 I'll call the meeting to order. Any changes to the agenda? Hearing none, I'll deem it approved. So comments from the chair. I wasn't here at the last meeting so you'll have to bear with me as we continue through the punch list. Thank you for continuing on in my absence. We don't have John Adams here tonight and Kim will be leaving us early. I guess Kim if there's anything that you want to talk about now. First of all I want to know to whom invitations were sent for the meeting. We can touch that when we. So I left the list to Mike and Jamie but I can extend an invitation to anyone that was admitted. If we need to add someone, if we need to add the Executive Director of Public Safety. Well it's a modest problem and it only takes about 70% of the city budget, so it's probably worth discussing whether there should be a plan for it or not. So I may just ask Jamie to send me the list of names. Yeah she'll be able to tell you. And as I wrote you, I don't think I have a lot to add on the venue for the meeting and I thought most of the suggestions or corrections were well taken. I just said a few. That seemed to me the substance of tonight's meeting. That's all I have. So we'll move on to item four which is general business. Comments from the public about something not on the agenda. So we have one member of the public here. I have a comment about something that is on the agenda. So which item is it? The steep slopes. The steep slopes one, okay. You know sort of agreeing with the staff's comments that you know anything above. Basically my name is Will Shea Baum and I'm a contractor here in town. There's a lot of time to represent the situation. Probably aren't hearing you on the TV. So if you mind just introducing yourself again. My name is Will Shea Baum. I'm a general contractor here in town and there's a lot of times where we come up against the situation where there is a portion of a project that is greater than the slopes are greater than 30%. And so I think just agreeing with staff's suggestion that anything greater than 30% be engineered conditional but basically removing the no development at all. The prohibitions. Yeah exactly. So that was pretty much what I wanted. Okay. Great. And then I mean we should be getting to that pretty quickly in our punch list. So if you want to stick around we can, you can be part of the discussion. Yeah, we think like within a few minutes or so. Probably 10 to 15 minutes. I don't know it's hard to estimate but. What number was it? It looks like it's number 32. It comes up quite once in 26 and once in 32. Okay. Yeah. It's the first item on this punch list to get to. Is that right Mike? That we every 26 is where we're starting? Yeah. So you just get to hear a couple updates first and then we'll get back to that. All right. And there's no other members of the public here. So safe to assume we don't have any other comments. It's not on the agenda. So then item five. Kirby I believe this is for you. Yes. And I'm trying to remember from a week ago. Yeah. Sorry to. Yeah. Yeah. So so yeah it says that I'm going to give an update on some discussions are happening at the regional planning commission level. I think as I told you guys I think a meeting two or ago that I started working with the regional plan committee of the regional planning commission. And so we're looking at the regional plan and first thing we're kind of tackling is this preferred site review for renewable projects. So the background here is that up until very recently the state kind of precluded local government from having much say in any kind of renewable energy planning site planning. But that's kind of changed in the recent in the last couple of recent years so that there's this process for preferred sites for renewables and it's for projects that are 150 kilowatt capacity or more. So that's not that big of a project. So so quite a quite a lot of projects fall into this. And basically they're only allowed to be are there there's certain benefits of being put in a preferred site. And so there's a lot of incentive to for these to be preferred sites and they're for the larger ones 150 kilowatts I think they have to be in a preferred site actually. And so municipalities are getting some control over what a preferred site is. So there's a state list of what preferred sites are for every town but then towns themselves can also expand that list to have more preferred sites. And if they don't do that there's this other process this letter process for a municipality and the Regional Planning Commission to work together to sort of on a case by case basis or a letter call a site preferred. So that's the kind of process that we're looking at for the Regional Planning Commission. So to give you an update on what we're thinking about for these preferred sites is that right now it looks like we'll look at whether there's a certified energy plan as part of the town plan. And if it and if there is one and it includes preferred sites that aren't on the state list will just give automatic deference and that'll be because that'll be something that was already vetted by the Regional Planning Commission. But in cases where that isn't the case will we do plan to look at the process that a municipality uses when they're considering a kind of ad hoc preferred site. And that's what we're going to be working through with the subcommittee for over the next few months really figuring out what we want the Regional Planning Commission to consider. But we have agreed that we think that the municipality should follow a certain process and that there shouldn't be just a he's a nice guy. So we said that his site was preferred like that there's an actual process to it. And I took that from a real life example that it's an anecdotal one but so we know that that's possible. So that's what we're working on. So if you have any ideas about or any interest in preferred sites for renewable plants just let me know and I'll make sure that I go back with that feedback. There was originally a set of criteria that would identify sites that were either preferred or not preferred correct. So preferred sites could not be ones that were designated wetlands. Did you talk about that list that we talked about in the Energy Committee at all? I remember there was a survey that we completed that touched on that. Right and there were some changes to that. So in terms of developing the maps of the preferred sites there were certain criteria that would automatically be put some areas out of considerations. So as of right now there's not any municipality in the region that has a certified energy plan that actually identifies anything other than the state designated preferred sites. Right but when the Regional Planning Commission designated the preferred sites at the beginning it was based on a list of criteria. As it was explained to me it's the state did that. The Regional Planning Commission hasn't done that. But they developed the maps so did they just develop them in relation to what the state said? I mean it's probably... We were just told the state did it but maybe there was some input from Regional Planning Commission that we were told about. Yeah we had a whole slug of originally. As we were working on the energy plan we got a bunch of different maps that identified preferred areas in each municipality. But there were certainly some areas that could not that were automatically not preferred. And that was defined by this list of exclusions. I believe they were all exclusions. So you might want to take a look at that and also... Was that list derived from the survey results? I think it was an addition that there was already a list and then the survey happened. Some additional things may have been added to it. It's only about 10 or 12 specific. I'll dig that up and see if I can find it. Yeah it's funny. I actually don't know a lot about the state designated sites right now. I mean we were told that rooftops and things like that are already on the list. So I mean I asked about that as preferred. As preferred or not preferred. Brownfields. Brownfields, gravel pits. Crime parking lots. They want to avoid prime ag being considered preferred. Right. But yeah I mean there were other issues of steep slopes as I remember that were criteria that would exclude certain areas. So so far we haven't even gone into everything that we want to look at but as far as the regional review process I want to make sure that the town follows some kind of process and that it considers at least some factors. And I was pushing using like a rational basis test. Basically it's a town can show that there was a rational basis for considering a site. It proved based on all these different categories something along those lines. One of them for instance being like transmission that they at least at least a rational basis that either the grid can handle this where it is or there's a storage plan or just as long as there's a rational basis for this being a preferred site. When it comes to transmission and then looking at these other things too. Or rational reason for it not to be a preferred site. There seem to be some efforts in the energy committee some concerns about sites that municipalities did not want. As far as I understand this process if this municipality is denied it then they won't be asking for this letter and the regional planning commission won't get involved. Mike I'm just noticing this is not a sequitur but I'm just noticing that the printed minutes we have to review are not a date that matches the rock date. If there's a good moment to print a different one later we can if not we can just wait and do the minutes for the next meeting. Stay on that one. It was looking at it. That's July 11th for June 11th. Yeah these are the June 11th minutes. Anyway okay. So that's my report. Thanks for that. Alright item six city plan update discussion. So I forwarded the email that I was blind copied on from Jamie Granfield to the various committees. So I don't know who was on that list because of the way it was sent. But I assume we have a list somewhere of the people. I'm sure Jamie has it. So we can verify. So went out on Thursday. The meeting's happening August 13th at the pavilion. I already got one RSVP from Kate Stevens. Kate Stevenson. From Energy Committee. Or MEAC. My Pillar Energy Advisory Committee. And I assume more will follow. Yeah that was basically it. One question I had for you Mike was whether the city council had been alerted of that letter going out. And if not would you pass it on just so they're notified of where we are in the process. I know I talked about it with Jamie. But we'll make sure they think of the scent as well. And then the other question for you is is it possible to post that letter and the attached memo on our website so that the public can see what was sent out and what will be taking place August 13th. And then I saw that John Adams sent around a website for us to start working on. It's not public facing yet. I mean maybe it could be if we share the link. But for now we can hold that off on sharing it while we work on it internally and then we can figure out how we want to use that website for the process. But we really should talk about that at well we don't have any more meetings before August 13th do we? We talked about that last time a little bit though. Did you? Yeah John went through it. Oh okay okay I wasn't there for that. So it was the next meeting the 13th. It was good but we can listen we don't need to talk. Are we giving some sort of presentation because then we need to plan that out? Yes that's true we do yeah we're planning to um I didn't grab a copy of the letter but you have the it's a draft from earlier. We're going to initiate the meeting by going through going over kind of expectations. Thank you. Was there any discussion of showing the video of the talk we heard