 This is the developer for a show of hands, one way or the other, depending on how you're zooming here, and he will have you join the Zoom meeting and we will either square you in or start the hearing on that particular item. We also ask that you give staff an address so that they can follow up with information and party status. That is it. Communications, there are items that were added to the website but I don't think there's nothing else besides that, right, a couple of comments that were added. And some stuff about all items that were posted. Minutes, there are no minutes at this meeting. I know there's some outstanding that Allie gave me a few of them. So Allie, I'll work on them. So that brings us to the consent agenda. The first item on the consent agenda is 400 Pine Street. This is for Alan Newman, Speakeasy Arts and Howard Space Partnership. I would recommend, Mr. Chair, that we move this off the consent agenda and open it as a certificate of appropriateness. Okay. I see Israel and Alan are here. So that will then become a public hearing. So I don't know if there's anybody else besides Israel and Alan who are going to be speaking on this. Anyone else would like to speak? Please raise your hand, use the raise your hand function. Can you hear me? Brad, can you hear me? Yes, is that Alan? Yeah. If you see, if you see Kelly Keane out there, she's our general manager and she was going to listen in. I don't know whether she's going to be speaking, but she is out there. I do see Kelly, she didn't raise her hand to speak. So right now it's just you and Israel. Well, for Alan and Israel, right now you're the only two speaking. So I'll ask you to swear in and that you will tell the truth and hold truth under pain and come up to your perjury. Do you agree? I do. Israel, are you there? Yes. Can you hear me? Now I can. Okay. So this was originally put out for consent agenda. The staff raised an issue about the five foot setback. And Israel, you wrote some eloquent reasoning as to how it might not apply. So maybe we can get right into that. Unless there's other things you want to do to introduce the project. Well, certainly I want to talk about the setback. But before I do the exceptions, I guess before doing that, I would like to walk through the design in a little bit more detail and just familiarize the overall project. But before I do that, I think it's probably best for Alan to say a few words about the broader context here. You know, I guess I just would like not that people are unaware that not only local businesses, national that are in the event space and the bar space are on the verge of all going out of business. So one of the things that can help keep businesses going is outdoor space. So I just want to caution people from believing that this is just for the pandemic. The effect of the pandemic will go on for years. It will take us years to dig out of the hole that we're currently in and will continue being in until we have a respite from the pandemic issues. So I just wanted to put in a word that if you get to the point where you go, well, you know, we see both sides as kind of a toss up that I would encourage you to think about trying to help save small local businesses, whether it's arts riot or whether it's another business coming before you during this winter, that the problems of the pandemic are not over when the pandemic is theoretically over. The financial effects will go on for years and we all need help digging out. So I guess that's really the only point that I wanted to make. I agree with Israel, by the way, that we meet the criteria, but should there be dissension on that point? And should there be a toss up? I just would like to encourage this board to throw the toss up to the small businesses who are trying to survive. I can't hear you. Yeah, Brad, you're muted. Okay. Nope. Okay. My mouse was on the other monitor. Thank you, Alan. Israel, do you want to take over at this point? Sure. Can I share my screen with you all? I'm just going to ask you, Israel, do you want to share or do you want me to display what's online? I'd like to share. It's fine. It'll be easier that way. Okay. So you should be able to do it now, Israel. Speaking at this point. I'm not. I don't hear Israel either. There it is. Got it. Okay. I lost my button. Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay. I think we'd all be experts at this by now. So if I could start, I just want to direct everyone's attention to the supplementary communications we sent the, the, the letter that Brad mentioned is primarily concerning itself with the setback and the exceptions to the setback and the interpretations there. But I also sent a few other things after that via email. I didn't see them on the website. Did you get all those, Mary? Yes, they were posted this afternoon. Oh, okay. Maybe they're there at the end of. Of all the other documents. I see them. They're at the bottom. Okay, great. All right. Wonderful. So we're asking the board to consider both revision one and revision two. And it includes the changes that we presented. So revision one is the scheme that we prefer. And it's what the DAB recommended for approval. And it includes the changes that the DAB conditioned. That's, that's this one here. It's R1. R1 down here. This one. This one. And then we have the ramp on the south end. Just on the north end. And revision two was our, our attempt to modify and clarify the design to meet. Staff's interpretation of the zoning setback. The building setback. And that one. And that one. And that one. Defined the accessible route. Within the, the raised platform and added a. A ramp here as well. We'd be happy with either one of these, but we do, we do prefer. Revision one. This one here. So we've also submitted. We've also submitted. We've also submitted. We've also submitted. We've also submitted. But I annotated to just highlight the, the three different floor levels of the building. Please note that the boundary on that, the property line on that drawing is not correct. It's not a boundary survey. There's a separate boundary survey was done in 2017 that we've also shown. And that's where the property line on our drawings is coming from. That's an accurate property boundary. That's a boundary. So we have three different floor levels in the building we're contending with. And let's see where the, here it is. There's the floor level drawing. You can see we have. Call it zero. It's really about 20 inches above grade out here. Right. And then three and a quarter inches above that is our, right South. And then the arts, right? Distillery space, the old. The building is 13 and a half inches above arts, right? North. So we're contending with a few different levels here at the building. I've also. Provided some diagrams that show. Really. What are. What are. Maybe not obvious as ramps, but. Much of the, of the elevated deck area here. Slopes to accommodate the different levels of the building. So we're showing that to you. And then there's some existing photo. So I just want to make sure you guys all saw that. It came in kind of late. So the project we're presenting here to you today. It really consists of exterior improvements only. Primarily it's about new outdoor seating. And then there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of space along with stairs and ramps and walkways. There are some enlarged masonry openings that are happening. That. We presented to the DAB and, and there was no problem there. They recommended approval there. Where we're enlarging some existing openings. You can sort of see that best where we're making changes here. We've got a lot of new openings here. We've got a lot of new openings. And. Some new openings here and where there is our existing openings. Existing masonry openings. We're taking the opaque infill out. And putting glazing in. So the end result. Is what you see here. From the streets. Street level. And then. The full facade. So these improvements are part of a larger overall project to reposition arts riot for the future. The conversion of this space to the distillery is also part of that. That's permitted separately. Let's see. So as I said, the primary goal here is we're trying to create an outdoor dining space. It's also just sort of a general activity space. And. We're trying to make it separate and distinct from the street. But also invite the public in at. Particular points, especially at the entries. And so. That you can sort of see. Better here. Actually, this is even better. There's a good, good shot there. This is at the arts riot North entry point. There's arts riot South. The area where the performances happen. And this is at the distillery end here. So we're trying to balance. A need to, to make some of these dining areas separate. Also the. The. The fence is confronting the problem of traffic noise. Traffic noise along pine street is. You know, really a problem if you're trying to. You know, have a conversation in this outdoor environment right here between the building and the street. So we tried to create these transition zones at various points. We also talked to public works about. These vertical oriented bike racks, which in this scheme would be in the right of way. Public works was keen on the idea and we, we worked with them. We started at an initial meeting to coordinate what happens at the right of way. Both for maintenance and operations, but also for planning for the improvements along the Champlain Parkway. We chose some warm, but industrial materials with the hemlock. Wood planks and the core 10 steel. So, you know, overall, we're trying to achieve a space that's efficient and makes a positive contribution to the streetscape. It's a challenge because we've got a very narrow strip of land here between the property line and the building to do all these things. We also looked at opportunities along the way to improve accessibility to the three different levels of the building. You know, right now the existing conditions. You can't, there's no accessible way in here in this tenant space. So, you know, without going up this ramp into this tenant space and across, same thing here. You have to go in here and make your way over there. So, you know, what this approach is that we've done is we're allowing it for, you know, a really seamless flow across all levels of the building inside and outside. There's not a lot of, oh, I want to go there. So I've got to go down here. We're up this way and over this way and out this door and back over here to reach a deck over here. We're creating one continuous level. Let's