 Okay, it is 6 p.m. Monday, July 17th. I'll call to order this meeting of the Wenuski City Council. Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance led by Deputy Mayor Thomas Verner. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Thank you. Agenda review. Any changes to tonight's agenda? No. Okay. Well, much faster than I thought. We are on a public comment. So this item is reserved for comments and questions on topics that are not included on this evening's agenda. No online attendees. I will invite our in-person folks up. Right here? Yeah, can you join us? Right, thank you. And then just introduce yourself and tell us what we're here for. And then I live in 13 Richard Street. I have our petitions. We'll look for each of you. We can pass them down to you. Thank you. In October 2020, we had our first petition, which is someplace in my house I couldn't find. So we had to do a new one, but we have new neighbors. So that's great. Left a petition with John Rauscher and we had some communication. And then the last time I heard from him was March 2022. And he had said in the last email that Richard Street, I think I looked up the whole calming of the streets in Burlington and they were going to use that for fear. And we'd be evaluated and he'd be in touch and I haven't heard from him. So I'm not trying to go above the chain of command, but I never heard from him. And when you also, when you look at the petitions, petition, some of the signatures aren't on Richard Street and they're people that are adjacent or walk on the street all the time. So there's four or five of those that won't be Richard Street. Okay. So we have, I think people are, and you'll see it on the petition, but people seem to think that it's a shortcut from LaFountain to Upper Maine, even though it's, I don't know why it's a shortcut. I mean, it's just, or it's fun. They come up the hill and clear streets pretty steep and then seem to accelerate to see how fast they can get to Bellevue Street, which it's a tiny street. But we're all kind of sick of it. And we have kids on our street and some of them don't always stay, you know, they ride their bikes in the street. And I don't think if it's, if there's no speed posted, is the speed 25 miles an hour? The whole city is. The whole city is. Okay. So I don't know if, you know, speed bumps can be done. I think when I first talked to him, he said, or emailed with him, he said they had been done ad hoc and which I take to be willy-nilly, but you know, not, not with any plan, I guess. And so we just wondered what are the chances of having speed bumps? That's true. Previously, it was sort of an ad hoc process in the last year we have implemented a traffic calming policy to bring some structure to evaluation. Sure. Elaine, do you have any information at the moment? Yeah, actually, John's here if you want to go. Oh, great. John is with us virtually. Okay. I see him now. I've never seen him. Yes. You exist. Yeah, I do. I'm here. So yeah, the background on that is we, we haven't forgot about you. So we, we completed the traffic calming manual that's this listed on our webpage. And we have a list of streets that are potential candidates for traffic calming evaluations, which is Richard Street because we, I have your petition. The issue is the, we need about $5,000 in budget to perform said evaluation. So we have, like I said, we, we've established a traffic calming manual. And our goal is to first have a traffic calming consultant basically provide a template traffic calming study for us that we can replicate on other streets. Hopefully find the equipment that we need to do that kind of traffic calming. But the current budget that we have in place does not have that funding available to do those evaluations. So that's, that's where we are currently. So you are on the list for to have the evaluation done. It's just a matter of having budget to do that evaluation. That's the holdup right now. If we were evaluated and our street could have something, what would you think would be done? Yeah, I mean, typically, yeah, it depends. So typically what we've seen on other streets is, you know, potentially if it meets the thresholds for traffic calming, it could be anything from speed humps that you've seen on other streets. It could be bump out to intersections to slow folks down. Um, registry, as you mentioned, has a lot of slope to it. So I do expect potentially that could be a speed hump candidate. But you'll see in the traffic calming manual, it lists every type of measure that would be appropriate for the city of Manuski. So it has, it has a few different items on it. So we have kind of all a car, a couple of measures that we can implement. And we're also a little concerned that, and I could be wrong, but when there is more work done on Main Street as they go down, are we going to end up being a detour for a lot of that work? Well, we're not there yet. So we do have that project out to bid. And as part of that work, the selected contractor will have to provide a detailed traffic study or sorry, traffic rerouting. We're not proposing, I can tell you now, we would not propose Richard Street as one of those detours. It would likely be more like Weaver Street because it has a little bit more capacity and doesn't have the slope that Richard Street does. So not great for people on Weaver Street, but you know, we could, we have a long ways to go with, you know, if we award a contractor, if prices come in well, we have a lot to discuss about traffic rerouting on that project. So if we were to get something we're looking at two or three years down the line, probably, or is it something that would happen at some point sooner? It would be sooner because so for example, like if we did the evaluation, we, the council made some amendments that when we approved that we could do some pilot work. So for example, like a speed hump is a pretty low cost item that we can install that our crews internally can install. So if, if we do the evaluation, determine the speed humps appropriate, that could be a short term item that we can do immediately. There's also some lower costs like temporary items that we could try out that aren't the permanent. So example would be like a intersection bump out. We could do a temporary intersection bump out, let's say planters, things like that that are lower costs. See if residents like that, if they do the next go around when we do repaving work, make that a permanent option. So there's some short term interim improvements we can make. There aren't that many people here, but everyone on the street signed the petition and then other people that, I don't know if you're here when I said it, people that don't live on the street, but they're just around the corner and they walk on the street. So even though I don't have a lot of people with me, everyone is kind of anxious for something to happen. It's been going on and it seems like they're getting faster and I don't know if it's kids or not. But we all see, oh, there's this one red Ford edge, is it? No, what is that? It's a boxy Ford station wagon and just speed down the street. And it's maddening. Yeah, so something like that, we can pass along to the police department. If it's the same characters, that's sort of an easier thing to enforce because the police can enforce that if it's the same person over and over. So that is something we can pass along the police chief for patrols to monitor. So would they be a presence on the street? What about, can you put cables across the street to see how fast people are going? Is it like the front tires and the back tires hit and they know? Yeah. That's part of the evaluation that we would do is we would check to see what the actual speeds are on the street. Because it's not a long street, so I don't know how fast they're really going, but they're accelerating. It seems like they're accelerating the whole way. I live just about in the middle, so I can hear them accelerating and then going to the end. And I think they go through that Bellevue stop sign. Pretty. I'm not there, but everyone down at that end of the street says that they do. But I think that's probably ramping everywhere at this point, isn't it? Yeah. Okay. And John, do we have a mobile speed meter that the police department can potentially move? Yeah, the police department has one. We can ask them to mobilize it out there. They would have to. I'm sure there's a spot out there. They could land one. Yeah, I understand it's hard to the hill. Yeah. Well, the hill, you were saying there's, it's a slope. I think Richard street is pretty flat, but the hill. Yeah, I'm, I'm thinking of Claire. Claire, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the, that's the fun part for them, I guess there is a neighbor that signed it that lives there and she, you know, she gets disgusted to so. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you for coming in. Yeah. Was anyone here for additional public comments? Bruce, come on up. Well, first of all, I want to say, um, hello to everybody in our city manager, our mayor and our city counselors. Thank you for serving the people of Winooski. Really appreciate that. I'm a long time resident of Winooski. And, um, it's my public comments is about, I'm a board of director of a fight the kids foundation who we've, you know, we really work hard to get where we are today. We do an, um, um, first five days in the rotary and, um, and we providing now fun and cool and educational things for youth and families and, and free food every um, first Friday to September. And so I wanted to ask the city council and, um, to help us out, support what we're doing for the, um, people of Winooski, um, the youth and you know, we had to get a new center open and opened on, um, Mountain Bay Avenue. And we're trying to, we're raising funds to build a whole, a really nice one. And, um, so basically we just want you to help us out, support us, you know, best way you can, you know, um, I've been fortunate to be, um, Winooski long enough to be able to, um, help open one of the first youth centers in, um, O'Brien Center was called the Underground Youth Center. It was called the Underground Youth Center because it was in the Champlain Mill. And so we moved it from there to there. Um, unfortunately it's not there anymore. And so Fife for Kids Foundation is there. You know, um, so I just want to ask, you know, to, um, please be our partners in this, in this venture with Fife for Kids Foundation. Please be our partners for our events we're doing to raise funds. And, uh, we're actually not even raising funds in our first Fridays. We're not asking anybody for a dime. We paid our fees and, um, we did our registration. We can wait for free food. We just want, we just want, um, um, families, youth and, you know, community and business to come and hang out for a healthy outlet. So thank you. Thank you, Bruce. Thank you for the reminder. Thank you. Is there any additional public comment? No online attendees. Okay. We'll move on to our consent agenda. So we have our meeting minutes from June 27, corrected minutes for March 20, April. Um, April warts for June, um, accounts payable for July. Um, authorizing execution of pilot agreement amendment for Dareplace expenditure of public art funds for River, River walk mural by art. So wonderful event permit application for a Lopez Street Block party resolution to establish bank account for the avonleengine representative for when you ski for when you ski Valley Parks District. Is there any questions concerns on the consent agenda tonight? I'd like to remove item E for discussion. Would anyone else like to second that? Second. Okay. I will pull that out and it will become our new H in the regular agenda. Any other questions comments on the consent agenda? No. To have a motion to approve? Second. Motion by Bryn, second by Charlie. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Council reports or would you like to start? Sure. So at our most recent safe healthy connected people meeting we discussed the Riverwalk mural and that was the primary item that we discussed at that meeting and Inclusion and Blonging Commission does not meet this month. Chittinsaw Waste District met at the end of June and at that meeting the board approved funding for equipment for the new materials recovery facility or recycling facility so that expenditure will be an estimated $16 million for the new equipment. Looking forward to having that project move forward. Many thanks again to when you ski residence and Chittin County residents that voted and approved the bond for the new recycling facility because that will be significant. The Airport Commission met on July 5th. There's continuing plans to be developed for updated noise impact exposure maps. There haven't been they anticipate reconvening, initiating the two committees that were helped from the previous noise impact mapping workgroup but they there hasn't been any information released on how those solicit people to participate on the workgroups and the exact timing they said towards the end of summer but so waiting on additional details. Regardless there will be public information sessions and there will be translation and interpretation services provided and municipal infrastructure committee is not meeting this month. We are soliciting for three seats for that so if anyone has interest the meet monthly usually just for about an hour and a half over at Myers-Bull so if anybody has questions about the infrastructure commission happy to chat. Thank you. Just two updates from me planning commission met continue to review design review standards thing they've been working on for a couple months and the next meeting August 10th they'll be talking about the boundaries for an actual design review area in the city of Winooski and Elaine and I had the pleasure of meeting with some middle school students from the mill school last week which is a group actually I don't I don't think we've engaged before so excited for that. Thomas? Downtown Winooski meets this Wednesday we haven't met since we last all met but just a reminder that the farmers market is happening every Sunday from 10 to 2. The next Winooski Wednesday will be August 2nd and we are starting to plan Winooski's pride event which will be in September again and it's a partnership between Downtown Winooski and some volunteers but we will be seeking community input and assistance in doing that so once I have a better report on that I'll come back with that. Thank you. The Winooski Housing Commission attempted to meet on 7-6 and we didn't make our next meeting is scheduled for the 25th of this month and we'll be hearing from Jasmine about some of the work that was going on there later this meeting. I almost forgot I just wanted to make a quick public statement of appreciation for staff who quite a number of them were working very hard doing overtime last week ensuring that things were still safe here in Winooski while we were being impacted by rising waters and I'm grateful that we did not have the kind of damage that many other communities unfortunately did. I will pass it to Elaine for city updates. Yes speaking of raising storms and flooding first I also want to thank our Department of Public Works and our public safety teams for their diligence in keeping an eye on the situation throughout the week and continue to. We have been fortunate so far as the mayor mentioned more rain is forecast so we do continue to monitor the weather, the river heights and the broader situation with support from state and federal agencies. Please continue to encourage each other to keep a safe distance from the river and stay away from barricaded areas so that you don't become someone who needs rescuing. Also there is still a lot of unhealthy material in the water in the river so waiting is also not advisable. Our thoughts are with us those around the state more affected much more affected by this disaster. If you know someone who is not yet connected to resources and was impacted please check VEM as in Vermont Emergency Management.vermont.gov.slashflood. VEM.vermont.gov.slashflood for resources that might be relevant to them. Winooski residents looking to help may visit Vermont.gov.slashvolunteer to get involved. In the meantime we encourage all Winooski residents to make an emergency preparedness plan for your own household should something affect us more severely in the future. A template for that is also at VEM.vermont.gov.slashflood. Also please sign up for emergency alerts by texting the word Winooski to 888-777 that's 888-777 or sign up at nixall.com. This is where you can get alerts about emergencies that are affecting us and help might help you get some advance warning. And finally the blood drive at the Winooski senior center the next one is Friday July 21st from 12 to 5 p.m. Donations are always needed. They did put out an alert recently for an acute need and you can help save a life by making your appointment today. You can visit the news section of WinooskiVT.gov for details. Thank you. We are on to the regular item section but I just realized for the mural consent agenda item that I pulled out since we have Bruce here. I don't want to have that all the way at the end. So this was the item to authorize expenditure of public art funds for River Rock Riverwalk mural. Brynn you had requested to pull that off so I will start with you for discussion. Sure thanks. First I want to thank you Elaine for the work that you put in to take advantage of opportunities available funding. You know that I've been really looking forward to bringing some more public art to Winooski. And I know that in and amongst everything else that you've been working on your first year that this has been probably lower on the priority list. So I appreciate all the work that's gone in to bring this forward and to team it up for the safe healthy connected commission as well. I'm sorry I have to do you mind if I I didn't I don't think I initiated this one with Bruce so a lot of credit goes to art so wonderful for coming up with a plan that I didn't have to do much for so I want to acknowledge that. Great well thank you for the correction then and thank you Bruce. So obviously like we've seen an increase in graffiti in the city through COVID I think for me personally that's been a major reason why I I think bringing additional public art is beneficial I think it's helpful anyway to create a sense of community and place and celebration but I also have seen that it can be a useful deterrent to additional graffiti so I'm hopeful that while this is a lower priority that maybe we can have additional funds for this an effort towards it in the future perhaps safely connected can a commission can keep that in mind. Now all that being said you know I want to hear from Bruce and hear more about I know you did the other mural downtown and you know just hear a little bit more about your concept and scope that went into this I read the the materials that are in the agenda but it feels like there's probably more context to it. Yeah well our so wonderful been around since 2003 and basically we also have a graffiti abatement program goes with it and so what we do is like we created over like in Burlington 60% of the murals is through our art so wonderful and we also in 2010 created our so wonderful lucky boxes so in our partners have done something for us and for us and we've done we created but our abatement program in 2001 I found out in my studies if you put murals over graffiti usually graffiti vanguards they respect them so they get old and dingy and so before you've seen the one underneath the bridge we actually we have one there before so this is not the first graffiti removal thing we've done it was there before and actually it got grind me a nasty against us what we did this timeline one and we was going to clean we was about to redo it you know I think our city manager said let me know that there's a bridge that's going to be built there in 2005 and just admit you know don't make no sense and so I saw Jimmy kind of regional planning and so I worked through over to be training and all and so actually they're gonna fund us when the bridge in 2005 is to do that we're over and so for us for me it's like I'm beautiful as a news he is we should got to keep it nice don't keep graffiti you know we're very respectful around with all these graffiti artists we also have our gallery in the university mall or someone with me a target he's saying it's like 8,000 square feet and and so for this mirror out here it's a depicts like because you have a like a sign up there to talk about when you see him back in the day you know having that key you know and so we saw our artists made a theme was well let's do this thing where it says can be like a grass area like it's actually onion onions you know onions and and put the music the river in there as well as I'm you back in the day like having that key back in the day and I'm you know because we know how people still will bomb the wall bomb the wall we're gonna put on the conditioner over it we're gonna put on and you're gonna end up putting repellent over it so so if they buy this is what I've been off kind of pressure watch it all our murals around the whole time we have you know Rutland we got down to Taylor Park and you know let's go out we got them all around our main team are so wonderful we don't let our news go bad we got arts we got like life's matter and you money's in units we got one on me on on a beverage warehouse and it was he and we're about to redo once this bomb on Union Street side actually I mean this is working on those now we're not right now you know and so we maintain our murals you know the first two murders we did we asked for another dime to do we we cost no nothing for the city of Newsy for us to do that it was a great great opportunity you know on the mayor was out there we did up as community event interactive with youth and families and everybody was out there having a great time we our sponsors supplied food and everything for that event and so this time because of COVID we just need to help we just need help with and because you know we want to put something nice on that you know whereas that people who will see the Riverwalk be like wow that's nice you know I don't know how many times we heard about the one on the bridge when it was really nice I'm still here but it's you know and so this one right here it's good it's so good if you see that you see the picture it's so beautiful in the colors and our artists are so incredible and so I would just ask you just to support this one because I'm like you know we would do for actually nothing if we could at this point but we like we don't know you know but but we know we just can't do it but we're gonna we maintain all our murals so if somebody puts the bottom wall we're gonna go fix it as soon as possible that's how we operate because first of all you know I'm you know I don't want none of my murals all tagged up I want to always look that I gotta stand it for my own self you know I'm saying if you ever come to the art gallery in university want you'll see all this incredible art and performing stages and we build an art gallery I mean art studio the back and recording studio some of my sponsors it's incredible and it's for everybody you know you for families and that you know like I said I also had opportunity for you for found using it even when the ski and cross the state to open the youth centers chill out centers free for family from families charge my dime to come in there you know for years you know there were 50 awards for doing that you know yes we do and we've done over 700 events you know you know we've done things in mind you know and so you know we just need help this time known this help us out let's please this help us on this this um do keep looking beautiful agree and I think one of my questions part of the reason why I wanted to bring this off for discussion is to get some additional detail about your work and connection and history to it and also see from city staff of their plans to just highlight celebrate the the newest mural that we're anticipating and again just thinking about plans for some additional future coordination having I don't think we have any particular framework in place right now but you know also looking at other counselors to have some support for that as well yeah we haven't had a chance to discuss any plans about like a brand reveal for this one bandwidth issues of course and what's the anticipated completion date well I don't know I wasn't 21st but we it's