in the 10th talk? We well we've talked about that but I the concern I have is the time. Oh I was going to do it before the meeting anybody wants to see it. Send a link out you mean? Oh. No. I don't know what time the meeting is scheduled for. Scheduled to start at six. So we could show the anybody who wants to come at five they could see the 10th talk. We don't have the space reserved earlier. Yeah. I suppose we could see about that. Well I don't know I just thought it was a good kickoff idea. Yeah. So 10th talks are short. It is an hour. It is an hour? That one wasn't was it? I mean I remember watching most of it anyway maybe 12 minutes something like that. It's close. Also in terms of the connection to the internet I think we'd have to really know whether we're going to do that or not and then Kirby would have to jump in. Yeah. I mean I think it's considered closed at 430 so we'd have to like extend our reservation to include five to six if that makes sense. The state closes the pavilion at 430 so if there's anything happening there after 430 they're paying for security. So we'd have to extend our reservation for an hour and they'd charge us for the security for it. We could talk about that 10th talk in our introductory remarks and then share that link with everyone and we can line up another event where we can screen it here pretty easily as a compromise. I'm really worried about time and I think that the real benefit of this meeting is having everyone in the same room talking so that's why I'm a little hesitant to prioritize showing the film. That's my thought but I'm one in a committee. My view is that it's purely voluntary if you wanted to come early and to see it fine. It kind of sets the stage in terms of what you might be thinking. It has to be coordinated with the people that do all the video too. So currently we have it scheduled for six till when? Nine but I think the letter said six to eight. Well the meeting will be from six to eight and then we're inviting people to stay till nine to socialize should they want to so we could do it after the meeting ends at eight. Well the link right now I'm not meeting that. Yeah. So people I just thought it was a good keynote address. Yeah I agree that it should be shown. I guess the big question is just when could that be shown as part of the second follow-up meeting with all the various committees. We don't have to accomplish everything in one meeting. That's a good point because right now they're just sort of bringing in these splinters of information for us but it might be also you know. In general theory it's harder to get a bad idea out of your mind than a good one in it. I would just as soon have a good idea put out at the beginning. First I say yeah. Then you can work on it from there. I think at the very least it could be a backup plan in case we're not able to fill up the time. I don't know what that means. It requires some coordination with a lot of people and I don't know how feasible it is. Well we might be able to just show an excerpt of it at the beginning as part of it but it would require the connection and the person who knows how to do it. As I recall it wouldn't be as simple as just having people show it. Yeah because we plan a stream. Yeah currently people at the committees are going to get their presentations to Stephanie and then you're going to put them all together. So how will they be coming in to the pavilion? I've never gotten on Wi-Fi at the pavilion so I don't know. Yeah I'm not sure either. I can bring them. Well do we have their computer there that we can use? Do we need plugging in one of our own computers? I'll double check what I've put down for the reservation. The state doesn't like jump drives. They don't? No. Okay. Typically not. Well it's going to be a lot easier to have them. But we can sort that out. Or rather than everybody bringing in their laptop. Yeah I know. They're sending everything to Leslie. She was going to shoot it to me and I'm going to put them. We're going to make sure everyone's in a certain order. I think that my vision is that I will introduce myself and our group. I will talk about the purpose of the meeting. To just get ideas, share ideas. Start our discussions. I'll explain how once we've heard from everybody we're going to talk a little bit more about how we want to structure the information in the city plan itself. And Mike can give more details about that. And just walking people through the memo that you sent out. I don't think you really need to prepare much. And then we can give some examples of this. And one could be this TED Talk. There was another video that you shared. Yeah. That could be a follow-up. I'm not sure how much duplication there might be between Ed McMahon and what he discusses. It's more of an example in terms of how cities turn themselves around. Whereas I think Ed McMahon's discussion is more general in terms of how cities can set themselves up rather than a specific city turn themselves around. And that might be something to follow up with or provide people with a link. The message is really quite simple. Good planning is the key to successful economic development. Yes, but what is good planning? Well, that's making a desirable place desirable for people to be in. Yeah. Emphasizing your assets, working on what we have. That's the simple message. It gets a little more complicated. Yeah, I think it's possible to pull out an excerpt of his longer discussion. So, gimmick the technical for a second. I put down that we preferred a projector and projector screen, but she didn't really confirm that. So, I can follow up, but what do we want? Well, if they have a screen at least. They do. The screen is built in. The screen is built in? Okay. So if they have a projector, we can plug your computer into. That's fine. I can bring my laptop. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Do we want to just bring our own hardware? We can grab one for backup, but I don't, without having gone in there to set up and test everything. Okay. That can be. Okay. So, I will look at it. If there's a chance if you could just step in to take a look at it. Where's your office? I can walk through a tunnel and get over there. I don't even have to go outside. Oh, well. So, you can stay in the air-conditioned comfort. Is that it? If you call it tunnel air-conditioned comfort. Did they air-condition the tunnel? That's right. Just to, because my suspicion is that the projector is mounted like this one. But given how much it's been used for the film festival and everything. Okay. But it'd be good to check. Sure. See what the interface is and everything. And I think after we've talked about these concepts, we'll then have John Adams maybe just introduce this shared website idea and say that we'll, you know, as we start moving forward with some work, we will develop that more. And everyone can just stay tuned. Before the committees present or? We're thinking after. After. Okay. I don't want to do too much before they present. Right. They'll be thinking about their presentations and too nervous to listen. Yeah, exactly. I think, I mean, it's all about hearing from them. So, I don't want to detract from that. And then after they're done talking, we can say that we can explain that we're thinking about these goals in this context. This is how to emphasize Montpelier's assets. And so hearing about the assets that they've identified is really critical. And that there are tools to, if they want to see more on this concept, they can hear the URLs. We're going to be thinking about those goals in the context of change, or maintain, evolve, transform, which is the memo that Mike wrote and we shared. To the extent that people have questions about that, you can field those. And then we're going to be trying to have a transparent information sharing process by having this website. And we haven't, we haven't filled it with content yet because that's what this whole process is about. That's what we're trying to do. That's kind of how I'm seeing it go. Does it make sense to, as we're going along, I mean the other committees won't know what each committee's three goals are necessarily. But we'll have it all on the presentations. Does it make sense to at least do a handout or something so that they could be looking at these goals and then seeing how they interface with their own committee? If we get presentations by August 10th as I request. That's an old one, so I mean I have the right idea on it. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I asked for them by August 10th, which I thought was pretty reasonable because, yes, August 10th. Then that would be great, but if I don't get them until the day of, then we're not going to be able to do that. It just won't be possible. Yeah, I just wonder if it's, it makes sense to have somebody, you know, with a flip chart just up there writing down, you know, this committee's three goals. Do we have big... Yeah, there's a lot of those kicking around. Can we bring one? I think that's a great idea. Just in case. Bob, do you want to be our scribe? Sure. Are you up for that? Yes. A lot of everyone's going to have a presentation, so if they don't and they're just talking, it'll be helpful to get that down. Right, right. But we won't do anything more elaborate on this list other than the three goals. We won't do their whole description. But I think it always helps me to have a visual to say, well, look, that one looks like this one. So I'd be happy to do all of them even the ones we might have gotten. That'd be great. Good timing, Anna. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And does anyone want to volunteer to be the timekeeper? How about Mike? Now, Mike needs to listen. Yeah, okay. I think I can do that. Okay. You're doing it in a nice way. Give it a stab, yeah. Make like signs. Yes. One minute signs. One minute, yeah. And they have a total of five. Five minutes, yeah. So just a one minute remaining and then time's up. Right. And then, so then how are you going to? With a sign. Well, yeah, I guess with the sign and how aggressive do I need to be? Because I just think that people ignore them. I mean, the one minute they might pay attention to, but once they're out of time, how intense do we want to be about it? I can say wrap it up. I'm happy to do that. You can be the heavy. Yeah, I'll be the heavy. You can do all the sign and I will say it's been holding the sign for a while. Yeah, sometimes just walk up and stand beside them to go and introduce the next person. Oh, yeah. They kind of get their message in time first. Stuff like some music in the background? Yeah. Off the stage. Like they do at the awards things. Yeah. All right, you thank your mom. Yeah, and we can always come back. I mean, if we have a smaller group, we can always come back. I just want to make sure everyone gets their time. We have 12 groups or something. A number of people, I mean, when you ask Jamie, she'll probably give you a number of people at, there's at least 12, but there may be more. Yeah. And we're going to need a time to switch over between, so it's not just, you know, five minutes after five minutes. Well, no, no, that's why Stephanie is going to... I know what people have to actually physically be able to... To move. To move, yeah. I mean, it doesn't, it won't take that long, but people should be ready, because they'll know what order, right? We'll have an agenda of some type that will tell them the order. Um, I guess it depends on who asks for RSVPs. I've asked for an RSVP by August 6th. I'll just put together a list of names, and then I'm happy to emcee it and say, Kate, you are next. Barb, you're on deck. Cash me this. You better get ready. Yeah. Right. You're thinking about it. Okay. Come on up here. Yeah, start panicking. Yes. You can give the people who actually... Okay, Barb, you're up, and Kirby, you're