see. I'd like to point out we looked at alternative designs. We looked at putting all the outdoor seating down on grade. We looked at splitting between the grade level and an elevated deck held back from the property line. All of these were worse for access, worse for business operations. They resulted in less seating capacity. All of them necessitated some kind of fence, opaque fence to mitigate the traffic. In our opinion, those are all worse options for everyone, including the city. And that's sort of why we ended up settling on this approach. I think, you know, certainly we were a little bit concerned about modifying the, the, the public perception of this, of this old building. We, in the end, I think we, we agreed. And the DAB also agreed that, you know, that it doesn't really change the essential form of the building in any permanent way. And in fact, I would argue that if you go back and you look at the old photos, this whole zone, these were loading, these were a little loading dock areas. And this whole zone here was always separate and distinct from the public sidewalk. It was always another route over here. Oftentimes there were cars parked right along this strip here. This was always a separate and distinct area where vehicles and, and what would enter on either end, hang out here in this, in this linear space and move goods and equipment back and forth through the building. And if you think about what we're doing here, I think we're actually at least conceptually putting back that pattern of use. We're occupying this linear zone. It's separate and distinct from the sidewalk, but it's not completely disconnected. We're making connections where they matter at the entry points, inviting people in and we're creating a space here where people are coming and going in and out of the, this porous edge of the building. So I think it's a, I, I think it's a very sensitive, an adaptation of this old building and respectful of its, of its previous use patterns. And in fact, it's probably restoring them compared to where they are now. Now it's sort of this amorphous kind of, you know, no man's land in between stairs and ramps jutting out. And, you know, our try it has started to do what they can here on the ground for outdoor seating and all that, but we're trying to formalize that and, and, and make it something that is a contributor to the streetscape and starts to set a good pattern for the future. So. So, um, it's real. Can you show the R2 perspective that matches the R1 you were just showing? Oh, sure. Uh, let's see, which, which one did you want to look at the view of the front that shows all the ramps on the front, uh, from the, from Pine Street. That one, that one. Um, so if I understand the difference between functionally between R1 and R2 is an R1, the only accessible route is from the north side of the building on R2. You have accessible access from both the north and south side. That's correct. And I can get into a little, I can go into a little bit why, you know, I, we felt it was important to connect the parking. We're with the, with the, with the accessible ramp. In the R1 scheme, one of the things we were trying to do there was to create, um, I have a draw here was to create the condition for the possibility of expanding this whole system down in front of speeder and urls at some point. Um, the urls is not participating in this and this is not part of the application, but at some point they or another tenant might want to extend the deck and we sort of thought at that point, that would be the place to put the ramp at the very end of the run. Um, so that's why we did that, hoping that actually maybe pretty soon down the line, they might, they might do that. They get also an elevated outdoor seating area. Um, probably more space than they have now and there's a ramp here. So that's why in that scheme, there was, it just sort of cuts off here. It's anticipating expansion down the way across the rest of the building. Um, we took the opportunity of R2 to show another way of doing this. I think it makes it harder to expand later because you end up sort of with, you have a ramp that's going this way now and it kind of isolates speeders. It does beg the question of trying to do that now because it does the ramp does. Yeah. We, uh, we, we went down that road and it's, it, it wasn't something that is going to be in, was going to be in the cards for, for this, uh, space here. The other thing, I have Israel and I was looking for it and maybe you can answer it if not staff can is accessible ramps are somewhat of an exception to lot coverage and setbacks. Is that accurate? I believe there are exceptions written in for ramps in both of those categories. All right. I was trying to find that exception. I couldn't quite find it in the. CDA is an exception both for lot coverage and for extension or encroachment into required setbacks. Okay. Thank you. Brad, it's under, uh, it's in article five. It's section five, two, five letter A setbacks. And then under exception B. And. So between those two exceptions, I think there's one important, uh, distinction that, that, that are different between the two exceptions. Uh, with regard to setbacks, um, it's, it says, it says accessible ramps and includes a number of other things with regard to, uh, accesskovers. Um, The ordinance does limit the definition of accessible ramps to be at a minimum dimension. And. You know, Per the access codes. Um, So it's basically said, it has to be. You know, For the sole purpose of providing access and have no more than the minimum dimensions to meet, accessible accessibility standard. So that's like saying you really can't count any more of But there's no such distinction written into the exceptions for ramps from setbacks. And I think that's intentional. I think that is trying to allow for some flexibility with regard to setback exceptions. And I think if you look at the rest of my discussion in my letter on the setback exception, I think there's a lot of flexibility built into that definition, especially the clause at the end of that section that says something to the effect of and similar building and site features. It's trying to open the door to creative solutions like this, I believe. Israel, this is Jeff. I've got just one factual question for you. You're showing the ramp, the existing ramp to speeder and urls in part of that image you have up right now. Yeah. What is the distance that that comes out from the building that existing ramp compared to what you all are proposing for the outer limit of your structure? Let's see. So the speeders ramp is somewhat back of the property line. Okay. The existing arts riot ramp is right on it. Okay. Okay. That's helpful. So yours would be right be a little further out than the speeder and urls, but the same distance out is the existing arts riot one. Yep. Okay. And Mary, is this your project? Yes, it is Jeff. On the exceptions to the side yard setback, I just wanted to clarify your right up there. This is under 5.2.5 setbacks at the bottom of that discussion. We say the only method of identifying this plan as an allowable exception under the ramps for the disabled is by a positive interpretation by the building inspector. Can you just explain what you had in mind there? Well, as you probably recall from other reviews, ADA access is strictly under the jurisdiction of the building inspector. The zoning language in this particular exception is specific to ramps for the disabled. It doesn't define accessible routes as this application is seeking. So I have made an inquiry and I made an outreach to the building inspector and he has only responded that it needs to meet the code. So I don't have an interpretation that's more distinct than that. Do you agree with Israel's distinction between the provision of the ordinance that relates to lot coverage, which sort of specifically references those guidelines and the fact that those guidelines are not specifically referenced in the setback exception? I find the setback exception language is so specific that that's what I must follow in writing the staff report and I do not agree and that's the reason for this recommended decision. What is the lot coverage section? I've seen a setback section. I just don't see the lot coverage section. I'm interested in the distinction in the language. I think Israel would be referencing a section that we did not bring up here because lot coverage is not changing. A lot coverage is going to remain the same. Maybe that's a question for you, Israel. Do you know that section of the section is five, two, three, and exceptions is B? It's right after the setback exceptions. Right before. Yes. Yeah. Again, so Mary and I have a difference of opinion on this, obviously. I think that the setback exception reads building in site features, eaves, sills, roof overhangs, cornices, steps to first floor entries, walkways, ramps for the disabled, fences, walls, and similar building and site features may project into a required yard setback. So it's a long list of things that are really part of the system, right? First floor entries, walkways, ramps, those are parts of an accessible route. Article six, actually in the same breath, talks about ramps and accessible routes, all of a piece. So I think that the general spirit here is that it's trying to put these things together and say, these are part of the system of providing accessibility to a building. And I think even more so, the fact that the end clause of that whole section is and similar building and site features, it's trying to anticipate that they can't necessarily list all the things that you might consider part of that system and part of a necessary front area or access to a building area. And so it does seem like the language is very different looking at that. Exceptions to lot coverage, exception eight, B8, as very specific language when it's talking about ramps for the disabled, doesn't have any of the permissive language in the setback, other similar features, it lists, numerically lists the only things that shall not be counted. So I agree with you, Israel, it seems like there's an intended difference between the application of the lot coverage exception and the setback exception. Yes, and I would say with regard to the building inspector's opinion on this matter, I don't know that it really is something that's relevant to the discussion here, because while certainly ramps, accessible ramps are a part of this collection of things that are allowed in the setback, some of these ramps that we have here, and I think