probably go take it by week you know week so by the end of this month yeah wow that's fast yeah okay well I want to say one thing too like so we have a gigantic plan that we're that our team is kind of looking at what I'm not gonna be trans gonna help us which is new one needs pull at a fixed bridge and only building somewhere else but the bridge is 100 years old when you see is up 100 years old we have new Americans we have our uncle when you see it's incredible so we can put all this incredible new things and timelines in in underneath that bridge and so it's gonna be interactive for the community again you know it's not gonna cost a secret diamond of sin you know so and I know that was gonna cost us probably like fifty six thousand dollars to do thank you no thank you for explaining the image at first I thought it was like the Northeast Kingdom so it's very nice to understand what you get now excited to see it completed sir you say you excuse me too oh it's funny thing about it all we have 60% of meals we talked about I never done I never put up I never put a brush on no on my leave me always Jamie for now you know she said to me say Bruce Bruce I got a job for you and I really know she's a you the best nobody can touch you you the best of this and so you know what I need you to do I said what Jamie I need you to go over here prime that wall well I know you weren't anticipating additional questions about that so thank you for your time okay job of motion to approve authorizing expenditure of public art funds for the mural second motion by Brent say my Charlie all is in favor please say aye motion carries thank you item a public hearing what okay hold on I need my my language so a public hearing has been noticed for the consideration of updating the chapter 28 fees ordinance at this time I'd like to open the public hearing is online now yes do you want to just briefly summarize the topic currently there is only one proposed change to the fees ordinance and that is striking the written dollar amount from the marriage license fee and referencing only state statute because it was changed in state statute and our current fee is less than what we should be charging thank you Angela any questions from the public any public comment okay seeing no comment I will close the public hearing and we'll move on to item B which is the discussion or approval to adopt this ordinance updates are there any questions from council I had a question about frequency so there are some low-level payments the items such as the be have permit ten dollars per year the other one is the chicken permit ten dollars per year it would it be considered a minor amendment a minor change to add something about frequency or modify the frequency of per year to like I don't know I'm trying to brainstorm twenty dollars every other year I don't know administratively that would actually reduce complications or for Jenny how much it would matter I'm sorry can you clarify what you're suggesting so for I know this for the chicken permit says ten dollars per year for be had permit ten dollars per year that's domestic quadruped ten dollars per year I'm curious if it's possible to adjust the the price and the frequency to saying instead of per year I'm having it twenty dollars every other year every two years if your goals that your goals to reduce the amount of work occasionally yes yes Jenny do you want to comment on that up here we can do that we honestly don't process a lot of those payments be hives we have one chicken permits we have six right now so it really doesn't add a lot of time okay so in theory you wouldn't save administratively wouldn't save no I suspect it might actually add some complication as we you know then we have to try on your off here depending on when they registered right tracking might actually be a little bit more complicated and it would result in some additional financial obligations because we'd have to accrue things across fiscal years okay any other questions from council would someone like to make a motion to approve adopting the chapter 28 fees ordinance update second motion by Aurora second by Thomas all those in favor please say aye motion carries we are on to item C introduction of draft updates to city of new skis housing regulations welcome to you good evening yeah so this is a new version if you will draft the old one is there are so many changes is this consider that the old one redlined and this is a new proposal and if there is a few questions forwarded which we appreciate the feedback obviously formatting we typically do with legal you know they have some staff there that that's all they do is this type of writing and that sort of thing so I don't know if you want me to try to answer the questions that were passed on or how you would like to proceed yeah can we start with that please yeah so I'll start with the mayor's questions general questions does this apply to private residences yes you know obviously there's provisions that that don't apply to a single family home but the health aspects do responsibility sections was it removed it's baked into another section meaning the landlord or tenant responsibilities authorization to take down buildings it's covered under title 24 chapter 83 3116 under the state statute so legal may choose to write that you know in our ordinance my question is why do we need to repeat that that language that's that's in that is is the language we want and ultimately the authority to take down is that's what we follow however the statute word ever change and if that's language we like we may not want to we might be more stringent than the statutory language right so that would be the only reason why we would want it right historically when uski has not been more restrictive that was another kind of general question that came up of you know we follow what's adopted through the state of Vermont and the Department of Health or Division of Fire Safety you know we can't be less than they are we can be more restrictive but we don't write our own fire code we don't write our own health code we're picking this up from the Department of Health that's why we're deputy health officers and the city health officer through the MOU of the Division of Fire Safety that's kind of the basis of how we've operated on the garbage there is a question here the ordinance contemplates removal every week you know what if someone wants can remove every other week you're writing the minimum right so we want to say to people you got to remove your your trash every week and how we've always run the ordinances if there's a house there's no issues we're not going to have any interaction does that make sense to folks so we can't write the minimum as every other week then I can't get to every week for the problem properties this is language I would be wrong to tell you I know that answer I can tell you this is language at several several other properties and obviously this extends and a lot of them say as needed and I would definitely tell you you know trash is a big deal for us and we need something you know we need to be yeah we need the tools and I can always you know work with folks of during their meeting the intent of the ordinance you know intent's a big word here in Wynieski that's I hope you know that's a lot of the property owners and tenants the staff is always considering the intent of what the ordinance where we're trying to get and I have no reason to believe you know we won't be successful in continuing to do that again trash is a big deal so our parts of it covered in chapter 7 yes but it's it's covered in more detail here and then there's some numbering yes there there is a word missing again I don't need responses to those no okay on those smoke detectors again you know the National Fire Protection Agency the Vermont life safety code sets how many smoke detectors in their locations and CO detection in any home we don't and again replicates and we can't be less restrictive could it reference that that like that's where the numbers coming from sure a couple other questions a question specifically to compost you again with the garbage composting you picking up what solid waste recommends it's state law right I mean so picking up that language is a good a good catch thank you notices before inspections you know in the draft one of the highlighted areas is notice about violations so section 9.06 service and notice of violations and the question is more about before inspections in you've you've heard me say this with with chapter 7 these types of notices are extremely hard for us we don't have the staff you know languages the language barriers it's hard it's we don't have the staff or resources to overcome that you know in some places we'd be doing 50 or 60 additional notices of violations of pre-inspection or notices so that that's one that's highlighted and that's one I really want to sit with legal and you know contemplate a little more of it it can't stay there currently we we would need to make some fundamental changes of staffing and resources of how I get there but I want people to know is if there's if there's something even remotely significant going on we're going to be having conversations with those who live there this is this is a notice of any violation so I just wanted to call that one out language around sorry if I just have you back up yep how many staff would you need in order to be able to do this I to a good standard I don't know I would have to work with a lane and and work you know it's on the administrative side is where it would land or in you know we certainly have come a long ways and our inspections are no longer paper they're electronic we can do paper but we come back and print them and send them so not everyone is able to do email and that sort of thing so there's some significant challenges what we are trying to get away from the paper piece we'd be going back to so I'd want to work with a lane and try to figure out that workflow question about if people know owners or landlords are violating parts of I assume any of our ordinances or policies I would suggest that's an education piece for us with with our residents tenants you know generally in Winooski you know through the property complaint forms and just so for me that's more ordinary that's more education than it is ordinance okay what about landlords that are have repeat violations would you still consider it to be educational so we're I mean are we are you asking the same question because I felt the question was if someone feels someone's violating any issue what happens and it's education for me that people 24 7 can use the property complaint form they can come here they can call me sell you know what I mean they for the person providing the complaint not for your response that's correct but and then you're I don't know if you're asking another question certainly it's not I misunderstood you know I misunderstood we will always try to educate but if someone's repeatedly doing something then that was what I was thinking that keeps going up the ladder if you will thank you question about who finds or secures temporary housing there's a provision in the ordinance where if somebody is displaced for a reason that the on the property owner that they have to do relocation we've never called out who does that again it's a resource thing can be very very intense trying to figure out what what a family or a person needs what's best for them and then also understand that's a temporary measure this is not the you know when you ski is going to house somebody for a year it's really meant to be a temporary three or four day you know we've done a week you know type scenario and then you know so it's a collaborative effort you know the three times I think three times I've had I've been involved in doing this it was a person not complying meaning the owner and we were trying to allow time for our partners to work with said families or individuals and the city was able to play a role of you know providing some some housing longer than what the Red Cross would do or anything like that we we always try to exhaust other other means but there has been I think I can think of like three times that we've we've stepped up and you know essentially about time for them to work with our partners to find something