on deck. So the people respond get to go first. And then the ones who... If there's anybody else at the end, yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. So when you get the list of who it was sent to, it would be helpful to have that full committee list. So if someone does show up, you're like, oh wait, no, that committee. Okay. Yeah. They didn't RSVP. That's previously a committee list. Right. We have a lot of committees. And then there are some groups that are not necessarily city committees that are being invited, right? Montpelier Live? Yeah, MDC Montpelier Live. Kim was just talking about having the CBPSA invited. Would they be doing the presentation? I mean, I think they could. Yeah, I mean, I don't think I would be... At this point, I would probably keep it open to anyone who is... Who wants to come and... Who's an appointed group and wants to have their goals presented to the Planning Commission for consideration in the plan. This is their opportunity. From a committee standpoint, yes. And then we'll get to the public. And if anyone is dying to make some remarks, let me know. I figured you probably aren't. So, okay. Well, good work, everyone. Thanks for all of that. Oh, one other note on that. We had talked about the survey. But did we abandon that? Have we talked about... The group talked about that at the last meeting at all? No, I think I was waiting for comments and I forgot about it. Because I sent it to you in general. Yeah, and I forgot to send you comments. It's extremely basic, but it's a good... I think it would be a good starting point for getting initial input. And it's a public thing more than a committee thing, so if it's not out with this meeting, I think that's okay. I think that's what some of the things I think John was trying to work on were ways of having that extra space, the Google space be able to interact with. That might be a good place to have it. Okay. And I guess the only other thing was that you wanted to have the social time afterwards so that people could talk. How can we make that work at the pavilion? Just out in the lobby? We have the pavilion until nine. Right, right. It's set up sort of as a fixed seats auditorium. People just stand up and... do you want people to be interacting in front of everyone or just individually? What do you think? Was the idea that it would be one-on-one discussions or that there would be people might get up and address the group? Oh, no, I was thinking much less formal than that. Right, so it would be one-on-one. Just chatting with people. So we could set up some refreshments out in the lobby. It's a pretty big lobby area. Yeah, and people can mill around. I did put down that we might have refreshments and they did not shoot that down. No. No one told me no, so... I think they're intense about it not being in the auditorium itself. I think, but you might check with them and see just because... It seems sensible that we just put it out in the lobby. Yeah, yeah. I've seen a refreshment there. It's more personal out there. Anyway, I just wanted to bring that up. I think we've established that that planning is not my forte. What kind of refreshment you're buying? It's just fine, yeah. What was that? What kind of refreshments should we get, Barb? I don't know. What does Mike have in his... Whoever wants to go and make a run with refreshments, I'm sure we can come up with a budget for 40, 50 bucks. What car would you be willing to take that on? Okay, but just give me a clue. We're just talking about dinner here. Are we talking about snacks? $50. The meeting is 6 to 8 and then refreshments from 8 to 9. So, it might be a little late for pizza, but maybe not. Yeah, I think so. I think so. So maybe snacks. Snacks and drinks. Snacks and drinks. Okay. 50 bucks will go really far at the liquor store if you get all bottom shelf stuff. Or samples. Okay. That's item 6. Item 7. Continue review of punch list rezoning fixes. So, we're going to get to the slopes now just so everyone wakes up out there. Actually, we're going to get there. We're actually going to get there, so... Yeah. Not printing missed the last page, but we'll get that for you next time. Yeah, I don't know if we're going to get all the way through. Yeah, we won't get all the way through. Okay. So, item 26 is also connected to item 32. Mike, is that right? Yeah, they're both related to steep slopes. They're looking at it in two different places. So, we had removed steep slopes from the areas for calculating density. This is background for the new members. And the policy rationale for that was that we didn't... we heard a lot of feedback from members of the public that they didn't want to see a really large building squished into one corner of the lot. At least that's my recollection, and please correct me if you... Well, I think when we set the density levels, we were assuming that it would only be on a developer part of the property. Rather than if you have a cliff and you include that in, then it could end up... Then you can end up with a lot more units, potentially. Yeah, in one little small area that you can actually build on. So, that was the rationale behind it. But we don't have a slope map, apparently, which we talked about a little bit. Yeah, it's just... I know we're getting lidar. Well, we do have the lidar and we have the data. I mean, we've got the data. John's beautiful map there. John's beautiful map. We've got the data. The issue is when you have... when it gets down to the real world and you've got a map that somebody says, you know, how much buildable land is here or here or here, and it's not like there's a line that you can just go through and take GIS and draw a box and say, okay, well, this is the buildable area. It's scattered out, very pixelated. It makes it very difficult to make any type of interpretation and determinations on those. And we successfully defeated every large computer to be able to get that data digested down into an Excel sheet. So we asked, could you guys tell us what percentage of land is on each parcel and put that into an Excel? And then our staff can just look at the Excel database and say, oh, okay, this number of square feet. They couldn't do it. John seemed to indicate that there was a computer solution to this. Well, there's a... So there are different factors we have. One is, whereas this is just... this piece here that we're looking at is just the amount of buildable area. We know visually where steep slopes are to be able to go and say you can't build on a steep slope, but we can't calculate how much of the parcel contains that steep slope to subtract that out of the buildable area. But using a CAN program, that should be fairly easy to do. I thought the challenge was from John that they weren't necessarily all connected polygons, because in GIS, if it was like one polygon, you could cut out this space and calculate what it was. But I think he was saying the data doesn't work at that level. Yeah, this data just is so pixelated. And because it's one meter resolution, you might have, on a two-acre parcel, you might have 70 or 80 parcels of steep slope. Pieces. Pieces. Within that one parcel. And we just can't calculate that. Well, I think one of the things we talked about last time, too, was having engineered drawings, in which case the engineer could make that determination using a CAN. Yeah, and this is just where things get vastly and insanely out of control from an administration standpoint. Yes, we could burden every applicant with coming up with hiring. If they have steep slopes on their lot. It doesn't matter. Almost every parcel has at least one square. And we can't determine whether there is or isn't without them going through and hiring an engineer to certify that it isn't. And that's where we just get really frustrated trying to administer these rules because we just, even some of the more basic ones, just very quickly get, you know, simple subdivisions, stop being simple subdivisions. Even when you know you've got enough land, you still have to hire the engineer to go and certify because nobody, we can't, you can't just go and say, oh, buy eyeball. It means it. Well, in a subdivision, they would be hiring an engineer anyway to do their site plan. So most of those projects, it would just be another step in the engineering process. Should we hear from the member of the public now? It seems like an appropriate time to learn about on-the-ground problems. Well, yeah, I mean, I think some projects, you know, I mean, I'm not in large-scale development, full cluster units and stuff like remodels and single-family projects. Can you get a little closer to the mic? Yeah. Thanks. And so I think, as Mike said, technically probably every lot in the city has some parcel of, you know, something that's over-steeps 30%. So, yeah, in a lot of projects, you know, we don't hire engineers. It's like, you know, they're doing it in addition. We know where the lot lines are. We're not necessarily wanting to do a topography survey. And it just does make it challenging to a certain extent. I think, like, as Mike was saying, it's everywhere and there's a lot of non-connected. You know, like, if you had a room this size, you know, you could have one little portion here, one little portion there, one little portion here, but you want to put something kind of in the middle of them, you know, but technically you can't do that because it's disturbing something greater than 30%. So, sorry. So has the results of this been that either things haven't been built or have they been that you had to go get an engineer or something else? I currently, it hasn't happened yet. You know, as of now, you know, projects that I've been working on have been permitted prior to the adoption of the new regulations. We just finished a house that technically under the new regulations wouldn't have been allowed. Because of slopes. You know, and there's some parts of that project that the homeowners would want to renovate in the future. There's a retaining wall, for instance, that, you know, as it's probably more like a 99%, it's not totally straight. And that's the best. One of the things is, you know, because of it's not, it goes more of a temporary element. You know, they might still be able to get that in under their previous zoning permit because I think of a two year, but, you know, there's a few other projects coming up in the pipelines that I've got, you know, whereas like we're not doing a huge portion of, you know, I understand the idea of not wanting to disturb slopes or erosion control and just keeping some hillsides and stuff, but where it's like, you know, for instance, you had this corner of the room back was steep, but you wanted to put an addition right here. You'd have to develop a very small portion of that slope to get that in there. Yeah, it's just, and I think it's a good idea to have it be conditional with engineer plans, you know, or topography surveys. One project that I do, that we have in the works, we do have a one foot contour topography survey, you know, so we do know that it is steep and we know where it is and what percentage it is, but we'd still like to be able to, you know, it's a small hill that comes close to primarily flat and, you know, the patterns of development around that, you know, there's a garage tucked into sort of a steep area and then the house that's kind of tucked into the hill to be able to sort of work that in a smart design sense. That was really one of the criteria that we were looking at was to mimic existing development patterns because we don't have very many houses built on 30% slopes. There are still there anyway. There's some. You know, Will had a project on Elm Street which was an infill into an existing structure, so there's no new structure built just adding two units to an existing building and still had to demonstrate the buildable area requirements. Because of the density. Even though there was no building being built, it's just an infill project, but you've got to demonstrate the density. Right, because we want to make sure that the density, you know, that we don't just take one building even if we don't expand it and suddenly turn it into six units and that changes the whole character of that neighborhood then. So it's... Well, if it's allowed, the question would be if it's allowed, if it's an allowed use. Right, I'm just saying that if they don't... And the bulk and massing of the building and the massing of... I think what was tried to get captured with this was solved better with the footprint. We fixed one problem twice. So my thought is, I don't know if we even need the buildable area requirements coming out. It's just going to require a lot more, as you said, a lot more engineering and work that's going to go into every project. So let me ask a question. If you have a project where you're putting an addition on and it's possible that the addition is going to be coming very close to a setback, wouldn't you get an engineer drawing? Well, for a property line setback... Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, so the engineer's already looking at the site plan. Yeah, but I mean, you know, a boundary line survey versus a topography. It does up the cost, you know. Yeah, but it shouldn't be that much more complex for what they're doing. You know, as long as they have the information. And technically with our LiDAR, we thought that they would have the information. I guess mine and mine sounds like from you guys, you know, the microsecond, it's only one meter resolution. Yeah, I mean, we've got really detailed data, you know, and as we said, the two questions that kind of come up, one is... Yeah, that's the city-wide one. That's just the blow-off that we had here. I've looked at this one online. You know, I think keeping the patterns of development as they are for the most part makes sense, but there's a lot of lots, you know, within town that are... I mean, I understand not wanting to create cut forests and put rows of unnecessary, not appropriate development, but... Or moving a 30% slope that's already there, just moving it to the property line so that you can create a flat area to develop on. I think that becomes an issue too, and we've seen some developments in the city that that happens. So, Mike, will you walk us through the staff recommendation here so we understand what we're looking at? Yeah, I mean... In the very least, I think there needs to be something. I mean, some changes that we could make if you're looking at small changes. If you wanted to keep the buildable areas, we could remove some other areas. Already, Urban Center Riverfront and MUR are exempt, but we could also exempt some of these smaller... Rez 1500 or Rez 3000. But it almost sounds like you're recommending we get rid of this altogether. I would get rid of it altogether because I think what we were concerned about when we got into the residential density was something like Sibley Street, where we had a one-acre parcel in a neighborhood of 6,000 square foot, and somebody wanted to put in a 16-unit building, a large building that was going to be completely out of scale. The new zoning, and it had a steep slope, so the one way of doing it would be to go and say, well, you can't count the steep slopes. We just count what's buildable, and you can build just based on the top of the hill. And we also set rules that said you can't have buildings that are any bigger than a certain mass. So we set footprint sizes and we set height sizes for buildings. So you can't have an oversized building anymore. So I think it was kind of fixed twice. It does, it would increase the amount of buildable stuff in some of these districts. But I just, as I said, I know, to a certain extent, I know, Barb, you're not concerned about adding more engineering costs and engineering time to projects, but we just see so many projects that just come in and we just roll our eyes to go and say, you've got to hire an engineer. You've got to hire an engineer. But all I want to do is add an apartment to this third unit. And we're like, yeah, but you've got some steep slopes and we've got to have you go and do the engineering analysis on this. So it could be a very small piece of it. But these are people who aren't hiring an engineer at all. No, I know, they wouldn't actually have to even have a site plan is what you're saying, but what they might have to have is an engineer, you know, scan it, look at it on the computer, determine what percentage of the site was over 30% and go from there. And they might be able to just make a determination that it's a very small area. So engineer aside for a moment. I'm trying to understand, it sounds like we have some protections in place to ensure that buildings are of a similar size and scale massing to their neighboring. And this is really just focusing on density calculations. This particular concern we're talking about right now is just about the density. I hate using that metric. We really do. Because if you think about how the building looks and how it fits into the neighborhood, then it doesn't matter how many people are living in there. From my perspective. But it's determined by its particular zoning district and in terms of how many people could be living in there. So there is still some determination. I guess my concern is that with Sibley Street, if we take 30% slopes out of there, they could develop that entire property and they could put all 16 units on it. They just have to break it up into smaller units, smaller buildings. But at a certain point they're going to just run out and now most projects will never end up building out their potential, especially if you still have to meet all those rules. We still say you can't build on the 30% slopes without... I was just going to say. So the engineering, the hiring and engineer is going to happen regardless of whether... If you want to build on 30% slopes. If you have parcels that have 30% slope and not 30% slope. And you came in to put in a project and you said, I would put four units up on the top of the hill and nothing is going to impact any slopes over 30%. We would just be able to issue the permit because we could look at the size of the parcel and calculate whether there's enough density and then go and say the bulk and the massing is okay and you're not building on 30% slopes. So therefore there's no engineer that's needed for this project to approve this project. So no... But if you're doing the density then you would have to because you would have to determine the amount of slope. So but in that case then they could say well my parcel is x number of square feet. So I'm going to only build on the flat area now. But in the future I could build on that slope because according to my lot size if we don't consider a buildable area then they can use any part of that site as long as it's not saying restricted from building by 30% slope and it may well not be. Yeah and the way the rules are worded right now they can't build on the slopes over 30%. When we get to the number question to the lower number then we'll get to the question of should we allow it with engineering and we'll talk about some of the issues we've had to deal with. So 26 is only looking at calculating density based on buildable area only. Yes and so the most part this is fairly unique here for the most part most communities would say density is based on the size of your parcel. So maybe we can a decision on 26 and then turn the discussion to 32 just so that we're not confusing the two aspects of this I want to just talk about the density buildable areas density first then we can talk about the prohibition on building on 30% slopes all together so what we've heard a lot from Barb which is good you have the architectural background and not the history. Down these site plans. She knows these things so but I haven't heard from our newer members and I haven't heard much from you Kirby you've just been asking questions so far so since you have a little bit more history in this maybe you want to start with your opinion well I have a actually where I don't have the history I was just here for the end of the zoning by the way so I don't have anything for all of it so I have a question about that and the question is when you were to when you because I know Mike did a lot of the work to determine was appropriate for density and did a lot of the density background work did you factor in this buildable area thing and when the commission set those numbers or because I for some reason I'm thinking it came later this buildable portion like density was established from it seems like separate from this I think the density was probably just looked at what's on the ground we did 90% based on what's on the ground not based on 90% what's on the ground and you did not factor in buildable that seems like that would have been too difficult to do which means that if we follow what you're suggesting then we're not really undermining that legwork you did because you didn't factor in any way when you determined what was appropriate density does everybody follow what I'm saying? yeah there was well this is the problem with densities it's very abstract but I mean so Mike did some background work when the numbers which are kind of arbitrary were established for density for the zoning for the different areas he looked at what was there and kind of based density off of if every if we want to have 90% conformity in this neighborhood this is what the density would be he didn't look at 90% of what was buildable though he just looked at 90% for all the square footage which means if we follow his advice then we're not really wrecking that idea at all there's a lot of public input talking to the public about the fact that these areas would be removed so from a public standpoint this would be a change of policy we'd have to make sure it was clear to the public making that change I think we should make that change but as I said I think it clears up the administration side of things and then depending on how things go with the prohibition it's been fairly standard in most other communities if you had ten acres and five acres was wetlands you could still develop on the other five acres and you could cluster it if you wanted to cluster your development you could cluster your development assuming you could meet all the other parking bulk massing height requirements if you couldn't meet the parking requirement that's where I'm I'm persuaded to lift the buildable area on this because of all of the other protections in the zoning to require similar scale massing footprint that's where I feel comfortable with doing that I think it was the concern about the Sibley Street building which I'm not personally offended by but I understand that the community at large that came out they were not particularly happy about that so that in mind the project was an acre they could have put 24 units on that parcel and it's really steep and it has a flat spot on top so they were going to build on top they had the engineering surveys for the stability underground parking 16 units but it was a 5,000, 7,000 square foot building surrounded by mostly ranches multi-families but as you got into the Sibley Street or those streets they tended to be smaller ranches so that was an issue for the community and so one thing we were trying to fix so we were trying to fix a number of things with the zoning district, with the new district map and the new density map there was this complete disconnect between the rules that were in effect and what was on the ground so minimum lot size is 8,000 square foot and 75% of the parcels had parcels that were smaller than that I don't think a lot of people understood that the density