first put it up, we just stuck it in as a news item. I guess the question I would have is, is there a better cataloging of these for easy reference by the public? We could make a page. Yeah, yeah. Develop something. Yeah, because as they come in month to month and everything, pretty soon we're gonna just have that whole blocked up and that makes good sense. What we're seeing here is pretty consistent with what we saw last month. And that is that the bulk of the responses and activity are coming from the two troopers that are assigned here. They, the number of calls is relatively close and consistent. If you add the two of these together, that 112 here, the first month was 100. Everything seems to run right around that, that level of calls for service. And last month and this month, both the share handled by the two troopers here is significantly higher than what is coming out of Middlesex. The troopers have been actively involved in activities here in the community. They noted here the bike walk to school piece that was a relatively short notice item, but they made sure that they had a presence here in town for that. We've made them aware of the block party that went on previously. And then with the item coming up on Randall Street, we'll just make them aware of that with Halloween following in the mid part of the week, they'll have a presence around for that. You can see that it's a pretty varied amount of responses and everything, but they're active out there making traffic stops and picking up arrests related to that activity. And again, I'm hearing very good things about it. The presence, the visibility has been something that's been noted as a very positive item for the community. So I think to this point, it's been what we were, it's been what we were actually looking forward to with respect to entering into this. And I guess my only question for you is whether or not our bill has shown up yet. Yes, it has. I think it might be in this week's order. Good. And it was the right amount. Yeah. Ha ha ha. Most of these are self-explanatory, but what is directed patrol? That's when, based on complaints, concerns within the community, they'll focus on a particular area for patrol purposes. With the Village PD, they used to do a fair amount of that with downtown foot patrols and the like, but for this, it's really like taking a segment of the town and focusing on that for patrolling purposes. As an example, I don't know if you would agree, but I had a call from a gentleman in Harvey Farm, which is a private highway. We don't own it and we can't regulate it with regard to speed, so there's no town speed limits on that road. But the complaint was that delivery trucks, FedEx, UPS, in particular, were going quite fast in there. So I called Lieutenant White and spoke with him about that, and he said, that's a, it's in your town, and those folks pay taxes, we can send a trooper up there. And so I imagine that's probably one of the 11 directed patrols. In fact, I saw them in there a couple of weeks ago when I was going home, and I could see a trooper coming out. So that kind of thing probably, you know, the Union Street walk party the other day, if that had been in September, it might be there, the walk and bicycle to school. I believe they're gonna help out on the River of White parade as well in December. Those kind of things that directed the patrol, I think. So agency assist, we had one, is that us assisting somebody else, or is somebody else coming in and assisting us? No, that was the troopers assisting another agency. It could have been related to any number of things, but quite often that's like a police department or another governmental agency from outside of the town looking to locate somebody or confirm. Right, it could be WASI for the ambulance, it could be the fire department in Ducks Parade. Yeah. Any had people like that? Good. Anne had her hand up at one point. Well, I was going to make the River of White parade less helpful to back that up again. Yeah, no, they've committed to assisting us with that. The public works folks are gonna provide a tail on the parade, but there'll be a couple of troopers assigned to lead the parade and manage some of the traffic work. No action necessary, Chris, unless you have questions. No, I was just gonna, you know, seeing the traffic stops and the tickets and all that. I know their presence has made it an impact, but I can tell you there's still people out there that got their foot right on the pedal. There's never a shortage of fish in the barrel. Yeah. All right, Jane, you all set? I'll set, thank you. Okay, move on to the next item. So the Better Back Roads Grant Application, this is a small grant application for category A grant. This is relating to the municipal roads, the general permit that we're required to have now. We have to do a road inventory. The state has identified segments. I think there's 422 hydrologically connected segments of roadway and waterway. These are both gravel roads and paved roads and going further down the line in order to get any type of help to replace the grant, I mean the grant, to replace the culvert that we had on Hubbard-From road even. You need to do this, you need to comply with the general permit and the general permit came into effect in July of 18. So we're moving forward. This grant application would be for $8,000 and it would allow us to use that money to contract with the Regional Planning Commission to do an inventory of these 442 road segments. Segments are identified as 100 meters in length, so that's about 330 feet. We have 442, 330 to 440 less segments that somehow are interconnected with the waters of the state. So Wunewski River, Thatcher Brook, any of the small brooks up in the center, wetlands and the like. So anyway, I would ask that you authorize the submission of this grant. It has to be in by October 26th and authorize me to sign it. The work will more than likely be done in 2019. And as I said, it's really, if we expect to get any other grants for structures, you really need to start