more permanent and get them out of the situation they're in why is one reserved that's a legal question all ordinances you typically see a page that's reserved it's a good question because I want to know and then lastly was around ADA you know ADA is you know disability you know accommodations that sort of thing and that's a that's a whole nother it's nothing we want to try to write parts of in our ordinance there's federal protections when you get into that and there's actually state protections if a person with a disability gets into a situation you know and there's reasonable accommodations that have to be considered if if a developer is building a handicap unit ADA unit it is you know it has to meet certain standards federal standards nothing that we want to try to rewrite but we do make sure if they are quote-unquote you know doing a ADA or handicap unit it has to meet those standards that makes sense I guess one thing I was wondering similarly you referred a specific Vermont laws I was wondering if that would fit there potentially so you're not rewriting it but you have like a reference to either state or federal law yeah and I was specifically thinking about like the fire alarms in here have the lights so if someone is deaf and can't hear the alarm go off they can still see it so similar to what Bryn mentioned was you know we want to talk about what we adopt and not try to write our own code in some instances you know the federal the Fed and the state does a great job with the ADA so by stating in the ordinance that we adopt those codes if it changes we're still we're still going with them that makes sense yeah and then we're not having to rewrite an ordinance because of I mean you know these codes are updated in blocks so six eight years Vermont we're lucky if they do it every eight years so because they change of you know a decibel in a in an audible device do we want to be rewriting the ordinance or do we want to know that we're we're covered because we adopt their code and I guess as a follow-up question do you have the do you have delegated authority do you have the authority to enforce state those other state statutes that yes you're referring to because we have an MOU in the state of Vermont so otherwise I would say yes we should probably consider including them because if we don't we're referring like well the state has all that already but if we didn't have jurisdiction to enforce then it would feel like we might want to consider including it but and there's some another key piece to the question you're asking that's authority having jurisdiction that goes a long ways so even you know there's nuances here in Winooski that we we play that card if you will on the AHA so the state may say you know it's it's a and we want it to be B or C and as authority having jurisdiction we can we can have that considered thank you so I'll just answer the reserve question so I there's two instances that I that it's used for one is if there used to be an ordinance there and you don't want to renumber everything following you reserve it the other situation I just looked up is because this one's at the end so I don't I don't know the history if we had one there before or not but sometimes if it's on the back side of a piece of paper back when all ordinances were on hard copy then you would reserve it so you wouldn't have to restart the pages I don't know what happened here but I wouldn't worry about it too much during the other piece I would call out as a lead paint pieces still section nineteen point three four lead paint is still highlighted and that's because we are working with Burlington lead program to make sure we're got the right language because that is one that will apply to any structure you pre-1978 it doesn't matter if it's a rental or not any building and the new painting we've never really regulated exterior painting and we will have to under the new the one other thing that I mentioned which probably falls under more copy edit is the changing the gender pronouns throughout the document yes I have a question about section 918 requirements really to safe and sanitary maintenance parts of drilling units into drawings and there's language in here that feels like it may be a little older a and b say reasonably weather tight and it feels like it should be more stringent than that especially considering everything we know about energy code and energy standards I don't have proposed language I would just say it feels a little weak to me okay I'll do some research on that section 918 a the second line of a says roof shall be reasonably weather tight and the also says reasonably weather tight well it does not okay that's not the current woman so you're right it is I did write the note on 918 no I think that's part of the reason why red line and strikeouts would maybe help me better sorry I apologize and I'm so glad we've already taken care of it yes and the whole thing would just be red so yeah I know those state legislature manages major strikeouts by just doing page crossouts and then from there starting fresh show did remind me though of something in 916 that I think I forgot double check the last so 916 cooking facilities so number one in 916 the last sentence says counter surface bathroom and I don't think bathroom is supposed to be there but I wasn't entirely sure it it looks like it might have just been a copy error because I think there's almost identical language around counter surface in the bathroom fixtures wait below yeah I'll clarify that what that's saying is the countertops need to be in both the kitchen in bathroom need to be the same need to be yeah construction maintained to be smooth non-gross of or absorbent so you can't have a like a particle border plywood top we see it you wonder why it's there we see it I assumed so yeah I think the way to fix it just put an S on the end of bathrooms yeah it's probably yeah doesn't we have the bathroom yeah we'll land that where it needs to be I wonder if you have to add or can be treated because technically a butcher block countertop so by itself is absorbent but then treating it makes it non-absorbent yeah so I I would it's a good point I would want to think that one through and just make sure we're not you know I'm not trying to take things away from people and I'm not trying to make it so the staff can't make those decisions in the field right I mean it's obviously if it is a tree glued piece of wood you know countertop grade type of counter you know counter material being used as a counter you know I want staff I want people to be able to use that right but I also want staff to be able to make that decision this is very detailed and I think illuminating because I can assume most of these detailed updates are related to things actually happening yes so a lot of appreciation to you and your team and the housing commission yes thank you did we have any final questions okay I didn't hear any significant concerns in this conversation or the prior one so I think that is the go-ahead to move on to legal before we do public hearings great thank you thank you all right thank you thank you we'll have a better sense at the next meeting whether we can propose the public hearing for September meeting okay yeah okay I've got 657 let's do a five-minute break 702 thank you item D this is on for discussion the amendments to the unified land use and development regulations good evening thank you very much I'm here tonight to have a more detailed discussion with you all about the updates to the unified land use and development regulations pertaining primarily to article 4 which includes amendments and changes to sections 4.1 through 4.1 to with a few a few exceptions and also some changes to section 6.6 and article 9 on definitions since the last meeting we met this was introduced on at your regular meeting on July sorry on June 5th just for a high-level overview since that meeting there's two minor changes that I wanted to highlight just so that you're aware under section 4.1 item D in that first line the demolition of a building I added the word or structure or the words or structure there and then under D1 as well same section on that first line after building I added the words or structure so applicants that proposed demolition of a building or structure added that mostly for consistency that's how it's written throughout the rest of the document and then in the definitions section under the definition of dwelling to unit there is new language at the very end of that sentence that reads and neither unit is an accessory dwelling unit that is that is language that's taken out of the new Act 47 related to the definition of two unit dwelling or duplex as it's referred to since we were opening this up I figured it would be it would make sense to add that additional verbiage in at that point otherwise the rest of the language is as it was presented to you back in June as I as I discussed at that meeting the bulk of these changes probably relate sorry the bulk of the substantive changes are probably coming in under section 412 related to parking most everything else is either for cleanup or for clarification but the parking section probably sees seeing the most the most changes overall so we're also adding a new section 5.15 that will provide some incentives for preservation of historic structures in all or in part and as I mentioned the definitions there's some new definitions that we're adding just more for clarification and for consistency so happy to have a discussion on any of the specifics or answer any questions you may have or try to answer any questions you may have but I'll leave it at that thank you who wants to kick it off I apologize these parking minimums yes as far as I concerned all need to be changed they are not close to what our neighbors are doing they're not close to what we're hearing from developers in both the private and affordable housing sectors are suggesting yeah I mean my notes are essentially reducing a lot of this and I a question and I apologize for not having posed this question to you ahead of time I've been abroad a lot and I'm really busy with flood stuff so I was taken up a lot this week but how much of where we got here is through your input as staff with expertise in this area and other outside folks who have expertise in this area as opposed to Commission suggestions I think it was a it was a mix quite frankly of suggestions from myself from commissioners and input from from the public on on the parking standards we heard from both sides quite frankly as we as we worked through these regulations that some folks felt there wasn't enough parking being required and some folks felt there was too much parking being required one of the challenges that we have in Winooski is that while our neighbors may be eliminating parking altogether the alternative options for transportation aren't quite there yet I think in in the opinion of many of the commissioners for Winooski to eliminate all of our minimum parking as well as far as consistent and convenient transit options connected bike lanes car share bike share things like that we're not quite there yet we're making improvements but the commissioners generally felt that we couldn't eliminate parking completely because we don't have enough we don't have enough alternatives yet in order to provide the transportation needs for our residents and I completely understand that and I would not propose eliminating parking minimums just reducing what we have here I think a lot of public transit is a lot of chicken and egg absolutely like if folks had to take the bus and there was more paying customers on the bus they would introduce more lines yep same with car share we just got a car share back because a need was seen for that so if we show the need business tends to follow need but I do appreciate that concern and again I wouldn't want to eliminate parking minimums I have suggestions I don't know if this is an appropriate forum to share them or if I should just email them to you later what I think the parking minimums should go down to I think you could raise them here and then see how I feel so for a single unit dwelling I would say it suggests going down to 1.5 the same for a multi-unit dwelling for all of the personal retail spaces so restaurants personal