that is on the ground is a lot higher than what the prior rules allowed for and when we tried to match it that's all we were trying to do is match it we were just trying to match what's on the ground with what the new rules would be so we attacked it in a number of ways one of which was so this administratively has become a nightmare because anytime anyone wants to increase their density in any way they have to show a topographical survey about how much is buildable that was happening and we've been surprised how many had like 6 applications in the first 6 months this year so just to make sure that I'm understanding this I have this lot size I'm allowed for whatever zone I'm in to build this particular size building but if I can't do that without hitting a 30 degree slope it just doesn't physically work that gets caught somewhere else it gets caught somewhere else that I would need some sort of survey to build on that like if I can build even if you could build with avoiding it you would need to prove that you can avoid it well it's not about where you can build or whether you're avoiding the slope it's about how much room you have to play with in increasing your units that's what 26 is about so if you get rid of that the trigger would be if I hit that slope then I would have more than you would have action I did try to put together an example of how this affects an actual parcel which happened to be my own parcel so looking at that excluding the slope I excluded all the slope it looked like I could fit on it which would still be really high in terms of my neighborhood without it I could put 6 or 8 so then it really starts to affect the neighborhood and I'm sure I could figure out some way to do it so I'd still be able to meet setbacks and parking and everything else on that flat area so to me the rationale was what we want to do is match what's there and what's there are people building on the flat parcels in a way that fits in with the rest of the neighborhood regardless because a lot of the I guess the other thing I should say is that a lot of the sites in Montpelier have narrow frontage and they're very deep so I suppose technically they could maintain the neighborhood by building on the street in accordance with what else is there but then they could build out back into the property potentially something that's allowable anyway regardless of slope you still can meet the bulk the massing the issue that comes up is looking strictly at density comparing to neighborhoods a lot of the neighborhoods are built with larger single family homes so if we start taking a large single family home and chopping it into smaller units then we've increased the density but we really haven't increased and that's where we're getting downstairs most of our questions are I've got three units I want to go to four units I've got four units I want to go to six units the buildings aren't getting any bigger they're just either developing undeveloped space taking a vacant carriage house and putting two units in it or taking a large single level and dividing it to put another apartment in and those are the issues that we're getting and they're having to go back and do engineering plans for slope analyses where we're like it's not changing the character of the neighborhood could we look at it from the standpoint of they're not changing the footprint if they're not adding on to any existing buildings then then this would not be triggered well how would that be different than just going and keeping them off the 30% slope because then for new construction or creating new additional buildings on the site then that would be a limitation I mean I think that's where the character of the neighborhood starts to get affected is when more buildings appear rather than if it's an existing building that's just being developed in a more dense way that's less I agree I mean it depends on what you're calling character of the neighborhood that's where I just get nervous about it because I think we want to encourage development and we want to encourage people to tack on units to existing buildings where possible so I just I don't want to we have encouraged them to take existing buildings existing large buildings and make multiple units but every time they want to do that right now that's what I'm hearing actually not if they want a duplex an existing single family home maybe not a duplex but anything bigger than a duplex well yeah and then other issues come into play but I think it I guess my feeling is that I could no longer say to the public yes I think we carefully considered these density levels and find that they're appropriate if now we're going to allow the entire the entire site so what changes instead of a site that's three quarters an acre that in fact one quarter can be developed now we have you know potentially three times as many unit or twice as many units so I think but the building sizes have to be the same because they're being they're governed by the other sets of rules that with front but it doesn't mean that it couldn't I mean yeah because we've eliminated the frontage requirement that they well building size scale footprint is what I was thinking yeah so and you know if we had sites in Montpelier that were not so defined the way they are you know most cities have sites that are much more square you know the frontage is is a significant portion of the building of the site itself but we have so many because of our topography that we that are so narrow that we end up with sites that have in the back portion of them might have 30% so so we know you are not in favor of adopting staffs recommendation I would be in favor of lifting you want to make a motion to adopt staffs recommendation sure I'll make a motion to adopt staffs recommendation on number 26 hold second any other discussion I don't want to limit the discussion here I just want to make sure we're conscious of time too all right all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed no so we have three in favor one opposed are the rules on that I vote in favor of Barb sorry sorry Barb you're very passionate and persuasive well but I'm going to say this is going to be a recommendation that will go to public hearing and there will be then a public hearing on this so this is let's switch to 32 which is the prohibition on building on steep slopes now the discussion will care it will flow well from there there's a third yeah there's a third piece that we will get to later on on PUDs which also affected is affected by slopes so I think we should hit that after this one I'll have to go and look up to you where that is okay well okay so three zero zero seven oh before we move on okay your recommendation by the way was kind of open ended so are we clear about what zones are going to exempt are we moving we're moving my understanding is recommendation to be clarified verbally as moving it all together okay so we're all clear on that okay thank you so three zero zero seven just so everybody knows understand so the steep slopes requirement has two tables and what these tables look at one tells you what your hearing threshold is so if you're disturbing only a small amount of 15% slopes then and it doesn't require hearing so there's thresholds that says when you're going to be kicked into a hearing with the DRB and then there's a second set of rules that says when you need to hire an engineer to develop your plan but what happens in both of these says you know disturbing 2,000 square feet or more of 25% slopes shall require hearing 30% slopes all development in this category is prohibited and then same with engineering plan it'll go and say no more than 4,000 square feet of land in the more than 25 less than 25% slope category more than 25% slope category may be disturbed without an engineered plan above 30% all development in this category is prohibited so where this has become a significant issue for staff downstairs is that 30% slopes pop up all the time and in small ways that are ditching on the side of the road on spring hollow lane somebody wanted to do a subdivision and they needed to put in a culvert want to put in a new driveway culvert well to put in a culvert would require impacting a 30% slope and is therefore prohibited so you can't put a culvert into a 30% slope I mean these were the types of things just little things that would come up that you're just like oh somebody has a retaining wall and that retaining wall was long enough that it actually got more than 30 got more than the 400 square feet or 450 square feet there's a limit and therefore you can't replace a retaining wall because a retaining wall is more than a 30% slope it's actually a 90% slope so retaining walls you can't engineer and we've had people come in and said you know this is just a pile of dirt I can come in here with an excavator have that 30% slope and it's gone it's not that big a deal but you can't disturb any 30% slope so it really started to become every time we turned around we're hitting this thing where engineers are like we can we can engineer this we can do this we just have to cross this little stretch where there's a kind of this big blob of 30% it narrows up and goes to a big blob of 30% and they're like oh we can put the driveway through here without it and drain it in this way and that way because it's not 30% here and it's not 30% there there's just a short stretch we've got to do a cut fill through can't do it because you can't touch that 30% slope so what we want to be able to do is to the recommendation here I believe is just to go and say just to change that language from saying all development is prohibited just saying all development in this category shall require hearing and all development in this category may not disturb without an engineered plan so the idea is just that we would kick both of these that anything you do is going to require an engineer anything you're going to do is going to go to a hearing so that way we can get through now that would potentially open up some larger projects but the requirements are still here that you have to meet you're not exempt from the design standards you still have to meet the design standards and you're still going to have to have an engineer and it's still going to be reviewed by a hearing it just gives us some opportunities to be able to get in and make some reasonable accommodations and if people have other ways of fixing the problem open to hear them that's the issues that we've been running into on a couple projects Will do you want to comment on this my question would be is as far as what level of engineering you know obviously you can have topography survey but then soil tests I mean there's obviously there's a range of development I'm looking at another project here we're putting in like a 500 square foot sort of accessory dwelling single story and it would be sort of stepped into a hillside and I mean myself as a builder and designer I'm like this should work basically I can take that to an engineer and be like does this work but yeah I guess I would just want to make sure that that's all clarified you know do we need soil boring tests and all that you know so in addition to the site plan engineering soil engineering and structural engineering the three things and or what level of review is suitable you know I mean if it's just like you know say a small corner of a potential production that you know 85% of the project is on less than 30% and you know a small portion of it is on greater than 30% does that require full full engineering for you know the soils whereas you know the majority of excavators and concrete contractors that I work with are like oh yeah this will be fine so I guess that's my questions as far as what level of engineering to take you know I guess if it's conditional and under review do we ever ask for soil boring on this necessarily