it's important to go to these diagrams here, let's see, this one here in this scheme R2, this is your standard one to 12 slope railings both sides, what we tend to think of as an accessible ramp and so is this one. This area here is an entire sloped deck, really technically a ramp, but it's not, you know, coming even close to needing railings or anything like that, but it's bridging the two levels between here and providing an accessible route between these points. So I think to some degree, we're in the zoning realm here, and this is not really something that the building inspector can really comment on other than to say what he said, which is if you've got a ramp, it's got to meet the code. Am I correct that if you didn't have those connections, and you wanted to provide sort of separate access to each of those areas, you'd really have to have a separate ramp. We have, you know, maybe three disconnected ramps coming off, like you've got two disconnected ramps right now. You would if you had three separate tenants for sure, right? I mean, to some degree, this building is getting away with the advantage of Arts Riot having one tenancy across three spaces, right? But future tenancies are not going to be able to take advantage of that. There's a ramp inside between this distillery space and the performance space, and there's a non-compliant but, you know, reasonably okay floor threshold transition between to do the three and a half, three and a quarter inches over here between these two spaces. Okay, so I guess to your point, it's proposed right now is just one space, so that wouldn't be a requirement at the moment, but we're trying to design for the future as well. I would just comment, Israel, that one thing I think about R2 that I do like is that accessibility is supposed to be to the front door as much as possible, and having the accessible ramp start on the sidewalk, as it does on the south end of the sidewalk, there seems to be consistent with the intention of ADA accessibility. I think it's a fine move, and we put it forward in this second scheme. I think it certainly adds some convenience, right? It's not necessarily increasing accessibility, because you can get up this way and go all the way across seamlessly, but it does create an added convenience for pedestrians on Pine Street. Rather, unless you're arriving by car, you're already here, you'd have to go around. Hey, Lynn, did you have a question? One thing that I'm really struggling with, Israel, I'm curious, your thoughts on this is, I think we could all agree that a deck cannot project into the setback. That's pretty clearly different, and I guess I want to hear from you what you think differentiates both of these designs from being a deck, and that if we approve this, anyone could put a deck into the setback as long as there was a ramp to it at some point. Right. Well, I think that is a very good question. It's one that we struggled with, and I think that for me, if you drew, if this wasn't a building entrance right here, and you just drew a deck on here and said, well, here's my deck, and I want to come out to the property line, I would say no, you can't do that. Right. But these are, if you look at, one of the reasons why I drew this diagram is that this elevated platform or deck is doing a lot of different things. Right. Yes, it is outdoor seating, to be sure. It's also walkways between building entry points. It's also part of an accessible route from one end of the building where you get up to this level to the other. If we were trying to do the same, achieve the same sort of design without using a deck, I believe the ordinance allows us to put a retaining wall two feet back of the property line. We could put a retaining wall right here and raise up the grade to the level of the doors and have the grade do this subtle sloping, and that would be totally as of right. Retaining walls like that are allowed to be right there, and then a fence could sit in front of it, and we'd be almost the same design, maybe a foot 16 inches back of the property line. We don't want to do that. That's a lot of earth moving, that's a lot of disturbance, and it's a heck of a lot more expensive, and not as reversible a move on a historic building like this. There's a lot of different ways to skin this cat, I guess I would say, and I think that we're trying to be as responsible as we can, and I think that, well, let me go to this other drawing here, back to here. One of the reasons why we submitted this drawing in R2 was to say, well look, we're defining the deck area here, and this area is the accessible route that connects it all. If you want us to define it this way, we can define it this way. To some degree, I think there's so much going on here, there's a little bit of a hard to categorize space. It's doing a lot of different things, it's doing a lot of work all at once, but that is a good question, and that is the question before the board. Can I jump in for a second? Sure. So, you know, every city is different, and you folks know Burlington zoning, and I'm not about to sit here and try to debate with you zoning issues on fine lines here. I've built probably five public facilities, and every one of them presents major challenges to not just meet ADA code, but to provide real accessibility to customers who want to come in. And that was one of my main struggles here, is how are we going to provide a truly accessible building, given that there are three separate units at different heights. And so, everybody keeps talking about this as a deck, and I get that. And I'm not going to sit here and tell you that it's not, but I'm also going to say this is probably the most elegant solution I've ever seen in any of my projects, to providing full ADA access to all parts of the facility. And it seems to me that if there are no tables and chairs in that five foot walkway on the west side, we're meeting the code, and that we're doing it in a way that is embracing the need to provide access to people who don't have the ability to climb stairs, and we're providing that access across all the different functions of Arts Riot. So, again, I keep hearing everybody talk about a deck, and the deck is hopefully what will help pay for it, but I really want to emphasize that from our perspective, and why we really settled on this design, was because it also provided such an elegant solution for ADA, and that is one of the reasons why we believe it meets the criteria as I'm sitting here and listening. So, I just wanted to jump in and add my little two cents to this. Thank you, Al. I have a question. Is there a seating capacity difference between R1 and R2? Probably. We haven't calculated, to be honest. It hasn't been that much of a concern to compare the two. We're shooting for some substantive seating, but we haven't counted them up. Could you put R1 just back on the screen for me for just a second? Okay. Is that like a plan drawing, or is that good? That's perfect. That rendering is fine. Yep. Thank you. The other difference that we didn't really talk about is that middle stair walkway has to be done away with to accomplish the ramp walkway solution. I thought it was done away with. Well, in scheme R1, it's there. In scheme R2, we took it away and had everyone using this ramp on this end. So, that's the main difference. I don't think it was something that we it was something we were trying in the design to see how we liked it. You know, we still kept it open, line of sight there from the street. My recollection is we kept it open to meet the DAB's request that there be 25% open to the building, but it was my understanding that that was not going to be an entrance. It was just going to be an opening so that people could have a better view of the activities. Right. That's where we ended up in R2. That's correct. Are there other questions from the board for the applicant? Is there anything else you want to add at this point? I've said my piece. We've got a pretty good idea of what the issues are. I guess I just have Brad, I have one question. I guess this discussion really caught us by surprise because this was not erased at the DAB meeting and it was unanimously passed at the DAB. And so when we saw it on the consent agenda, we just assumed that there were no issues with this. So I guess I just wanted to express my what happened here. You know, we thought that if the DAB didn't raise the issue that they had agreed with ours and I thought that there was a staff report to DAB. But I mean basically if you know code is code and missing something on one round doesn't absolve one from not having to address it. So that's really what I understand that I'm just expressing, you know, my concern in that this caught us really by surprise. Okay, I appreciate that. It looks like you had a pretty good recovery. Yeah, well I guess I would say we didn't have a whole lot of time to think about this and respond to it. And you know, I hope that that's part of why we sort of have these two schemes here in front of you. We're kind of looking to you guys to give us a sense of what your thoughts are on it. Like I said, we've tended to prefer R1, but we're open to either. The only other thing I wanted to address there was one minor point. There was something in the staff report about gates. And you know, that's I think it's referring to this here. Just want to clarify, this is a, so there are these little movable planner boxes here. And this is a little gate here that is, it's about liquor control. It's not about locking or, you know, it's just, it's just, it's, and it's not necessarily even a real thing here. This is my just sort of throwing down what may happen here. This is all dependent upon liquor control review and licensing and all that, which is yet to happen. And they're totally movable, removable, not really part of the application in that sense. So I wouldn't want anyone to get tripped up on that and say, oh, well, this ramp isn't doing anything because there's a gate here. This is about, you know, a larger discussion around the liquor control that would have to happen on this deck related to the distillery. And those discussions are down the line and certainly flexible and are not allowed to trump the accessibility of the space. And I know we're going to be hearing from you quite a bit tonight, Israel. Well, actually, your guys are in for a treat because I, unless I have something really intelligent to say, it clearly is going to be handled in the rest of the day. Okay. So unless there's any other questions on the board, we will close the hearing on