services retail spaces theater entertainment I would not close down as well by the point five space my notes get a little more complicated as I go into other sections of this sorry let me orient myself oh in section D a vehicle parking adjustments we've got a 15% listed I thought that should go to 25 in DB it says 30% I thought would be 35 DC speaks about measuring with a straight line is that an industry standard where we would measure with a straight line instead of just the distance it takes to get somewhere sorry I'm just reading through this language to so for this particular one we wanted to we wanted to recognize more of a straight line distance rather than a circuitous route because it's related to shared parking so we wanted to recognize the fact that the for example in downtown the parking garage is within 500 feet of most of the western side of the circle that Main Street side in a straight line distance but if you had to use the sidewalks or the actual pedestrian routes it would be further than that and so we wanted to take into account that that direct distance without extending it too far to then capture some of the the adjacent residential areas we wanted to be pretty specific on what we were actually trying to capture with that section moving on to section E incentives for reduced vehicle parking I just don't find them very incentivizing and I think the folks who build things also don't find them to be very incentivizing I I just think that whole section should be the relook that we move on to the bike minimums table for residential I would suggest going down to point to 5 sorry which section was that sorry the bike minimum okay sorry for the hotels I don't think there should be any bike minimums at all and then in the bike minimum graph could you explain a different short-term and long-term I get it for I guess I'm confused like if you're at a multi-unit dwelling aren't you there long-term so the difference the the reason for two standards is one for the short term is more intended for the visitor or the the quick trip we tried to find these on under section G number three to give a sense of what we're talking about with short-term and long-term where long-term is going to be really for those residents the residents or the tenants that are that are using these facilities that makes sense thank you yeah I think a general again just reducing all of these by at least down to a point five for restaurants personal services hubs etc point two five like I said for hotels just eliminating that I don't think that we should be requiring folks to build infrastructure that takes up a lot of room that could be dedicated to building more housing especially in a city where our bike usage exists on a larger portion on folks who are living in single-family homes I actually on the bike parking I feel like for commercial uses if that's happening like downtown for example there's there's already bike racks downtown and public bike racks actually I don't know how many of them are public but or like either that the city operates versus a private building but I agree like I can't imagine a hotel not including some yeah I mean to me like a hotel like a lot of them have like the bikes you can run but to tell them that we need hope bike racks available seems very silly like people aren't biking to a hotel to check in for a couple nights I'll also add that in proximity to where a hotel would be versus where there's already bike infrastructure I think that I kind of see Tom's point there residential bike parking though as a resident that bikes a lot most people know better than to leave their bikes locked up outside overnight that's just a gift to the universe of a bike so that's my two cents on that particular piece of residential bike parking like requiring out outdoor infrastructure on you just it seems sort of redundant to me I think it's a good time to ask just a general question of counsel if other folks feel like these minimums aren't low enough are just right or aren't high enough I have some similar concerns around the vehicle parking like I'm one that stood out to me with the multi dwelling units as we have that like plus one space for every four units which makes me wonder that is not part me if I misremember the question I sent you that doesn't necessarily align with what Vermont law is going to expect that's correct so striking even just that part out so it's just one space per dwelling unit makes sense to me so which but then that made me question a lot of the other numbers here on how aligned are they with what we're going with like these are a lot of red lines it's a lot of changes how much are they actually aligned with what the state is looking for how much do they mean is kind of best practices within these industries so I I definitely have some concerns around them which I'm sorry I don't have more specifics the bike parking I do see the benefit of trying to get more bike infrastructure but I also can see the argument of you know not wanting to take up space but wouldn't or might necessarily go towards housing I'm thinking about like they're a pretty obvious apartment building I lived in there were spaces for bikes and had your downstairs locked storage area so have like having more locked storage areas inside for the tenants that makes sense to me but again kind of trying to weigh those two things of like making sure that folks can have that incentive to bike and have their bikes secure with also making sure that doesn't impede other very needed aspects of housing so what I would say regarding the the the minimum requirements for vehicle parking as well as the the incentives and actually all of the probably the incentives and all of the vehicle parking adjustments under subsection 412d given the passage of Act 47 we're gonna have to revisit all of this anyway I think it's but it's going to include I think a much bigger discussion the parking requirements that are included in Act 47 don't take effect until December 1 of 2024 so we do have time to to figure out what changes need to be made and and what those changes look like because right now some of the adjustments that we're proposing in in this new draft won't make any sense with the changes from Act 47 so I think as an interim step the overall this this does reduce the minimum parking from what we currently have for our vehicle parking it strengthens some of the shared use and other parking adjustments that we currently have where we're lacking some some specific detail on on what we're requiring to get the reductions and it does create some of the incentives currently to incorporate electric vehicle charging in particular which is something that we've that you all have talked about as being a being something of interest for the for the city and this would put that on to the the private developer rather than have it be part of the city infrastructure that needs to be maintained by the city and that would be above code above energy code standards I believe so yes I believe that's how it was written in yeah and I I appreciate that and I think I'm holding two things of like this to me I I don't know even discussion tonight is going to finish it so this is going to take a lot of discussion and then we're going to come back and do a lot of discussion with what Vermont is bringing with the state laws bringing in so I'm also trying to think of what is the best use of our time I I do agree that there are some things in here that I want to see in place before kind of the deadline of December 2024 on the flip side I don't want us to like I don't know get into a very long discussion on some of these parking minimum aspects that are then not going to make sense in the future yeah and I think the intent is not to wait until 2024 just needs to start those discussions with the Planning Commission given some of the other components of Act 47 that are effective now we're going to need to start making some of those some of those amendments sooner than later so it's going to be a factor of figuring out how best to incorporate those all in obviously most of the work or all the work that was done with these amendments was all happening well before that was that legislation was being proposed so it's it's kind of a an untimely factor but it's it is a I think some of these amendments are important to put into place now so that we can have some adjustments a lot of what is showing up in the vehicle parking the additional uses are because we just don't have use categories so we have to apply the the the next closest minimum so as an example when the school was going through its redevelopment we don't we didn't have we still don't have a parking category for for schools so we were going to have to evaluate them under the office category which would require something on the order of 600 parking spaces at their site where they only have 250 or so parking spaces so some of it is is I would say necessary to address some of our current needs and current concerns but definitely it will all need to be revisited based on on the new legislation that was helpful context to have just why why we're seeing a bunch of like new categories could I ask one other question on the minimum requirements the multi-unit dwellings in our ARB or RC zoning districts why is that so different from or why why are those being separated out from the general multi yep yeah that's a great question so we we created a provision I think the last set of amendments that came forward for priority housing there was a provision for allowing multi-unit building configuration in the residential A residential B and residential C districts as a planned development provided they include I believe it was three bedroom and affordable units in that development so we don't currently allow multi-unit buildings in our residential districts so this was a specific carve-out to reflect those multi-unit buildings if they came in as a planned unit development gotcha so the thought is like those multi-unit buildings would have units that have potentially and also it would match what we're requiring under just single or two unit in the same zoning districts gotcha so it's equitable with the other district correct sure in much of it's under what it's number eight landscaping and screening it talks about the way that a parking lot must be landscaped essentially further up in the document it looks like we're saying that all parking has to be behind the building so I was just wondering why the added burden of so much landscaping requirements I can see some desire for a couple of things but it seems pretty intensive and it also seems that it would reduce parking spots as well so the the landscaping requirements for parking let me just make sure I'm on the right section here would only apply really to our multi-unit districts where we have larger parking areas so it would only apply in certain in certain certain circumstances and sorry what was the other there was a reference to the parking document I'm sorry I don't list it it's I believe it says that large building units have to have the parking behind them right and I think that also only applies to our our multi-unit our multi-unit scale buildings okay so that's already a requirement in our gateway district that the that parking be located behind what we call our parking step back line so and there's also landscaping requirements for parking areas in that district already so this is a way to capture parking lots basically in either commercial areas or with multi unit buildings in in our commercial districts I actually just had a process thought I wonder if it would be useful to spend this time getting questions answered and sharing general thoughts and then holding a public hearing but only for discussion so we can get more input like a new input but not for approval yet right and then we can have some more discussion and I also think it would be useful Eric if you could like highlight or call out the parts that are going to be changed by the looming state laws so we can see what's sort of interim yeah so I'll be able to so that I can yes and or yes but I'm not sure which I can definitely call out what will have to change as far as the parking minimums how that impacts some of the other parts is I think to be determined okay so that that's gonna be