this particular project not yet you know because we're not moving forward it's very conceptual stage at this point and you know I mean there's a there's a pattern of use that there's a lot of existing development along this is particularly on North Street that are kind of tucked on the uphill side of North Street you know some of them probably have foundation issues because they're built you know but a lot of techniques you know that shouldn't be a problem any smart design obviously would kind of suit it to the site as well so I guess that would be my question as you know as I said if it's like you know only 15% of a project is touching this 30% do you then have to have the entire project you know soil tested and or structurally engineered I mean what I'm hearing from you is that there's a lot of site specificity that should be thought of in requiring engineering plans and I don't know how much detail we want to get into in the zoning itself and how much we want to provide factors for the DRB to consider in setting the requirements for a given permit yeah I mean it could be the kind of thing too where as you know I have an engineer out and they're like yeah you should be fine with that you know and then whether it's a letter of like them saying good to go you mean an engineer certification well yeah I mean I think I know like you know I'm a member of the DRB as an alternate and there's been times where we're like you know people have said like okay you know it's like there's no intention on you know a septic system oh we need to have a septic design but then you know I was like well maybe we don't just a letter of intent from an engineer saying that yes you can put a septic system on here and you know it will work we don't need to have the full wastewater permit or the design and all the engineering elements of that yet but we do have design standards in 3007 that talk about things that tuck into the grade yeah for sure yeah so it's not like we're excluding any of those design solutions yeah I think yeah good design you know it's like trying to fit the neighborhood the site important but you know as I said you know if it's like you know 15% of a project is touching that 30% say it's 31% you know the difference between 31% and 29% is almost negligible so I guess I would want to just have it be clear as to like at what point you know is it just cross the board if you're touching any 30% the entire project needs to have engineering and what level of engineering usually we're just looking at engineering the portion that's impacting the 30% slope yeah but you know that's that's come up when it goes to the hearing the advantage of once something is going to the hearing the applications the preliminary applications are sent to the different departments including Public Works Public Works has folks who are engineers and actually provide comments on what they want to see and they required soil borrowings for the College Street project they required borrowings for the Sibley project even though that one didn't go forward they did actually do the engineering on that one did the soil borrowings and that's the folks downstairs know what to look for and the questions to ask so there is a process I think that seems to make sense it's like you know DPW it's one thing if you're putting like a 600 square foot accessory dwelling on like a 31% slope it's another if you're putting a 6000 square foot four-story you know building you know up above Berry Street so obviously I think as Mike was saying that DPW suggestions you know could be maybe the jumping off point what level of engineering because you know as you said there is engineers on staff that are very knowledgeable about a lot of things how consistent does DPW chime in like in practice they're pretty good of course you know we always have to keep in mind you know when we're looking at something like zoning regulations that things work great with the staff that we have downstairs you know hopefully we keep having that staff for years and years to come but you know what happens if there's a change of staff downstairs that could change the dynamics of the information that's available to us we would probably at that point need to come up with a different solution from an administrative standpoint to go through and say have an engineer on retainer that we would have to then work with to get these types of questions answered so we may need a tweak in the future that would go through the set of process that would go through and say we're going to have a technical review you know the staff of the DRB reserves the right to have a technical review of any application which is allowed under state law at this point we don't need to do that the staff downstairs and so the DRB relies on their assessment downstairs? Yes they take Tom and Kurt's comments very very carefully Will could probably comment on that they take seriously any comments if Tom had a serious concern with an application you can bet that the DRB is going to look very critically at it yeah for sure I mean I think that would make sense I mean if DRB sees something that is massive development and the majority of the project is on steep slopes I mean I guess there's a variety of different situations you could be above a steep slope that then goes down or you could be below a steep slope and I think they would be able to see what those sort of trigger points would be as like one corner of this project that's below a steep slope just make sure you enforce that corner wall of the foundation or something but if it's like a huge building that potentially could slip downhill onto a public right of way that's a different story so just to kind of give a frame of reference for people I mean I think most people don't really understand what a 30% slope means and 30% is the maximum slope that you can grow grass on so basically if you see a slope that cannot grow grass because it's too steep it's probably over 30% 30% slope is a very steep slope that's not to say that people all over the country don't manage to shelf things in on these steep slopes but hospital hill is driving up so if you were on Route 302 driving up to the hospital that's a 10% slope so you think of something that's three times on the road to me 302 up to the hospital a hospital hill on Route 62 you'd be going up a 10% slope so it just gives you an idea of 30% is just that much it's a pretty steep slope apparently we have a lot of those we have a lot of 30% slopes but not very many of them have been built on you see a lot of red on the map but if you were actually going to look on aerial photo you'd find that very little is actually developed on any of those 30% slopes so you're saying that it comes up a lot but are you, is it because the retaining walls are triggering it? it's the smaller pieces that come in that pop up that technically unless we can find outs we don't have it so some of the other ways that could be addressed these talk very black and white one option that doesn't appear in steep slopes is a waiver so you meet the rules or you don't there's not a waiver provision that says well you can always go in and ask the DRB for a waiver to this requirement if you can find you meet these three requirements so there are other ways of getting around this but that's Kim's note which is just criteria for DRB waivers should be stated if we were going to do the waiver's idea it would be that I'm trying to put some of these I just put ideas and not really making clear, concise this is exactly what we should do because there are a lot of ways we could address this we just know from an administrative standpoint something has to change because the 30% prohibition is a big problem just because of these small transitions I can think of there's a property I'm giving anything away there's a property that's terrorist it kind of goes up, it's flat it's flat and they want to just be able to work in between those two to remove because it's just it's just fill they just want to be able to remove back to the other building so they can make a single larger building so rather than having a kind of a shotgun on this flat spot because it was up, flat, up, flat with a shotgun house and a shotgun, actually it's a shotgun apartment and a shotgun apartment they just said these are awful buildings we just want to tear them both down and then build a single building that would kind of take both that space and we could put many more units in here and really have a much nicer building and they can't disturb the slope that's between the two so if we required engineer drawings they would have to engineer they would have to come in because they're disturbing 30% slope they would just have to have an engineer that would be a part of this project that would go through and say so if there were problems to adjacent properties then it would be the engineer who's on the hook yeah we would be looking we would be able to ask the engineer to start to certify on things well it looks like you're going to be moving you're at the toe of the hill the bottom of the hill we need to prevent the upper from becoming part of the lower are you engineering these retaining walls how are you engineering these retaining walls have you done soil borings to determine that there's bedrock so that top can't come down these are the questions that we can start asking because we did have a project where that happened with a small house on top of a very steep slope and then the other side is being the top of the hill the slope started to move because of the weight of the building and there's no there wasn't any engineering as far as I knew yeah and that's what we want to be able to do is to be able to make those assessments at the top and the bottom of the hill we don't think there's going to be a lot of people who are really going to try to go in you'll see it in some communities that have had issues where they've gone through and had people take a long steep slope and somebody will find a way to try to stick their house on the side of that hill we haven't had that this would still prohibit that if it isn't going to be properly done or it's going to affect some other issues because it is a public hearing it's tripped it into a hearing even if it's a permitted use a single family home it's a permitted use and you want to build in there you're still going to a public hearing well if we the requirements of well there's no way to do it at all right now right now there's no way but you're suggesting that if there were to be a waiver or there were to be a conditional use it would be a situation where the slopes on the property or the slopes slopes at the site where the development is proposed would trigger the need for a hearing and an engineering an engineer drawing right a conditional use like if the DRB wasn't satisfied do we feel comfortable that the criteria is there for them to make a decision to make a denial decision that would hold up does that require a new criteria I don't think I think we have to come up with it is that right Mike well we already have nine standards in H they can establish it as a clearing limit the amount of disturbance of existing natural vegetation not create steeper slopes than 30% so you can't fill onto a 30% slope and make it even steeper right I mean we have a lot of design standards here so maybe maintain and reduce pre-existing rate produce a final grade that is compatible with surrounding terrain create harmonious transition between graded and terrain avoid creating continuous unbroken slopes or linear slopes contour graded slopes by varying slope increments to produce a final grade that undulates both vertically and horizontally very cut fills so which provisions are you reading from there these are from 3007H the design standards for steep slopes and they could all be things that DRB denies an application on