this item. But when might we hear back? We will see how the meeting goes. We may deliberate tonight. We won't know until we get to the end of the meeting. Okay. Thanks. Sure. Great. Thank you. Okay. So the next item, which is on the consent agenda is 160 Bank Street. Is this your item, Mary? Or Ryan? 160 Bank is mine, Brad. Scott. So the comment from the Jason neighbor, did that come in late? When did that come in? That came in late yesterday, I believe. I posted that online. I see that individual in the attendees. Okay. So is the applicant here for 160 Bank Street or is Cleary representing them? Yes. It's Cleary. I see Cleary has his hand up. So Cleary, you can speak. Do you want to present like Israel did or have me show what's online? Can you hear me? Yes. And Scott, is that neighbor going to want to speak? Deborah Miller is the individual and has her hand up. Okay. So given that, we will also be taking this off of the consent agenda. So both can speak now. The owner, Jed Davis is here as well. And I will allow him to speak. Okay. So we've got anybody besides Jed, Cleary, and Deborah, who are going to be speaking on this item? Anyone else raise your hand. That looks like it, Brad. Okay. So Jed, Cleary, and Deborah, I will ask that to swear you in and you would tell the truth and hold truth on the pain and penalty of perjury. Will you agree? Great. Yes. Okay. So Cleary, I don't know if you want to present an overview first or if you want to address the concerns that were expressed in Deborah Miller's letter. Well, the project was put on the consent agenda, and I understand we're taking it off at this point, but I think that it's pretty straightforward and relatively self-explanatory and went through the DAB without any conditions. And so I think I would rather just be here to answer any questions you might have. I think that sounds fine, Cleary, because you're right. As being on the consent agenda, there were no issues brought up. And I know the neighbor had some issues. Maybe she would like to express them. Brad, if I may just quickly interject. So there's a few pieces to this project, but I'll state for the record, the only thing that the DRB is looking at is the relief sought on the depth of the gallery. They're seeking a 12-foot depth as opposed to the standard 10-foot depth. That's the only thing in front of the board tonight. Thank you for clarifying that. Yes, because this is part of the form-based code. So that is really the only issue. I think the issue that the neighbor is bringing up, though, is basic to the review. Deborah, do you want to? Yes. I'm not sure since you're saying that maybe this isn't for tonight. No, it is for tonight, yes. All right. So there's a 10-foot right away from the current curb of the farmhouse to where our property is. And this is a right-away space that is included in the deed of our building. And it goes towards the back of this parking lot area. And we are supposed to be able to turn a car or a truck or herd of horses around, I guess, in that area. And that area has gotten very tight. And I see that there is a shed proposed for back there. That would be a concern. Another concern would be the overhang on the side of the building, which I'm not quite sure how far that is intending to come out. But if it's past the property line, this right-of-way also includes the airspace up to 12 feet. Now, for the front of the building, is this going on to city property or is this still on their property line? Construction is on their property. Construction is on their property. The awning projects into the sidewalk event and would need an encumbrance. Okay. So that's what I was wondering if the sign and this awning thing was going to come out. If that would block pedestrian's view of our businesses and the Church Street marketplace where all the lights are and everything, I feel like that could be an issue. I believe on the side, that everything is limited to the property line. If you look at the drawings here and they have a railing there, I believe that's on their property line. So there's nothing encroaching. Are 10-foot right-of-way, okay. Other than they do have a light there that is 11 and a half feet off the ground or actually more than 11 and a half feet off the ground. So that shouldn't be an issue either, is that correct? Well, I mean, we do have a 12-foot high airspace with that right-of-way. Okay. So it looks like lamp is higher than 11 and 6. Maybe Clary can specify how high that is, but it looks like it could be 12 feet off the ground. Just a moment. So are you referring to the sign or the... The lights, Clary, there's a lamp post with two light fixtures on it showing in your drawing here on... Well, that's the existing farmhouse sign. I see, okay. And I don't have the dimension to the bottom of it. It currently sits in a planter. So it's a little bit higher. You can see that it's 11-foot, 6, clear to the underside of the steel structure for the canopy. So that sign, as shown, is lower than that. I would estimate it's in the 8-foot range. The lights are higher than that. The lights are, yes, the lights are higher than the canopies because they're more like 12-feet high. Okay. This is Jeff. I've got a question. Dev, I'm not sure if this is for you or for Clary and Jed, but it does look like there's a new shed proposed at the back of the site. That was my concern. Maybe in a parking space. And I guess I'm having a hard time understanding where the right-of-way you're talking about, and Debra, we're not supposed to resolve any property rights, but I'm just to understand your comments, try to understand where you believe that right-of-way is. Okay. So right along the side of the building, that is 10-feet, and it's also a fire lane. And then it comes down into that little parking area is the spot that we have a turnaround. Okay. This is Clary. The shed is an existing shed that's located where it says walking cooler on the plan that we're looking at right now. And it's being relocated to what is now a parking spot. So I don't think it's in any right-of-way, and there's no guarantee that anyone would be able to turn around in that spot. So I'm not sure what the issue is. Okay. Other issues just to bring it up, get everything on the table here, is the issue that we're supposed to look at is the 12-foot gallery space as opposed to a 10-foot space. And I would ask one question on that, Clary, is the fence along College, I mean, Bank Street, is that where the existing seating is today? Yes. The existing fence is right at the edge of the property. Okay. The issue that we're asking for relief on is that for this frontage type in the form-based code, the columns that support the new roof we're putting on can only be 10 feet away from the existing brick building behind. And even with the relief, the columns are coming down in the seating area. Ideally, we would have preferred to have those columns right out at the top of the line where the fence is. But the two feet is really helpful to get them in a place that works better with the seating. And it gives a little bit more usable room under the cover, which is what we're trying to achieve. And to my eye, this relief really, the solution is consistent with the goals of the form-based code. I can't really see how the city is giving up anything by allowing the columns to be slightly closer to the sidewalk. Other questions for either the applicant or for the adjacent property owner from the board? I'll just clear up real quick. This is Jen Davis. The sign is being relocated by a couple of feet, but it will remain on our property. It will not infringe on this right of way. It won't hang over it. It's on our property. Scott, does the sign require a sign permit even in the form-based code district? It would, except that it's existing. A new sign would require a sign permit. So, moving the existing sign is within our basic approval, rather than as a sign permit. Any alterations to the sign would be handled as a separate sign application. So, we don't really have to pay much attention to the sign at the moment. They have to go for a separate permit for that. Correct. There's a permit required to relocate an existing sign? Yes. Okay. Any other questions from the board? So, Deb, can we get your mailing address for a follow-up, please? 71 Church Street, Burlington. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Plus, there's something else that everybody wants to be adding at this point. We will close the public hearing on this. Thank you, everybody. Okay. So, we're moving on our agenda. The next item is on the public hearing is 400 North Street. And it's the applicant here for that. Yes. So, Will McKenna. I guess we'll swear you went first, because I guess we're going to do that no matter what. Is anybody else here who's going to speak on this project besides Will? I don't see any hands raised. Oh, somebody just raised their hand. Can they identify themselves, please? So, if you're on the phone calling in, I've just been able to speak. It's Sharon Buscher, and I'm not sure I want to speak, but I thought I'd just raise my hand just on the off chance. I want to make a comment. Thank you. Well, I have to swear you in then to Sharon. That's fine. Okay. Anybody else that sounds it? So, Will and Sharon, will both of you swear to tell the truth and hold truth under pain and penalty of perjury? I do. Okay. So, Scott, am I right that there's still an outstanding issue with the EPSC plans? That's correct. The EPSC and stormwater, he's still working with the stormwater manager on that one, so that's still pending. He got the plans that I added to the packet for your review for the driveway. Yeah. Those are there. He also submitted to me, I guess it was yesterday. What was that, Will? I forgot already. Yeah. So, I had the building drawings amended to show the gutters and downspouts as further stormwater mitigation. And the French drain detail, is that, did I read that that's supposed to be submitted to Brian? And again, I apologize to the board. So, I know that this was gone through a couple of different revisions, but the long story short on that was that, like I presented that idea to Krebs and Lansing, who I've been working with on some of the design stuff, and they actually didn't recommend it. They said that that's probably not something that would be too, for them to, they would not approve daylighting any sort of French drain, because they didn't think that was a good design. And then so what, what I did talk to James Charard about was that, well, maybe it's not a French drain, maybe it's