a little more tricky because right now the way our regulations are written now actually even with this draft if someone were to take advantage of the transportation demand management strategies by requiring either bus passes car share things of that nature to get that reduction in overall parking they would still they would still have fewer parking spaces under the new under the new statute even if they took advantage of that so there's really no incentive for them to do that that transportation management anymore so I can I can highlight what may make sense and definitely what will have to change for sure and some of those other components so it's really gonna be a factor of are some of the things that we're looking at now as options to reduce parking do we want to require some of those elements rather than making them optional so and I think those are the bigger discussions we'll want to have with the Planning Commission and with the public to bring forward to you all but yes I can highlight what those might look like thank you I like that idea it reminds me of something else I was thinking about is if we could focus on parking minimums and potentially hold off on the adaptive use until we discuss the designer view slash designer you district that is in process I don't know to those things seem really similar to me I don't know like in in our charter that makes sense but I don't know I feel like I can't fully make informed decisions about one historic preservation piece without understanding the other historic preservation yeah so this would create incentives throughout the city or right it's meant to incentivize retention and then you can correct me when I'm done here to incentivize retention of historic structures in general right like they're not required elements the discussion around a design review district would be to pick a section of the city that they believe has like cultural and historic significance and those projects would have to go through another review process with design review standards so I think the the intersection there is that whatever these incentives are wouldn't matter for that area I do think it does make sense like what you're saying to consider the these incentives once that district at least we know what the planning commission is thinking about and like what part of the city that would connect to I think the timing could work there if we get through that conversation at the August meeting it could yeah potentially those things could align but yeah I would also be on board if we do move forward with the suggested September public hearing date that this is just going to be a public hearing and another discussion topic and not to commit us to an approval item yet I share some similar thoughts to Thomas around parking and some of these incentives not being strong enough but would wait to get into the weeds until we have a better understanding of state impact and some public input other let's keep it going though other questions or specifics general feedback just one thing I just want with regards to parking just that the commission and everyone in this space just keeps in mind how supply dictates behavior just as much as demand dictates supply so if we provide a bunch of free parking we are inviting people that want free parking to come here and park and use this as a drivable city and that's just kind of you know my my inclination is to agree with Thomas and like reducing those minimums just because of the way that that that tends to play out and it does seem that other cities and municipalities are removing free parking areas in favor of paid parking spaces or just removing parking altogether yeah that's that's a great comment and that is something we also talked about with the Planning Commission and that that lends itself to the to the enforcement side of of that parking and where we where we currently are enforcing parking where we have metered parking and what that actually looks like so there's large swaths of the city that are not metered or enforced for for on-street parking so that it is in essence just it's free for anybody to use it and and stay as long as they want so until I think coupling that with making some of these other changes will help to to alleviate the need for on-site parking because we'll have more turnover potentially in those on-street parking spaces as well so if I can jump in but I saw Eileen you're gonna say something so yeah thank you so I just want to flag this is really an anecdote so you know I should do better than that but I want to make sure it's noted in public I have a friend who's disabled and she finds parking minimums very challenging because she really needs a car to be able to get to her doctor's appointments and she can't find a place to park at where she lives so just keeping in mind unintended consequences of when we're trying to manage for certain types of effects there are there are other issues that actually are equity-based that we should also consider and I also want to mention we've talked about paid parking and more metered parking and how then that requires more staff and often the fees and fines on parking violations aren't enough to sustain and pay for the FTE to enforce the parking and we're already stretching our residents pretty thin on what they can what's like affordable taxes between the city and the school so we really need to think holistically about like okay let's let's move to the paid parking and I'm not against paid parking per se but when we think holistically about it and saying okay well how are we gonna force it well we need more staff okay how are you gonna pay for more staff well we're gonna have to raise the taxes to pay for the staff because the fees aren't gonna be enough to offset the cost of paying for that person's labor hours and benefits so I just want to really ensure what we're asking about and then the comment about just the infrastructure so like supply and demand where does the money for the bus service come from the city like yes they're gonna be reinstalling the paid service for the bus transportation at some point the future TBD you know I think it keep kind of they're already working on installing the new systems and the buses but I mean the desire by a lot of our legislatures and a lot of residents is to continue the free fare service to hopefully increase usage we already hear from constituents that there's not enough service within the city we're not even paying the amount that GMT is asking us to pay in city per capita user fees and dues if we pull off more parking we're only creating more demand sure for either more on-street parking more competition there and it doesn't necessarily mean that the city will have any more money to pay for GMT services and increasing frequency and roots because the grand list increase on each unit isn't even it's like $50,000 it's not even that significant so we're struggling to pay for basic sidewalks and roads improvements traffic calming we can't even find $5,000 to do traffic calming assessments so I just really struggle with the idea of reducing parking minimums when we don't have safe bike biking lanes and protected biking lanes in and around the city walking around the city has been kind of treacherous and dangerous I've almost been hit and not even the downtown area crossing on a sidewalk we can't even get painted like wine striping we can't we don't even have enough funds for that that's not a funding issue I mean it's a decision that has been made we haven't gotten striping because of the contracting shortage it was reduced thank you for thank you for that opinion and the thing is I agree that I support additional housing and I support incentives in the different means and mechanisms how we do that parking may be one parking reductions may be one of those avenues but we have to think holistically about what the other impacts are just as the city manager was mentioning I do want to also mention that we do pay GMT with the SSS they are not one of the partners we're underfunding currently thank you for that correction and I do I hear what you're saying but I feel like I have never seen any of our parking assets full I live in one of our larger apartment complexes for several years and all the apartments were full because I had people who wanted to move in there they weren't able to and parking was amply available there also were handicapped parking spots I don't know if those are required everywhere I think our plan requires handicapped parking typically ADA accessible parking is required but those were used and also amply available in the buildings that I have experience in within our city which is Keynes crossing in the two Riverside buildings where I have friends who live there and they have more parking than they have folks who use vehicles so I'm seeing that we can reduce the minimums because as it is right now we have to we have enough parking not to mention our parking garage that I may have mentioned a couple of times is more than empty like I have been the only car to park there on a Saturday evening when like the bars are full of people so I just I fail to believe we have a parking problem in the city I think we have more than enough parking in the city we've also had two parking studies that have shown that we do have more than enough parking they definitely have the concern as often if you pave something and make it a parking lot it's so much harder than to change the use of that in the future like if I was hearing from folks that they can't park they're having to walk to their buildings there's not enough parking in their apartment building then like I'd have a very different opinion on this but just from what we see and then from what we hear from our partners like we have a lot of parking it's also a leverage element a leverage to whom a leverage for the city so developers don't want to develop parking the city has other additional resources and needs it helps incentivize design and development in a way that we can't attain through our own means I've seen some projects where I don't know parking is really our best incentive looking to that she heard us it continues to do so and I get like I'm not looking to eliminate parking I would never advocate for that I drive a car myself most of the time but the what we're seeing is we're requiring more parking than most folks and we have parking just a circle back to my comment I wasn't suggesting that we eliminate existing parking I just think that making more of it would be in erroneous use of resources at this phase of where the city is at just because other cities are doing it doesn't mean we should do it but other cities are and they're seeing results that I think line up with some of the things that our constituents want from our city as far as walkability cleaner air just safety in general as we had constituents and earlier talking about speeding and I think we all see it in our corners of the neighborhood so more cars means more traffic needs more speeders so if we have more parking it will ask more cars to come use it and the parking we already have sits empty as Thomas has said so I would also include that denser parking slows traffic people are speeding up and down weaver like that's a full street in many of our residential streets are not well utilized on street I would love for you to come hang out on my porch on the street because we've got both sides of the street in front of my house multiple cars traffic calming is a need but I do want to loop back around to Elaine's comment because and it does definitely touch on what Britain's talking about too with the holistic of like if we are able to have more infrastructure where we can have more buses like that's better for accessibility if we have wider better sidewalks that's better for accessibility I'd love to see incentives to go beyond the required accessibility parking spaces like that would be something I would like to see it's incentivize that and it's also a concern I have with don't want touch on too much right now but it's a concern I have with 5.15 is ADA if we are incentivizing retaining old structures that don't meet ADA code so that's a major concern there and I don't know what's parking there's obviously we need to make sure that our developers and landlords are meeting