yep and these same rules apply even down to 15% slopes it's just you need to disturb 4,000 square feet or more on a 15% slope before you get booted into the hearing and needing to meet this requirement but does it mean anything over 30 then yes and yeah you can't do anything over 30% without triggering these so Mike how can you make that determination if they don't have an engineer drawing in terms of the 4,000 square feet or more of land in the slope category greater than 15% they're still going to have to have an engineer drawing even though we don't require it and except for figures 3,000 or 9 they may end up needing to have engineering for an administrative approval as well so it almost seems if we can't downstairs if we don't feel we have the information to approve it then we have to deny it so usually what we end up doing is telling them you're going to need to give us additional data so we can know you know you're not going to have to go to a public hearing because you're not getting high enough in square footage if we the other option I'm looking here so 4,000 square feet of land shall require hearing 8,000 square feet may not be disturbed without an engineered plan we could make them the same it almost seems like it makes sense to make them the same if you're going to go to a hearing the DRB I would be very surprised to see the DRB not want to hear an engineer on a steep slope project yeah I was wondering about those two but I assumed that there was some way you had to administer this without the plan we did a lot because initially they were completely connected so we kind of made them more logical halfway through and I think looking at this I would almost expect to see those numbers reversed I would almost expect to see an engineered plan requirement you trigger an engineered plan requirement before you trigger a hearing because then you might be able to make an administrative decision with a smaller area that makes a lot of sense so with all this in mind do you have a specific recommendation for it regarding this last thing we've just been talking about or with the steep slopes my thought was just to go and remove those rather than say all development is prohibited just say all development shall require hearing instead of all development where all disturbance prohibited it would say all disturbance shall require an engineered plan so I think that's my recommendation here that I would go with and then the question if we want to adjust those numbers to be the same I would probably think I would make them the same see the hearing yeah or else reverse them or else reverse them because then you could avoid it so this is the number of square footage that would trigger the need for yeah there's one yeah there's one number that says when you need a hearing and there's one number that says you need to provide an engineered plan currently you can go to a hearing without needing an engineered plan and then you go to the hearing and they tell you that doesn't make as much sense I would expect these numbers should have been reversed the 8000 should have been this number and the 4000 should have been this number so it makes it easier for you hopefully does that make sense to switch those then switch the 8000 and the 4000 switch them or make them match I mean if we switch them then I would probably switch would you be able to do administrative decisions we'd probably more likely I would switch I would probably switch them because it's more likely we would I think we can do administrative decisions we want to do that because we want to streamline from the process the best we can because we will go walk across the hall and talk to Kurt as well when we need an opinion on so that means the 4000 square feet of disturbance on a slope of less than 15% greater than greater than 15% but less than what's the next one between 15 and 20% would be engineered plans would be required but not necessarily a hearing might just take the numbers on those two and completely switch them not just for one category but for all that makes sense I know how we ended up with those numbers necessarily but we're recommending a switch of numbers for figure 3-08 and 3-09 and then as for number 32 I understand staff's recommendation to take off the prohibition on development of over 30% slopes but make it a requirement that engineering plans and a hearing are required yes I guess this sort of goes on your question you know which is engineering and which is a hearing seems like at least from my perspective it should be a similar you know, different categories I mean obviously a certain square footage of development requires a major site plan review which would be if I keep bringing up this 500 square foot accessory dwelling unit you know it's like if it was on a 32% slope have the engineer drawings go to the staff and they're like here's our project you don't need to go to the DRB as I said there's other things within the regulations that require you to go to the DRB no matter what for covering the major site plan review versus the minor site plan review that's a similar you know I don't have a problem with no matter what anything above 30% being engineered but if we have to do an engineer and the university is just administrative I think that is where we're landing if it's more than 30% it's going to require both that's what I'm under I'm just trying to pin down what the staff recommendation is on this because I think that Mike tries to do the last process where he can also it's over 30% require hearing and also it's over 30% require engineering so that people no matter what if it's over 30% but we were talking more like if it's like a 15% then we're making it easier to get administrative approval for that we were thinking about maybe incorporating that into the above 30% as well yeah I mean I think we're taking a big step by removing a prohibition so I appreciate where you're coming from but I don't know we're ready to go that far and there's still of requirements of isolated slopes of greater than 500 square feet in the area you know so you still have some that might not have to go to a hearing if it's a really small amount 30% slope but it's still in there but it's that's really meant for isolated areas but it'll still probably get caught up in these other administrative requirements so I think it's good so do I have a motion to adopt the staff recommendation as articulated just now whatever that was which square footages of 308 and 309 and all slopes over 30% will require hearing and all slopes over 30% will require engineering as opposed to prohibition second any further discussion on this all those in favor say aye aye I don't have to vote on this one can I ask a cool question you're pretty familiar with that right don't they prohibit development on slopes over 30% I don't think so I don't think it's an outright and if they do it has to get triggered well active 15 jurisdiction yeah I'm not saying in the city but I'm saying in any project that has to go before active 15 review so I don't know rationale for this I would think it would always require engineering if there were but I don't know if it's out if there's any outright prohibition rely on our engineers to do the right thing well they're gonna they get vetted this is not just stamp it and it's okay this is you present an engineer report and we give it to our engineer to double-track in our and they've been pretty they push back pretty hard they come back you know I don't like your conclusions you know I would rather see a spread foundation rather than you know piles driven or whatever they they'll go they get pretty detailed with their interpretations of what they think they're working off of a lot of experience with other I think so yeah okay so there was another one connected to steep slopes um the PUDs and I think that was let's see for 62 is that is that it Mike? and there may be some other ones that pop up so where this so where steep slopes kind of came up a couple times was in the density and whether we build or don't build and then when we start talking about plan unit developments or clustering and then it comes up again do you get to count those densities and do you need to conserve those areas first so I think what we found in a couple of them like cottage cluster and I haven't knowing the decisions that have been made for 26 and 32 kind of want to go and see maybe how that will impact these later discussions because like conservation areas so this is this is and this is Jay Ansel's common is that right thank you yes we should save some time and find out we're answering her questions oh yeah maybe we can pause for a moment I think this actually may be the one that I'm waiting to hear about okay well that's good because we probably wouldn't have gone there if we went in order so you're concerned about the cottage clusters and okay great plan unit developments okay excellent and we did get an email from Jay Ansel on this as well so first we'll get Mike to summarize and then we'll maybe we can get your comment after he summarizes or you just want to listen okay okay great so where this is comes up is when we start out conservation areas and what gets conserved the steep slopes comes up again so you have to conserve 30 percent slopes first and 15 to 30 percent slopes second I want to say because it depends we have five different types of PUDs right I think this is the conservation the open space yeah so one is infill I don't think infill PUDs what do you think it is Barb I'm confused if you're looking at number 62 we're just talking about adding a general PUDs section I think that was yeah that's not I think it's a different one that's out here but not that one okay so much water I do know that where Jay's concern has been is we don't have a copy of the Jay Ancel you know there's one on the table over there no um um so his first his first concern was to allow PUDs in all undeveloped areas of the city new neighborhood conservation and cottage cluster allowed in all the undeveloped areas in other words not restricted by district right yes and I think we have some recommendations in here for a couple of those okay so it may not be number 62 we're just jumping in the wrong spot so I think one of them is um number 61 recommend allowing new neighborhoods in western gateway eastern gateway and residential 24,000 that's pretty much Jay's request before his earlier discussion with me with the fact that he was referring to I think he had a project that was eastern gateway is out by gallison hill and trackers by and you know we had pretty much gone through and said oh that's kind of urban and he kind of said well actually there's some undeveloped land in there that could be a nice mixed use project and if I had access to this pd I could do some something in there so I think he was referring that western gateway includes national life so I think we could all think of a nice new neighborhood pd that could go up on national life but it's not allowed today and then residential 24,000 which is the college so and yeah the new neighborhood pd can you give a quick new neighborhood pd is kind of the traditional neighborhood development that's right it's to encourage new neighborhoods I mean it's reading right from the purpose in a manner consistent with traditional development principles and patterns of neighborhoods built in montpelier before 1940 traditional neighborhoods combine a variety of housing types small scale commercial civic uses in a compact walkable setting features highly connected street network sidewalks buildings set back appropriate to create public realm on a human scale providing parks and open space to maximize protection of significant resources so if you want to build a big development if you do it in a way that meets this pd you get density bonuses we had a few potential lots in mind when we