a gravel barrier. It's basically that it would be like a ditch. It would basically be the same thing as French drain, so there would be no perforated pipe and like it would create a barrier and it would be the same thing. And so James Charard with the stormwater, he said that that would be fine. I just need to put that onto paper and I just have been able to get working out with Krebs and Lansing to do that. And then I went to another engineer and I just haven't been able to do that. But basically the idea was that there was just not a good place to, for the water to discharge from the drain, but to create a gravel barrier where access water coming from off of the roof or from the driveway, it would soak into the gravel area almost like a dry well. And then it would hold the water there, it would drain into there so that I think there's heavy rainfall, it would not run off, it would hold there and then soak in more equally. So this was something that I discussed with James Charard and he said that that's something that would be viable. I just need to show him the plan. And then he also asked for me to redo the EPSC application, which I have not submitted yet. But I think that as far as the driveway, it's all going to be permeable pavers. And I think that you all should, not sure if you guys have that in front of you, but and there's also a plan that shows the, it's actually a pretty gentle grade that would, and the other big issue I think that some of the neighboring property owners had was that they were thinking that there would be a curb cut and then the water would in theory rush down the driveway. And then this, there's no actual, there's no curb cut, it would actually be leaving the existing curb in place. Yeah, so driving over the curb, basically. And which, where do the drain roof drains come down then on this, right? That's what you're going to have gutters on the house. Yep. And where do they come down? Well, they're on the, I guess it would be, it's the south side. So because one of the big concerns was on the north side is where the existing shed for the queries and where they had concern about the excess water, like damaging your shed. So in this scenario, the gutters would push the water to the front of the, of the ABU come down and then it would be away from their shed and existing, another existing truck. So come down into the Cedar Hedge? Well, yes. On the east side it would drain the Cedar Hedge. On the west it would drain to the east or to the west of the park. Board, have any questions for this applicant? I guess the only, I mean, I'm looking here at the memo and because the one piece is outstanding and we're looking for a deferral, I'm just wondering if the applicant has a preference. I'm sorry, what are the options here? I'm looking at the memorandum right now. Yeah. The thing is, whatever the board wants to do at this point, because I know that, you know, I've had good opportunity to get this in. So if you wanted to defer this or whatever the board wants to do, what I think, like if everyone's in agreement with, or what I think is maybe that if you wanted to deliver it and then there could be something pending the PSC, I'm not sure if you're able to do that. No, I can't. Okay. So it looks like we'd be deferring until January 19th. Okay. And then if it wasn't in at that point, then you'd have to submit an application to extend further. Okay. Understood. Want to make a motion for that, Springer? Yeah, I move that on application 21-0076 CACU 400 North Street that we defer and continue to be public hearing until January 19th, 2021. I'll second that. And I guess I didn't mean to not have one of the person in the public who wanted to speak Sharon. Do you want to say something now or are we? Sorry, I muted myself. I didn't realize I was still unmuted. I know since you're deferring and I'm really interested in the information that's coming forward, I have nothing to ask. Thank you. Okay, thanks. So we got a motion, a second. Any other discussion? I think the, I'm sorry, I think the only information that's left is just for, would be for James Gerard to, what? Yeah, we're not, your discussion is not for you at this moment. Well, it's for the board to continue. Okay, I'm going to shut my mouth. Thank you guys. So all in favor of motion proposed? Okay. So Will, that you're all right. It is up to James Gerard and for you to make peace with him for that meeting. Thank you. So we have one other item on the agenda, 362 Riverside Avenue. I guess Cleary is presenting that. I take it. And I don't know who else is going to be here for that item. And we have a few folks. And we have Cleary, Jess Weber, and Ben Avery, and a number of folks in the public who wish to speak as well. So I'll enable everyone to speak who's raised their hand, Brad, so you can swear everyone in. So I'm going to ask everybody who's raised their hand who's participating in this hearing to swear that you will tell the truth and hold truth on the pain and pattern for your purgery. I do. I'm assuming anybody who speaks now is going to be agreeing to that. Okay. So a pretty major project here. Looks fairly complete. Cleary or I'm not sure who will be making a presentation or what you have to say on it. Go ahead, Ben. I was just going to say this has been Avery from BlackRock and I just wanted to just give a quick reintroduction to the project and then we can move on to Cleary for architectural details and to Jess Weber for civil matters. Just wanted to thank the board for hearing our presentation tonight. This project by and large remains the same fundamentally as when we came before you earlier in the year. We've taken some time in revision to further refine the unit count. I think it's gone down by a couple units to really address how the building interacts with the public rights of way, both with Riverside Avenue and with the service entrance on Hillside. We have made a decision that we're going to seek a third party food service group to work with and we want to explore a public component for food service with this project, which we receive very positive feedback from each of the boards that we have met within Burlington, as well as looking at how that fits into our model. We really feel like that is going to serve both the residents of our community as well as the public as a whole. The embracing of opportunity, if you will, of putting a building like this on Riverside, the sort of mix of architecture types and uses on Riverside really gave us some terrific opportunities to be creative and bring what we think is a thoughtful looking building that is hopefully going to make a mark on the community and perhaps lead future redevelopment along Riverside. So with that, I will let Cleary give us an overview of the building itself. Thank you. Scott, do you want to share the screen? Sure, I was just going to ask you if you'd like me to display that or if you would. Yeah, let me please. Okay, give me a second. Well, I'm ready. Okay, you should be able to, Cleary. Can you see the building in front of you on my screen? Oh, yeah. Okay, do I have to? Just select your share screen button at the bottom. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, here we go. This is our 3D model that is often helpful to move around the project. I know that you've all received the drawings that have some of the renderings, but this is the view that we'll be facing Riverside Ave. And we're really excited about this project. We think that Riverside Avenue is really ripe for improvement and that this building will be a great addition to helping make that part of our city better. And also that it's a great location for this project. There's public transportation. There are already some amenities there within walking distance. And so we think it's a really good place for it. And we've created a pretty strong vertical element in this otherwise horizontal building to mark the kind of public front door to the building. The site, it sits up a little bit from Riverside Avenue. And I think this is going to have a strong architectural presence on the street. The area where Ben talked about having a public food component to this is behind this area of glazing on the Riverside Avenue side. So let's sit inside the building, Riverside Avenue to the left. And here's where the sort of accessible route is. And here are the steps up to that prominent vertical entrance. So there's a dining area that will be used by residents if they choose with a good sized kitchen behind it. But it's also a feature that will be accessible to people who don't live here. So that will help activate Riverside and make it more pedestrian. The point where residents will enter the building is actually on the south side. People will come up the hill and enter underneath an elevated portion of the building that has parking below it and come at the upper level. And you can see that in the plans here that cars will be coming in here, parking. We have some plans that DHP has developed that show the parking layout in more detail. But there's essentially parking behind the building and an entrance at this point, which will really be the primary entrance for people who live here. It's also where emergency vehicles, ambulances and whatnot will come. The service features for the building, including the restaurant deliveries and trash, happen just north from the main drive into a loading dock area that you can see here with a screened trash area and an overhead door. This really seemed like the best solution as a place to put this in that you can't have trash and delivery trucks queuing up on Riverside. And we're working with a significant grade change and trying to get vehicles under the building here. And so this seemed like a discrete and well separated location to have those features. There are terraces for some of the units on the fourth floor, which because this is senior housing, we're getting some bonuses, including an extra floor. But one of the requirements is that that sets steps back 10 feet from the building below. So we're planning to use this to create some outdoor deck areas for those units. And then at the northeast corner, this area will be a community room that's successful to all of the tenants. We think you'll have some good views of Winooski and the river and the falls and the mountains beyond. And I've probably talked enough about this. And unless you have questions for me now, I'll turn it over to Jeff to talk about the site. And Jeff, I have some of the site plans here if you want me to display them. Yeah, if you just want to put