with this. I'll make a motion to authorize the application for the Better Backroads grant or category A. I'll second that. You're not authorized me to sign it. I'll authorize you to sign it. All right, any further discussion? All those approved, say aye. Aye. Aye. Thanks. So the work will involve inspections of gravel roads, of paved roads, and we even have to look at outfalls of storm drains. So in the paved sections of our highways, where we have catch basins, we'll have to inventory those discharge places as well. So thank you. I do have a question. Has that kind of inventory work been done before? Not to the degree that they're gonna do this. With detail. We've done inventories on both culverts and on road surfaces, but this work is gonna involve looking at ditches and if they're greater than a 5% slope, what they've vegetated, stoned line, checked dams and the like, looking at the crown of the road to make sure that it allows the water to shut off properly in the areas that it is, looking at, especially, we don't have a lot of culverts that cross the roads that just discharge into a field. We have some, but most of them just carry a brook across. But where we are discharging from a road into a field, they wanna see where that water goes and how it's distributed in the landscape. So some of it we've already done similar work, but it's a little bit more extensive and we'll take in some things that we haven't looked at before. So nothing pertaining to possible retention upon structures or anything like that? Retention upon structures that are construction of those. If we owned them, then they would look at those, but we don't know. I mean, as part of this new, the new regs, are they gonna ask that the town possibly have to construct some of those structures? I think that's unlikely, Chris. I won't say absolutely not, but I don't think that's what they're getting into in a town like ours. In some of the communities that have been identified in watersheds that are impaired, you know, Chittenden County, they have a much higher bar that they have to deal with, but I doubt we'll get into that. I went to VLCT training with Woody on this topic was covered there, and it seemed as though it was a matter of producing the inventory and tying it to future eligibility for funding to support projects. If you don't have the inventory done properly done, your eligibility is impacted, and if you do have the survey done and completed, then that's more of a pre-qualifier for you. And the Regional Planning Commissions really had all the software and the mapping stuff that was gonna make that possible. Yeah, it actually sounds like quite a good deal for $8,000. Yeah, I think it is. It's about a $9,500 project. Our share will be about 1,500. Most of that will be spent just in staff time. There probably won't be a big cash match. But anyway, related to that, in our Highway Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plan for 2018, one of the projects that we had was Armoring of the Stream Bank, Little River. There was some damage a year or so ago. We did get a grant for that. And the grant period is July 1st, 18 through June 30th, 19. And we were planning to do that project this year. It's in our capital budget. Two things happened. We were under a little bit of a time crunch, but the State Stream Alteration Engineer asked us to wait till 2019 to do this work as awkward as it sounds. He didn't want the work to be done when the river was as low as it was. It's kind of odd that they would say that on Little River because that is regulated more by the dam than anything, except it's a run of the river operation now. It's not, they don't get to store water and then release the big flow at peak times like they did before. And obviously with this dry as the summer was for the water coming in from all the Brooks, they weren't discharging as much. So the email said that the unusually dry weather this season while might be ideal conditions to actually work in the stream is not preferential at this time. The stream engineer prefers to have more flow creating less impact on aquatic life. So we're not gonna get that job done this year because you're right. I would have expected just the opposite, like you said. Well, because they've always asked us to try to do these projects in August and it's the low flow of the month usually. And that's what we did on the Hubbard Front Road was to get that when that stream was as low as possible. But anyway, it's still on the books that just won't happen this year. I mean, when we did the project up by the school there down over the bank reconstructing that big stone retaining wall there, we actually had to, I don't know if you remember, we put big culverts in the water and diverted the water around the work areas just to prevent damage. Okay, update on the main street project. Yeah, the update on the main street project is that last week it was put out to bid by V-Trans. I believe it's gonna be the second week in December that the bids will be opened. And right now, it's in a range, the estimate is in the 20 to 30 million dollar range. And because we were talking 25 before, Ken Uplall is suggesting that it's probably gonna push 30. I've been trying to push Ken for a while to help get some estimates for what it's gonna cost us as you remember it's a 2% local match for eligible items. There are, well, probably not for the town. Most of the items for the town that I'm aware of are eligible. There may be a few ineligible costs for the utility district that they'll have to pay 100% off. But what I'm hoping for is that the bids will come in that there'll be a clear winner that it's within their budget and then they can do some bid tabs and then we'll be able to use that to determine what our costs are gonna be in 2019 and 2020. The completion date is advertised as June 30th, 2021. That would be two full construction seasons, late April, early May of 18 through the fall of 19 would be the bulk of the construction would be done. And then in the spring, early summer of 2019, it would be any cleanup, some of the landscaping and some of the signage, the way finding signs and things like that. Spring of 2020. 