accessibility standards but I don't know if you know having higher parking minimums will actually do that I wonder I think it's a it's a concern but we might be able to solve it better in other ways does anyone have any points of clarification to better understand what's proposed here the question on the historic preservation sorry my words are blanking but on historic preservation is there is the Commission thought of setting aside creating a list of which buildings they deem or would like to see be considered as historic buildings from what I'm I'm not gathering that there's like a here's a list right it seems to me that it's just like this general area is what we'd like to be considered historic so the Planning Commission has talked a lot about historic preservation recently and it's been a topic of conversation just in the community recently as well the in order to what we're proposing here is a is an initial step with the incentives also with the design review as another sort of incremental step to getting towards some level of local historic preservation regulation in order to really achieve that level of protection the the the best protection is local regulation and in order to get there we need to have an inventory of what those resources are so we would need to go through an inventory each building inside outside making sure we evaluate what what makes it historic and whether or not quite frankly the property owner wants to be included in some level of local register so while we may be able to identify specific properties that that we want to or that we think should be included there's there's more to it than than just that so it's it's to really get that local preserve preservation is going to require a lot more time and effort and work and resources so these are some some mechanisms that might get us some of those incremental steps as incentives rather than having to go through that whole process right now I just want to make sure that we're not saying just because a building is old that it is that it has historic relevance yeah and I think the intent here is to utilize the the master plan the city's master plan that does include a a map of our historic resources specifically that we would be using I think that generally aligns with the state and national register district sorry national register properties so the but a point on that is when the state register when when new skis buildings were listed in the state register it was the the surveys were done in 1979 so they're they're almost as old they're almost they almost qualified to be historic at this point at the 50-year limit so there's we don't have a good current inventory of where these buildings where these where they stand from a contextual perspective to delay talking I know I brought it up I know I did that was that was on me but wait to hold on talking too much or in too much depth about 5.15 because that list that those areas I know that this I think lists both the national state local registered district and the master plan and here yeah I would just love I don't know I feel like they're just there's similar enough I know that their intent is different but I also worry about staff time I will say that to staff time and capacity around please there's another reason why I just want to consider them together because then you'll have to decide whether these are sent to supply should we perhaps set the public hearing and put a pin in this for now are there any other questions or thoughts folks want to get out would someone like to make a motion to set a public hearing for September 5th so moved second motion by Charlie second by Aurora all those in favor please say aye motion carries thank you great thank you all very much thank you very much thank you for the detailed discussion we put in the work okay so we are on to item e this is the strategic vision area goal update for municipal infrastructure great good evening everyone thank you so this is the fourth and final infrastructure update for FY 23 however a lot of these are long-term projects so you're gonna see them as we go through the FY 24 priority strategies updates so I'll go over a couple highlights on these I think the biggest update is probably on the Main Street project so that project is out to bid as of Friday so bids are will be received on August 14th and we will be holding a pre-bid meeting with potential contractors on July 26 so we get we should have a pretty good sense of who's interested and how many potential bidders who might have so we're pretty excited about that this has been six years in the making I think when before my time even when they did the initial sort of you know public hearing on local concerns for the project so pretty excited and I think we we did get the timing pretty well because what we're hearing from our consultant on this project is you know they bid out other similar projects is they're starting to see a return of multiple contractors bidding on projects prices are sort of coming down and are more within the engineers estimate so I think we're we're doing well on timing plus we already had the low interest alone locked in for this project with USDA so we got the good financing back in 2019 and it seems like the construction or at least the local construction market is kind of coming back this little bit so we're optimistic but we'll see when those bids come in in August so you should see those probably you'll see them in September if we get some decent bids and we can bring them to you for potential work which is pretty exciting beyond that you know we there's a lot due diligence we've been doing the background so making sure we have the agency stakeholder approvals of all the bid documents and getting our interim financing sorted and shout out to Paul who's been helping us with getting the public outreach piece ready so that's a real win for the city because that work is being funded by federal highways and v-trans with the same consultant that's doing an exit 16 projects so that's about a two hundred sixty seven thousand dollar scope of work that we are we do not have to pay for that's you know I I think the main reason for that is that you know we have a good federal highway local rep and they they thought it would be prudent to everyone traveling that corridor who's who's getting those exit 16 updates to to also understand what the impacts are for our local projects so it wasn't required that they do this but they they thought it would be prudent for the travelers coming through from Colchester, Mill and River they're coming through our corridor so we're really we're really grateful for that work so that's kind of say again attack on to that lane so I bumped into the I can't remember her title the director for the language justice project this weekend and gave a shout out to Paul too for helping push the language access in their corner videos as a format and they thought of that as you know I said you know I'm glad you said that because I feel like we're behind the eight ball and she said yes but you're a little bit closer they have all that was a good load of confidence there yeah and I I'm hoping you know what Paul and I talked about this they can sort of use us as a learning experience to do some of that some of that work and you know we can support that so there's there's obviously a benefit to them on that aspect that they can get some on the ground training with how to best reach all of all of our community members so I think that's probably another reason they really want to step in and do some of that work so that is probably one of the big highlights of this since our last discussion I'll go through just some quick other updates so we do have the ADA transition plan drafts from the chin and county regional planning so we're gonna go through that this week and next week and try to get a working final draft together to be able to post on the website just a reminder so that is a living document that for this iteration we'll identify transportation related ADA components ie sidewalks the curb ramps things like that an inventory of those items are those things ADA compliant if not what are priorities for replacement and a rough schedule for what how much that costs to to replace those things so we'll be able to plug in through this this form work other things such as our facilities you know any any city asset that has an ADA component to it will be able to use sort of this this report template to add that information so it'll be a living document but at least we'll have a good head start on on gathering that information and then just the other couple quick things to highlight so we are working on the two scoping studies that are grants supported by regional planning we found down street when you ski bike padmaster plan the when you ski bike padmaster plan project link is live on CCRPC I think they're going to be preparing one for we found Diane to to just keep track of that one so those are progressing they're they're both of them are kind of an inventory that inventory stage they've been doing some traffic counts and parking counts and speed studies on the phone and Diane when you ski bike pad you've seen the probably seen the signs for the surveys so that's kind of where that project is both projects are currently and then finally on the Winnieski Burlington Bridge that's sort of in the the outreach scope phase and assembling sort of a local stakeholders group once that sort of completed they are going to have a first sort of public overview meeting I think they're targeting for August at the O'Brien Community Center no details yet on that but that'll sort of be a kickoff for the the public on the project and to start gathering some feedback so that one will be ramping up this summer into a fall John will that have interpretation as well I am not remembering Paul do you remember John I can yeah I can answer that that's that's definitely on the table that's not totally set in stone yet you know they have a draft public involvement plan that's in review right now and they're looking to put together a couple of a couple of groups obviously they have a project advisory committee that they're looking to put together so next pieces before that meeting is held sort of need to happen and then yeah they are thinking about providing interpretation for that meeting thank you yeah and again shout out to Paul on that one too he's been he's been doing a lot of work behind the scenes working with the consultant on on setting up some of those those pieces for us so thanks to him yeah and so that's kind of some highlights and if you have any questions try to answer them a couple of counselors have raised concern about our ability to access like federal infrastructure grant funding and manage that as we often hear about staff capacity concerns could you speak to that please yeah actually in the operational update for municipal infrastructure there's a comment there I'm going to pitch it back to John yeah we've been six I would say somewhat successful recently with trying to procure some federal funds so you know a lot of these potential funding opportunities are for projects that were already kind of in the works or you know we're in the planning phases so I provided some examples that that we've submitted applications for recently so one is on on the Main Street project USDA had a fairly large funding opportunity for urban tree work so we submitted a one million dollar grants application for that that's that scope we haven't heard back yet I believe they're awarding later this summer so it seemed like a pretty good fit for us so hopefully fingers crossed and it was a pretty low left to put the application together so we we are very you know we even though there's you know myself Ryan we're pretty small team a lot of these applications these federal applications we have so much grant language at this point for some of these projects that it's pretty easy for us to pull that together quickly so that hasn't been an issue for like the Main Street project so again you know the outreach support for Main Street I listed that that's just you know kind of leveraging federal highway to say hey isn't won't this be nice if you could provide this for us and it's helps everyone we also just submitted for a storm water clean water