up the main site plan, that'll give a good orientation. I think this view here though is a good segue into seeing because sometimes when you look at that site plan, it's hard to visualize that we have 57 parking spaces and then 25 of those are going to be located underneath that building. So, Claire, if you want to put up that site plan. Which plan do you... If you want, I can share. But basically the first site plan and the site plan. With the existing? No, the proposed. I guess maybe you should take it and show it to I thought I had what you wanted there. Scott, can you give Jeff the screen now? Yeah, so Jeff, you should be able to share your screen now. You can see it. All right, great. So, starting out I guess with the site plan. This is the existing plan. It's a combination of four lots that are currently rental units with gravel pavement in the middle. So, we're going to combine those lots and form it into one parcel. It's part of recombination and then put the proposed project on that. So, this is the site plan view. And so that last view that Claire was showing was over from the west side and hillside terrace. Kind of looking to the southeast. So, the darker salmon color that goes all the way down to the elevation of Riverside Avenue. The lighter salmon color, that's where this parking drawn underneath the lighter salmon color. It's at grade parking, but it's underneath the building above. And then the gray hatch on the east and a little bit on the west side. That's the asphalt pavement for additional parking area with the darker gray hatch is the sidewalks. There's existing sidewalks on hillside terrace. And then on the south side of Riverside Avenue. On the north side, Claire, I think early on mentioned there's a lot of amenities. This section of hillside terrace, there's definitely a room for some redevelopment across the street. There's an existing, I don't know if it's currently abandoned, but it kind of feels close to abandoned building. And then, but it's got a multi-use path along the north side. So, that'll be great to allow the seniors to walk and bike if they so choose. And then a sidewalk on the south side. Just to the east of the hillside terrace, there is a bike shelter or bus shelter. So, this is along a bus route, as I'm sure you all know. So, it has all the amenities that we're looking to tie into. This outlines the circulation fairly well. I'll switch forward here into the grading plan, which shows some of the stormwater drainage piping. The building's going to have flat roofs, which will allow us to capture all the stormwater that falls on the building roof. And so, we're going to collect that and route that along with the other stormwater that falls on the asphalt pavement and place it into these, it's a pipe gallery that'll allow all of the rainwater to be stored. There would be, right now the plan shows three rows of piping. We're going to expand that to four rows based on some analysis. We want to make sure that we're addressing all of the storm events, the small and the large. So, this one handled everything quite well, except for the 100-year storm. It didn't quite reduce it. So, we're going to now reduce the 100-year storm as well as the smaller storms all the way down to, depending on the storm, the 100-year, it'll be probably about 75% of the existing conditions and the 10-year will be just slightly less than the current 10-year storm. So, all the stormwater will be attenuated in those under subgrade pipes. This smaller storm, the water quality and the channel protection, those will flow through on the east side of the building a terraced dry swill that'll allow vegetation to kind of provide that nutrient uptake and reduce the phosphorus discharge from the site. We obviously don't want like the 100-year storm or the even the 10-year storm flowing through that. So, there's a larger bypass that will bypass the dry swill, the dry swill and flow through pipe over to hillside terrace here, where it'll tie into existing city storm drainage. And so, then this will pass to the east into this large existing retention basin before it flows down and crosses and heads down an existing piped outfall to the Winooski River. I guess it'd be good to know it kind of back up to the existing conditions. Current stormwater, there is really no stormwater infrastructure on site, certainly no piped infrastructure. Right now, stormwater falls on the parcel. The gravel pavement in the middle, it has some erosion that kind of roads away. There's an old kind of abandoned drive where you can kind of see the contours slope by it. It channelizes down here, flows over the existing sidewalk, and then just runs down Riverside Avenue into downstream catch basins. So, we think it's certainly an improvement from the existing conditions that propose stormwater infrastructure. Talking a little bit about traffic, we did a PIS report on the traffic to quantify the peak AM and PM vehicle trips. Since it's a senior housing project, it's a lot less than a normal apartment complex. The AM peak hour traffic is 12 vehicle trips, and the PM is 17 vehicle trips. It's not expected to increase the delay more than five seconds at the nearest intersection near signalized intersection on the east side of the project here. Hillside Terrace, I always struggle with describing it. It's actually Loop Street. So, you have Hillside Terrace over here. It's unsignalized on the northwest side. On the northeast side, it is signalized. So, the traffic at this signal won't cause an increase more than five seconds. So, I think I covered most of the significant issues for the site, stormwater traffic, parking. Can I ask you a question about parking? Sure. That diagonal parking looks really tough. I mean, somebody's going to drive in there and they're going to have to back out. Is that my reading? Yeah, good question. So, it's angle parking. It's unusual to combine them because normally you angle it each way. So, you have circulation, but just based on the column spacing, the right side here. So, yeah, it's angle parking and it goes to the south. There's an opening. There's no parking here. And then it's too lane over here. Yeah, we're kind of stuck with the width of the building and the column width. As long as you can drive through it, that was what my concern was. Sorry, it's kind of non sequitur here, but as I was kind of describing that, I think it'd be good to note down here, this darker salmon color. So, there is an egress stair tower. So, that's what this darker salmon color is here. So, people can go in and out where you see these ends. This is an egress door. The main one that will go into the lobby. But there's also the stair tower here that comes to the grade here. We have bike parking over here for the elderly housing. Eight, one per 10 units, I believe is required. So, there's, we have to provide eight parking here, parking, bike parking spaces here. I just recently spored this on a scout. I guess I could share it to address bike parking. But Jeff, can I interrupt you for a second? Yeah. When I remember, this project was before us on sketch plan. And I remember we had a fairly lengthy discussion about this underground parking and fire access and fire safety and ambulance access. Can you just briefly touch on your conversations with, I don't think I've heard that yet, with fire department and emergency access in regards to the underground parking. I remember a lot of conversation about that. Yeah, we did reach out to them. And they, they didn't express, you know, any, you know, we reached out to the chief area and he didn't express any concerns. You know, his main, like, comment was kind of like, hey, whatever you number the building is where we're going to respond to. I don't know, you know, if that's, in case reality, I'm sure, you know, the fire department grows, you know, certain level of familiarity. And even if they dress something and they prefer to, to arrive at a different location. And so it, there's sidewalk that comes out here that they could back an ambulance into and pick up, you know, there's a door here. There's ADA out as well. So there's, there's multiple places that they can come and load. You know, I think he wants to knock. He seemed rather different. I think, you know, we can certainly work with him. He wants the Knox box. So like the fire department enunciator, wherever it's addressed. And I think currently I think we have it addressed to be to be Riverside. So I think that's officially would be the front door. If it's desired, you know, by PNZ or others to, to readdress it to the hillside terrace, that I think all the only real change would be where, where we put that fire department control panel for the fire alarm system. But in the bike parking, I noticed on the zoning report that remained unaddressed and I had the tab already open. We have it. Here we go. I mean, load that up. So to address the long and the short term bike parking, we're posing these U shaped racks. The long term lining them up eight, eight spaces for, for use in this last area here. It's right by the stair tower in the egress door. So, you know, it does. Yes, it certainly feels like we're kind of isolating it. But, you know, we'd expect the people that have similar mobility to hop on a bike would be able to make it down the stair tower and egress out of this, this door for the long term bike parking. And then this sidewalk up here, there's the stairs here, but then it's also at grade here. So placing the short term bike parking up front, just to the west of the main entrance on Riverside. I think that's addressed pretty much of everything that I was planning to share. Are there other things that Claire or Jeff want to present right now? This is Claire. Israel, let me know that it sounds like you're only able to see the sketch up model and not the plans. I thought that I was going back and forth, but I may have not shared the correct screen. I think you have the plans, so I'm hoping that Well, I have some questions for you, Claire. I'll just start off with that. There were some views of the back of the building. And it really is very much the back of the building. And I mean, it's, it's like a prison block. No offense. I mean, there's not relief on this on the back of it. It's a huge gray mass with just windows punched in it. I mean, the front, you put a lot of effort into it. This is, I mean, people go drive back if people live back there. And it just seems you could have done something to have some articulation on that on the rear facade of this building. I want to put up that