were coming up with this and some of the bigger lots in town and we apparently neglected to consider all of the potential lots so that's what I understand your recommendation is that it would be a no-brainer to expand the districts to which this pd could be applied yes that would make it would make a lot of sense that we would allow this in more places than we've allowed it so yes to 61 would this make it more attractive to build on the outskirts of the city as opposed to the downtown area though I mean that could have been one of the reasons why we didn't do it that way but this would be its own little you're worried about suburban sprawl it doesn't include rural it doesn't include rural so you can't develop in areas that don't have access to sewer and water so would be limited just to areas that have access to sewer and water I mean I think the thing about this PUD is that yeah it may be not walkable to downtown but it would be a pocket community that would be walkable within that community so it wouldn't be suburban sprawl in that you would have to drive from one house to another house to another house so if you are going to develop you're going to have to do it in sort of a concentrated manner yeah I mean I'm generally in favor of any new housing I just want to make sure we're not undermining a lot of what we're doing just to kind of acquiesce this request it seems like this is really intended for a new neighborhood as opposed to a particular cottage cluster kind of comes in under a different PUD which might more easily fit into the denser area that's why I want to make sure we're being careful that the neighborhoods a much larger impact will impact the city for decades and currently we're allowing it where Mike? it's allowed in riverfront mixed use residential 3,000 residential 6,000 residential 9,000 on parcels that are two acres or more in size so the proposal would expand it to east and west gateway in residential 24 I mean your point is really good that we could end up having a isolated pocket of a neighborhood here but at the same time I think that all of those districts are somewhat developed already anyway it would help to know I'm having trouble picturing on the eastern gateway where this would be eastern gateway so eastern gateway is could include up places like this undeveloped 2 acre parcels national life for eastern gateway you've got parcels like Pat Malone's got some parcels that would be that big Jason Merrill so if you were across from tractor supply you've got a big hill that's a 6 7 acre parcels so if they want to do some neighborhood development on the top of that hill because it doesn't fit for commercial there would be a residential infill that could go there as you move down that street there are a number of undeveloped and underdeveloped parcels that could that's like more than a mile from downtown it is something from a planning perspective something from a planning perspective that we have recognized as a challenge was that we have areas in town that have access to sewer and water and have been developed and can develop and the question is what do we do with them because they're not supporting the downtown where there's some resistance to doing a lot of development downtown we do want development downtown we do want stuff to happen there but at the same time when things happen there there's also a pushback about losing our historic character because of doing that we want to find a place where we can run away that maintains our historic character and balance that support in the downtown so we do have a little bit of challenges but when we wrapped up our city plan master plan we noted there were two areas that were challenging one was this Route 302 what are we going to do with this it doesn't support our downtown but has sewer and water kind of should find out how we want to plan for this do we want more development out there more mixed use development out there or do we just not want development out there and then the other one are some of our neighborhoods that are lower density neighborhoods like town hill these are the areas that came up with a lot of comments a lot of challenges what do we do with these areas that have access to sewer and water but people don't want to infill and what's appropriate and what's our plan I mean we come up with a solution that works for zoning but is that really our long term plan to continue to have one acre zoning kind of and if we need a parcel that's big enough to develop a new neighborhood I mean we're talking to up to 40 units 40 lots or units I'm challenged to give away too much without giving away too much because people come and talk to us about things and that's how we come up with these I've got a great idea for this parcel and you know I can't really go into the details of it just fits for you know we can think about it generally from eastern gateway, western gateway western gateway mostly so I'd neg your national life yeah I mean that one makes sense to me because potentially it is walkable to downtown I hear that in eastern gateway it makes sense to me too except when I start thinking about we want so much development to be concentrated in smart ways we want smart growth and then the only thing that we're the only major project will be successful in is one that's more than a mile from downtown I feel like that will be like a failure if like if we're not encouraging I don't know we are using a lot of other tools to encourage infill and other types of PUDs like cottage clusters which are very much they're a lot smaller this is the bigger scale new neighborhood meaning like not just cluster or units but also mixed uses and so it I was just going to say I feel like it would be for my perspective it would be a success if it you know maybe it's mixed use but it adds some more housing units and people are moving in from like you know like they're getting a little bit closer and like maybe they're not walking I think that's a positive we need better transportation part of I think part of maybe why I'm why I'm a little concerned is I don't think these I think these are people this is the downsizing group is mentioned here and those are people who already live here and are looking for smaller place to live here which is like great that that's happening let's do some infill downtown and let's have your downsizing group do that but whatever the reasons are behind the suggestion overall it would increase housing stock which is our goal I mean if we look at the you know the sustainability plan it's certainly looked at for housing developed in neighborhoods in the western gateway for sure of your national life and there's a lot of potential yeah there's a lot of potential I'm not sure if on the other end of the city if we trip into eastern gateway or not some of what they were the Grossman's lots eastern gateway where the parking would be where the parking would be yeah but not there was no housing proposed east of that right yeah but the idea being if that same concept were to continue with the rail line through Berlin that we would then be able to develop more of a linear city transit transit oriented design so what's residential 24,000? residential 24,000 that is would clearly be the college oh okay yeah that's the one and that includes the one above it too so um number 61 talks about new neighborhood adding it to residential 24,000 number 60 talks about adding cottage cluster to residential 24,000 which I think is just an oversight and I labeled it as green sorry which one did you just 60 and 61 so 61 was the new neighborhoods 60 would add cottage cluster as an option for residential 24 oh okay what's the consent item so as far as 61 I'm hoping we can get a little resolution on there before we adjourn so do I have a motion to adopt staff recommendation on 61 which would be to allow new neighborhood PUDs in western gateway eastern gateway residential 24,000 districts I'll move a second can I request that we hold on is it possible to hold off on eastern gateway and for the next time I mean I'd like to look on it yeah we could just make it for western gateway and um residential 24 yeah you're the movement so if you want to modify your motion I will modify my motion and we will hold eastern gateway in abeyance right now okay just make it western and residential 24,000 okay second on that second any further discussion on that one are you comfortable okay all those in favor say aye okay so that carries yeah I'd like to look I see what you're saying but then I'm also relating to when I was trying to buy a house in Montpelier and the fact that yeah I know you did this recently too it's significantly cheaper and easier to buy five acres in Cabot and from a regional perspective are we trying to encourage people to buy five acres um and I'm so I'm that's part of what I thought but I'm also I want to look at what the specific requirements are of doing a PUD because that's what I don't fully understand which relates to what could that look like I'm what I'm worried about and I just want to check it out and I think I'll feel better but I am worried about us doing something desperate for housing and and like kind of like making a mistake that we regret so just um yeah I'm as desperate for housing as anyone yeah and part of the land use planning that goes out to that section of route 302 really comes back to it's it's not designed for urban there are no sidewalks out there and so part of this is to come up with our when we do our land use plan for our master plan our city plan is to start to go and say if we're going to be urban and we're going to be mixed use then we've got to start acting like we're going to be mixed use and we've got to start putting in sidewalks and putting in street lights and making this look urban because if we think this is going to you know be something in between gateway yeah that's true but oh no don't change the name again but it is the gateway to the community it's gonna is people are going to remember people remember your communities by the gateways right and and you're right about the transit-oriented development you know if the train actually could go out there then it makes more sense but yeah I think it has the eastern gateway has many more considerations yeah western gateway gets actually in some parts gets very close so any anything that you want to say before we adjourn because I think we're wrapping up the discussion I was 24 that residential 24,000 was the specific area that I was hoping to hear about so I have and then I'm just curious because cottage clusters is another one did that piece get out of my did I hear you say that was just an oversight it's a consent it's a consent item which I don't know how if we're going to is everyone comfortable with staff recommendation on that yeah no one raised it as an issue so and hearing confirmation here we're going to deem it approved so yes okay we didn't act on 62 correct we did not act on 62 I think we need to talk about that one a little bit yeah okay and I gave you the wrong minutes I went to the bottom of the minutes I quickly was like I need minutes open that one hit print so our item 8 we're going to hold off on considering minutes from July 9 till our next meeting our next meeting is August 13th and it'll be with more committees to the pavilion building but at the following meeting after that which is I think probably the three of us will probably meet at some point or maybe the four of us just to go logistics logistics yes it's a great idea I think we've got to be comfortable with exactly what the agenda is and how it's going to mark yes I think that's a great idea and I'll just come and you'll just give me the money right for the refreshment alright do I have a a motion to adjourn motion second so we had Stephanie moved Barb seconded all those in favor say aye aye okay we are adjourned