initiative funding for MS4s that's about $243,000 that's not necessarily federal money but it's state money that will help us construct some of these phosphorus reduction practices that are required as part of our MS4 permit and then we're also currently tracking the municipal energy resiliency program the MIRP funding that the state is putting out so step one will be to do a level two sort of energy audit of some of our facilities and that should hopefully lead to additional potential grant funds for upgrades so right now we're not really feeling the strain of chasing some of these federal funds at this point but we're keeping an eye on what federal funds are available and then you know if it comes a time when there's it looks like a good fit and we need some additional support we'll work with Elaine and see if we need to bring in somebody to help us out with some of these grant applications but right now it's it's we're managing getting out some of these grant applications so the two and then two specific examples that John and I talked about earlier today water lines generally we would do that water lines you know we could there's state revolving loan fund money for that which we're quite practiced at getting so again we wouldn't expect we would need additional support to get that type of grant and then sidewalks unfortunately you know and rightly so the federal government is saying look that's your asset you should have been budgeting for that all along there's not a lot of opportunity there unless it's a new for a new stretch and again the team is pretty well practiced with those so I think the possibility as John is saying is if with the new ARPA source state run grants which there's not details yet or the federal new infrastructure bill the details aren't that available yet it's possible that those will have some things that we're like oh well we've never done this before we might want some extra support but we're not there at the moment thank you thanks for the overview John are there a counselor questions okay thanks John we'll move on to item F the housing goal updates welcome Jasmine it's your first one right hello everyone so similarly fourth update for the 2022 2023 year for housing first for me so starting off obviously updating the public building registry ordinances moving on track so both chapter 17 and chapter 9 are now with the legal team and then public hearing will be set after that so the next item assisting the housing commission with policy work so obviously I started at the end of April since then the June meeting was canceled most of the agenda items had hadn't been flushed out enough so we decided we would just wait until July July unfortunately we didn't make quorum you know summer vacation issues but we did reschedule it for later this month so we will still be having that meeting so a little bit of delay on that but should be moving ahead as we go into the next 2023 2024 year so only Jasmine been very busy behind the scenes yeah yeah next launching and monitoring the housing trust fund programs so at this point it's obviously launched it hasn't been utilized a tremendous amount at this point so the housing commission has currently been talking about ways that we can increase that so we did meet with opportunities credit union at the May meeting to talk about changes for the down payment assistance and the home improvement programs we discussed that we'll be discussing it more in July we've met quite a few times with opportunities trying to think through what might be best for people we're considering changing down payment assistance to interest rate buy down so we've been doing quite a bit of research on that and then trying to consider how the home improvement program can potentially be utilized either in tandem or as opposed to VHIP through the state just since those are similar programs so just to give you kind of a look into what we will be discussing further in July obviously those recommended changes will be brought here the reappraisal is projected to be on track Jenny provided me with the map it's on the last page but everything in yellow has either been complete completed or is scheduled to be completed for both the supporting the landlord and tenant connection and then creating educational opportunities both of those will be included on my work plan which will come to you after it comes to the housing commission hopefully later this month but I know work also is being done through the Winooski housing roundtable which Mayor Lott has been leading so that has been great progress on those the citywide housing summit that has been tabled the supporting educational opportunities for both renters and landlords to learn about programs so in the recently completed public building registry billing the landlord survey that I included we did include a question that allowed landlords to opt in to providing their email so that we could provide that with like trusted resource partners so we had concerns of oversaturating the mailing just since we do need to get information back and then it is also the hope that people elect to participate in the landlord survey we were we met as a team and we're kind of considering you know adding Burlington lead and efficiency Vermont and it ended up being not only costly and heavy but also we were concerned about oversaturating overwhelming people and then they wouldn't complete the information that we needed them to so there are future plans to incorporate that but we thought for now being able to collect emails that people opt into providing we could provide that directly with you know efficiency Vermont and they would be able to market as they saw fit so then it doesn't need to come through us necessarily every time and then let's see partnering for airport sound mitigation I attended a meeting in June and then obviously Councillor Oakley has been attending those but I'll definitely continue attending as is needed and then just a few other housing related updates so I'm sure as everyone's aware voter approved just cause eviction charter was not taken up this legislative session but there's hope that it will be taken up next session just wanted to pull out that I have met with 45 different community stakeholders and groups over the past few months and that I've kind of incorporated all of those meetings and to my housing work plan which again you will see hopefully soon and then policy priorities set by the City Council for the 23 to 24 year are already being researched and brought to the housing thank you questions I just want to know when is the assessment supposed to complete for all properties in the city okay if you can hear that in the recording it was April 1st 2024 thank you okay item G City Council engagement updates so I forget one but a little bit ago we had all decided that we wanted to kind of formalize our engagement process recognizing that we were engaging with different groups and different citizens well citizens residents across the city but we didn't really have any formal plans or a way of doing that so we created a Google spreadsheet is one thing where we track everything Councilor McLean I will just know I was not able to update what you that's what in there so I'm done this feel free to update the public so I guess for folks who may not have this in front of them I'm just happy to read what we did works for everyone else so in March of a city manager and the mayor met with Winnowsky High School class and you're at the Union River School introduced students to local government heard areas of interest from students themes included climate change including public safety housing quality and access to mental health services the mayor and councilor judge visited Winnowsky High School culture and community class the themes there included housing quality and affordability scholarship and tutoring support fair free bus service and soccer programming in April the city manager and the mayor attended meetings with multi multilingual groups hosted at Winnowsky School district including the Pali Somali Mai Mai and Swahili and French the event also included representatives from Winnowsky Police Department from Winnowsky Police Department of Children family and University pediatrics themes included access to farming housing quality and affordability costs of living and property taxes council Oak Leaf met with the Winnowsky School district student advisory representatives group the themes there included structural conditions excuse me structural conditions believes to improve the learning environments for students the main in May and June the mayor and myself visited our Lady of Providence assisted living facility the themes that are included streets and sidewalk safety local elections information access and future plans for the senior center and St. Stephens and all councilors may visits to four Winnowsky housing authorities goodness Winnowsky housing authority senior housing complexes the themes included sidewalks and road conditions traffic safety public safety and improving internet access options going forward I think we'll continue to do well at least my plan and hope is that we'll continue to do these regular check-ins to the senior centers and with the school the mayor and I recently spoke about trying to access those groups that we don't meet which are you know in between school age and in between senior age and we were discussing doing counselor in your coffee shop counselor in the bar situations where two of us would go to local businesses and kind of set up for the morning or evening for a couple of hours where folks could swing by with the hope of engaging our residents who are you know between 20 and you know 40 who aren't in senior homes and aren't at the high school or the elementary schools and I continue to look for different opportunities so an example for the public and communication with the Winnowsky food shelf and I let my fellow councilors know about when they're having food drives and runs and it works for you all I will just continue to blast you with those emails whenever I find anything that I think could be a good volunteering opportunity for us and with that I will turn it over to counselor Oakley because I know that she had some more ideas to add. Not too much just a couple just a couple of additions and then one correction so for your May Junits and all counselors made it to Winnowsky Housing Authority I actually was under the weather and sick so the mayor attended without me for that plan because I didn't want to risk spreading my germs. Fair enough. So I don't want to take credit for something that I wasn't there for but thank you to everyone else that was able to make time for that I was sad to miss it. Just having kind of recurring touch points with the student advisory representatives and with Jessica Hendrick at Flexible Pathways. Vermont works for women I know they've done they're working on some renovations for their space over at the Bryan Center they're really excited to and looking forward to being able to stay in that space. I know that through conversations they do have a number of students that come from within the Winnowsky City limits it's convenient for them to be on the bus line the bus routes so really happy to have them as partners within the city. I don't have anything else per se. I think some of the items that I was working on previously such as the Connelly's Association I think that's more or less was handed off to school representatives to manage and from the mayor it sounds like right now they're pausing additional meetings that there hasn't been anything requested in the immediate future. So just those key things. Thank you. And then just a note to community members if you have an event that's either recurring or just one time that you would like counselors to attend I think that we would be interested in just please reach out to me T. Renner at WinnowskyVT.gov and I'd be happy to coordinate my fellow counselors. Thank you. Thanks Thomas. And there's a block party coming up. Nice. Great one. Any other comments or questions? Okay well that's the end of the regular of the agenda this evening. Do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. Motion by Charlie, second by Thomas. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Motion carries.