perspective. I think it's pretty dramatic. Sure. Scott Scott could probably put that up. One of the rear perspective from the rear of the building or an elevation of the rear. I think prison block is maybe a little extreme, but and colors are not, not final, but there's, there's, there's quite a lot of vegetation, trees along hillside terrace, which is what these units look out on. And I guess that doesn't, doesn't screen very much this time of the year, but certainly during a fair amount of the year the building will be set fairly far back from hillside terrace and behind trees. And I guess there's, well, part of its economics is that we, you know, we've tried to put our money where we think that it, it buys us the most. And in the back, we're, we're definitely trying to be economical. And I guess what's back there is, is just parking. So it's not, it's not an area where we anticipate people will be spending a lot of time, but we get all the neighbors that drive around and have access off of hillside terrace. Right. Well, I don't, I don't think the, what do you mean have access? I mean, are there houses, houses behind this building? There are. There's, there's quite a lot of trees along hillside at the bottom where our building is. And the houses that are neighbors really don't start until they're beyond this. So, yes, a couple of them will have to use, but it's, it's not like there are people sitting right across the street looking at us. If you look at a map, you can see that hill grid drive comes off of hillside terrace, which they're just, they're not a lot of houses that are going to look at this. And the, the southern extended a lot and framed both to the west and the east. There's an evergreen hedge that, that's off a lot that won't be impacted for the most part. The, the building that's owned by the brilliant housing authority, that's to the most northern extent of the bill, the buildings, it's like a windowless storage shed. So, there is a transition between this building and the buildings to the south, I feel. I'm going to push it out. I guess maybe to let that sit for a minute. The other thing that I'm a little surprised by is, let me just ask you this, tenants can enter the building from Riverside Drive. Is that true? Yes. Yes. Okay. I mean, we talked about that, right? Right up there. They can go in that, they can go in that front door and still get to the elevator and everything else. Absolutely. Okay. I mean, it's, it's not what one would call a particular graceful entrance. That walkway along the edge of the drive and then hugging the building to get to a door to take you inside. It's, yeah. But you can't, you have a choice. You could go in front of those doors. Somebody wanted to go out for a walk. They could go out the front door and go out that way. You're asking about people with mobility impairment? No, no. I'm just talking about somebody who wants to go home and you think they're all going to enter off the, in the parking garage side. Well, people arriving by car. By car would, yes. Somebody goes for a walk. Yeah. There are stairs right in front of the entrance. Yeah. Okay. I'm, I'm not sure I understand the objection. Well, not only because when it was being presented, you described that as the main entrance to the building. And I was well surprised that you described that as the main entrance. It's fine. This to me is more of the main entrance here. Wait, well, who can you see the one they want? They're, they're, they're, I guess you could say there are two main entrances. There's, um, this is perhaps a more ceremonial front door. Uh, but it doesn't lead to any parking. So this is where people will come and go when they're, um, on foot. Yeah. Um, it's also where people will come and go if they're going to get some food, you know, and they don't live here. Uh, people who come and go by car will go to the other side. So, um, I don't know it, the two entrances serve somewhat different functions and, and, um, I don't know, maybe, maybe it's not, I shouldn't say that either when it's, is the main entrance or where you can pick. Okay. Uh, anybody, any other board members? Of course, Jeff. Thanks. Um, Clary, I think for you, um, the service entrance in that view you're showing with the vehicle park there, um, feels a little prominent and exposed to me. You know, when you're coming down Riverside and kind of first confronting this building, you're really going to kind of be looking at that side of the building. And I'm just wondering what you guys looked at for options. It looks like on the other side of that, of that vehicle you're showing, there's some sort of screened off area. Um, is there any thought of screening that, that whole service area a little more? Um, we didn't, we don't, we don't anticipate that vehicles will be parked there for, you know, long periods of time. I'd also say that the perspective that, um, is on the screen right now is one that, um, is not really how you'll perceive this building, um, very often. Uh, and that certainly as you're moving along Riverside Avenue, I think that the great change and also the vegetation on the west side of Hillside will make this, um, make this considerably less prominent than it looks right here. You know, we could look at screening, uh, we don't have many options of where to have this feature, um, at least not with, with this design. Uh, we can't have it on Riverside to the east. We don't own the property, so we don't have any access from the east. Um, we are trying to bring, um, you know, residents and visitors in from Hillside Terrace, um, to, to the entrance there, but you know, that, that's going to be for a lot of people who live here, really the place that they come and go. And so, um, both from the standpoint of, uh, vertical clearance for garbage trucks and delivery trucks and things like that, and also just for not wanting those features to interact with the main door where residents are coming and going. Um, pulling this out of that area seemed appropriate. Um, it's also, we're trying, a lot of what will come and go at this point is related to the kitchen functions that are located just below it. Um, so, uh, you know, trying to snake in around the south to come in, you know, um, it's hard to get a good path through the building. Right. From some other place, you know, where, so this, this really seemed like the best solution in terms of location. What is the screening that's behind the vehicle? You can't really see it in that view, but in one of the, maybe the west elevation, what is that screening? Uh, we haven't specified materials at this point. Um, I guess I mean what, what physically is it? What, what is behind the screen? Trash recycling and compostables. Okay. And so those will be wheel dumpsters. The, the trash truck can back in and open that gate and then they can wheel those out, dump them and then wheel them back in and close them up. Um, and then so there's interior access to that, that area is slightly recessed as well. Um, so there's an interior door into that, so that residents can, can get their, get rid of their trash there. The elevation grade actually helps, you know, um, I think if we can figure the dumpster as well in there, we should be able to allow people to toss, you know, stuff down into the dumpster instead of trying to, you know, throw it up and over the edge. Just wonder if you flip flop those two features and the screening that you're providing would kind of serve as screening for the, you know, the vehicle delivery area as well from the road. But, um, you may have looked at that and it may not work on the interior of the building. Just, um, seems like it could make sense. I think there's some benefit to having the curb cuts farther apart. Jeff, Jeff, you can speak to that. Yeah, I, I think as far as the grade transition to facilitate the loading dock, and some of the vertical circulation, this works better. Um, coupled with, I think in our conversation with DPW, they certainly expressed, you know, a desire to have them separated. Um, neither one of these, of which though, I, you know, personally, I don't feel that either one of these has a high enough volume to really warrant those. So if, you know, I think it's a balance between the separation, um, and screening, um, as opposed to maybe refining the design, um, and pushing those together, maybe additional shrubs or a hedge row or something, um, to screen that from, uh, you know, the overhead door from Riverside. Um, that might be the way to go, um, in lieu of, of changing the configuration. And then Jeff, I think my other question may be for you. I noticed the conservation board had recommended some geotech work. We've seen some other buildings in this general area that have had to undergo some fairly significant revisions after doing that work. Do you have any sort of status update on, on where that is and what you guys are expecting in terms of potential impacts on design? We can, I can speak to that, Jeff. We did, uh, clearly did work with the structural engineer to create a scope of work and we have, uh, engaged a, um, uh, QCQA labs to schedule soil borings. Um, not sure what their schedule date is right now, but it'll, it'll likely be just after the new year to, um, you know, dig into that and, uh, you know, and get us, uh, um, say top down, which I see a bottom up evaluation or, uh, evaluation of what we're working with and then we'll, um, if anything needs to be addressed structurally, we can do it once we have that data. Okay. Thanks. I think it's safe to say that, um, the owners in this property have, are more interested in the building staying where it's, it's built than anyone. Yeah, I understood. Being fairly familiar with that area though, I know this is pretty close to the part of the slope that is obviously failing on Riverside. Obviously it's across the road, but I'm sure it raises concerns for everybody. Questions from the board? Members of the public who were wanting to speak on this? Yeah, there were several and, uh, all of them who, uh, raised their hands early on have been enabled to, uh, to speak. Okay. So I see, I don't know, that's very Sharon and Paul Bierman. Sharon Paul, Paul Putani. Okay. Um, I'm just going to start here with Paul Bierman. Do you want to, uh, speak on this? You're muted right now. Yes, I do. Um, is it possible for me to, uh, to share screen at some point? Um, it's possible. Yeah. Okay. Um, so I just want to start, um, by saying I really appreciate the idea of putting more housing in here and I think it's really important. Um, but I want to give