2021. 2021. Yeah, basically. 18, 19s and 20s got kind of... 19. Yeah. We know. Right. Anyway. I believe it's 21, but you might, I'll have to check with Barb tomorrow. Yeah, the June, 2021 has a familiar sound to it. Yeah, I believe that's correct. Yeah. The two year project. Yeah, so 1920 would be the construction season, I'm sorry. And then 21 would be the way finding signage. Yeah. Details. So anyway, I'm hopeful that in December, we'll know what the total project cost is and then I'll work with the state to segregate out the highway sidewalk, storm drainage costs, signage costs from the water costs and the sewer costs. And obviously there's three different municipal budgets, two E-FUD budgets and one highway budget. So the cost of the town, even if $30 million is the top number, it won't be 2% at 30 million to the town, it'll be 2% up 30 million minus whatever the water, minus whatever the sewer is. And then we'll, so I'm hopeful we'll have good information when we get to budget timing, Jane. Okay, that's it. Yeah, we're closing up, but just one little comment there on the Main Street project. It seems as though that us, the town, are making a practice now of putting foam under our sidewalks. I know that during conversation there with Ken Upmall at one point, that had been discussed. And I think it was a simple that brought it up to him. And he really was kind of unaware of the concept but was interested in it. And I didn't know if for whatever reason you might happen to bump into him or would he have a conversation with him and maybe bring up the possibility, and it may be way too late in the game. But he showed interest in possibly at least looking at that concept and that. I don't know for certain, I don't believe. It's not in the bid document now. I don't believe the bid document is included in it. They're not changing that. It's a sale, huh? It's a sale, I asked about a small landscape change and I was told, we're done. So I don't believe they included it, Chris. If we wanted to do it, we might be able to do it by change order, but I think they would say that you pay for all of it, yeah. Yeah, just a question. Okay, and then the last thing I guess is closing Randall Street for Halloweeny? Yeah, Halloween is the 31st, which is Wednesday night, couple weeks, and the practice for the last number of years, probably more than 10, the trustees used to close that street from four o'clock to eight. They barricaded on Elm Street, and then on Park Row, traffic can get down Elm Street to the parking lots and the like, and then on Park Row, they can go in to the state complex, but Randall Street itself, it's, if you had kids or know of kids, it's a really high traffic area for circuit reading, and they'd like to have it closed again, so. Yeah, we used to bring our kids there when. Union Street situations, when they were that age. I think it's a good idea, it's safer too. Yes, Everett. Could I clarify one of the comments that I made? Sure. Can they act on this? Yeah, they'll just let us act on this first real quick, and then we'll take care of you. So, Jane, would you like to make a motion? I will make a motion to go forward with the concept of closing Randall Street to traffic on Halloween. From four to eight. From four to eight, please. I'll second that. Good, and any further discussion? Doesn't seem to appear to be any, so all those in favor say aye, then. Aye. Thank you. Aye, Everett. Just quick like, on the trustees, the village was in existence, the trustees meetings were most of the time at seven or seven thirty at night. Every other one, Caitlyn was at four thirty in the afternoon. So realistically, it would not be costing any more money than it was costing before. And what I want to clarify, there are people in the town of Waterbury who have village water. It would be nice if they had access to knowing what's going on with the Farah utility district in terms of costs. And also, Schipp was very much opposed to this, but that's why they always held the meetings at four thirty in the afternoon. Many people who would attend those, and as you can see, this is the mob here tonight, as usual myself, and anything in the middle of the night. But I think it would be advantageous if we had the Farah district meetings recorded as the trustees were in the past, and Schipp somebody's not gonna get up at eight, seven, thirty, eight o'clock on Monday morning to watch it. That's not the purpose. The purpose of it is to have it in a record form, and if people want to come to the meeting, they can. And if they want to question the minutes, they have access to those. And I just think it's a good idea to post the ruling bodies, if you will, select board, and the commissioners of the Farah district recorded. So that's the issue for the district, is that Bill? I understand Everett's reason for bringing it here tonight. There are people who live outside of the district who are water customers of the district, just like they used to live outside the village. Everett has made this request to the EFUD board, didn't go well the other day for a variety of reasons, but they've put it on their agenda for the next meeting to consider it, and this is a decision for the EFUD board. If you wanna send a message encouraging them to do so, you're entitled to do that, but you can't make it happen. Yeah, I was kinda thinking that that was the case. I wasn't suggesting that you could force them to do it. Right. Recommendation perhaps. Now, obviously you're asking for them to pay and to record those meetings, correct? Same as they're doing with the board of trustees. Okay, thank you. All right, Everett. Thank you for your service. Thanks for coming. Motion to adjourn, please. I'll make a motion to adjourn. You're gonna have to put it on because it's important. I'll second that. Okay. All those in favor of getting out of here, say aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you, Ann.