you my perspective as a geologist who's been involved with the landslides on Riverside Ave for close to 15 years now. It started when I got a phone. So Paul, sorry about that. I didn't think you would have cut you off in speaking, but you can, you can share a screen now. Okay. Where did I get cut off? 15 years. So, um, John Racy, the building inspector, called me about 15 years ago when the backside of the Riverside glass building, uh, went down the slope into the river and, and had me come over and give him a hand on assessing the stability there. And so I've had an interest in this, this part of the world since then. I teach in Delahante Hall up the hill right above this development area. And, um, and last year on many of my walks home, I would come down the hill through the river watch condos and then walk up Riverside Ave. Notice the beginning of the slides that happened behind Hall's hitches and welding there just across from this subject property. Um, so I just wanted to, first off, you know, thank the zoning administrators and read their review and, and note that they asked for geotechnical assistance, which I think is great. Um, but I also wanted to point out in case the people on the board here don't know that this property has across the street from it, the Halloween slide, which was in the same location we think as a 1968 slide, um, that actually undermined the sidewalk on the far side of Riverside Avenue. So that means that the ground there in the past has been unstable at least to Riverside Avenue and we don't know how much further. But, um, just down the road from there, where the river watch condos are now was a very large set of landslides in 1955. And that's the screen sharing that I wanted to do. So let me give that a try. Um, okay, let's see if I can get this right. I'm going to go to my desktop and then to the slides. Can, um, can you all see? Yes, we can see it. Okay. So, um, these are photographs shot in 1955. Um, they're part of what's called the Dottori Collection at the University of Vermont. They're held in the Bailey Hill Library. Uh, I believe these are actually shot for an insurance company there. And, and if you want to put yourself in context here, um, can you see my pointer? Yeah. Okay. That's the barbecue restaurant right now. Um, so if you look at that, you'll notice that Riverside ad had to be diverted, um, up into what now is that sort of entranceway into the condos there and then back out. But I think as you see the series of photographs here, you'll get an idea for the scale of this. Um, see if I can move to the next photo here. Okay. Um, there's the landslide. And, um, again, you're looking at what is now the barbecue restaurant there. Um, and a down dropped block next to at this part of their parking lot and then a really big hole. Um, this failed several times during the summer and fall of 1955, forcing the city to reroute Riverside Ave at that point. Okay. One, um, let's give you another view of the depth of that slide. Some of this material was in fill, but some of this material was in native geologic materials here. Um, the 1872 maps show a stream running through here. Um, and then that stream was filled and Riverside Avenue was put on top of it. The city landfill was off to my up to the right uphill from this. Um, this starts giving you another idea for the scale of that. There's the bypass road that was put in while the slide area was being filled. Um, and I think the next one will give you some idea of the depth. There's a steam shovel down the bottom. Uh, rumor has it from the guys at, uh, the auto body shop there that this hole was filled by several hundred junk cars. So it wasn't really a good geoengineering that filled it, but it was just practical Vermont, I guess, to fill it with junk cars. And it's been stable ever since, although if you go to the bottom, you'll see a lot of rusty water sort of leaching out of this, which I guess is no surprise. Um, but to put it in relation to the property you're all discussing tonight, um, these are many of the buildings that are going to come down in here. So the current property, the development you're considering is just off the edge of this 55 slide. And my reason for showing this is not to particularly scare people, but I think to try to make sure that the geo tech assessment here is sober and understands the magnitude of the failure that occurred just next to this property. Um, and I think with a good geo tech boring program, you're going to be able to figure out whether the property is on native materials, the strength of those native materials, or whether some of it's on fill. Um, and I can't say from these photos, but my, my suspicion is that it's just at the edge of that 55 slide from trying to be out in the field and relocate buried based on where these, these homes are now that would be coming down. Um, so this is a farther view away. Again, this would be the barbecue restaurant and the properties here that are going to come down. I think that's the last of these. So I'll stop, I'll stop sharing. Um, but my other suggestion would be here as the board thinks about this, and I heard some of the comments in the architecture and the massing of the building, but from a geologist point of view, I would think really strongly about trying to pull this building back 10, 20, 25 feet away from the sidewalk. Only that we know that the slides right opposite this building are capable of hitting Riverside Ave. They've done it in the past. Um, there's photographic evidence from the Burlington free press on the 68 slide. It went back. The sidewalk was hanging in air on Riverside, but I think you might give yourself a little bit margin of safety by pulling this building back away from its current location right up on the sidewalk. Um, so that there was another slide and it went back 20 feet. Maybe it wouldn't take the building with it, but the possibility is there to take Riverside Ave. It's happened before. I mean, 55 is a while ago, but if you look at the history of the slides, actually I'll pop one more, one more picture up that might be helpful. Um, this is one that was done by a student of mine. My entire class of 25 students this fall is working on Riverside Ave as their final project. I can share that with all of you when they're done. Um, but they've been trying to put together some mapping of the slides. Um, they've closed everything I've got here. Can everybody see that? Not yet. Pop in yet. It's in green here. It's, uh, the lidar of Riverside Ave with slides on it. Can you see it now? Yeah. Okay. So this is a draft from one of the students. The lidar, of course, the really high resolution topography here. Um, and so, um, you can see where the subject property would be here that you're talking about. You can see the river watch condos. Um, one of the things to see out of this is, in fact, this, this terrace that many of the neighborhoods are sitting on was itself dissected by landslides. That's why there's really rugged topography here. There's one right here behind the U-Haul dealer and the, um, gas station, the shell station right there. But the red are all the slides that we've identified through looking at historic photographs and, uh, looking at newspaper clippings on there. So this is simply to say that the property here appears to be in a relatively stable area, but it is surrounded on pretty much all sides by landslides that have been active in the last couple of decades. Um, and, and so I just think it's, it's worth really thinking about that as it's put in, um, to make sure it's safe. And I think all the red and orange right in front of the property is the reason I'd argue to try to pull it back a little bit, um, and make sure you're, it's as far away from Riverside Ave as is practical given what needs to be built there. So, um, that's, that's my comments. Any, uh, support have any questions for, uh, Paul Bierman at this point? It's not. Thank you. Sure. Um, I see, looking, Sharon, are you there too? Who wants to speak next? Um, can you hear me? Yes. Go right ahead. Okay. Yes. Um, thank you. So, um, I'm really glad that, that Paul Bierman was able to come to speak because, um, the overarching issue and, you know, I come to the DRB frequently, unfortunately, with, um, speaking about projects that I really think are good projects, but the issue at hand is the property that they're being developed on and the instability of Riverside Avenue. I learned because I'm not a geologist, but as a city counselor and actually a member of the Public Works Commission, um, when George Cromby was there talking about the upgrade of Riverside Avenue and, you know, we did upgrade that road, but that was years later and the original plan was to deal with all of the leachate, all of the drainage that came from Colchester Avenue and the properties and go across underneath the roadbed and bring it safely to the river without eroding the bank on the river's edge. Um, that project was very costly and was not supported. Um, and so we never really addressed this adequately and so every time a developer comes forward, there's always concern about the stability and for me I learned something every time that when Paul speaks, but for me the issue that was outstanding in the packet was that DPW hadn't responded to the stormwater issue. Um, and so there was nothing for me to review, but I was concerned about, um, the bigger footprint, the less permeable, um, surface that could absorb water and the impact that this would have as this water potentially went across Riverside Avenue and maybe further eroded the bank where some of the businesses are in so close proximity to the river. You know, the barbecue place as many of you who have lived here a long time used to be Tortilla Flats and their kitchen went into the river years ago. So, and so that's a fact and so my concern has to do with stormwater and the stability and how we're going to collect it and how we're going to address it safely, um, for the project but also for the development on the other side of the street. I listened to what the developer had to say with the collection system and I'm certainly glad that you're now looking at the 100-year storm because these storms with climate change, these criteria have gone out the window. A 100-year storm isn't 100 years anymore. God knows how frequently that happens. So I think that we really need to be proactive and understand and plan and anticipate that these will happen more frequently and they're not a rare event, unfortunately. So I'm glad that there is a plan in place to address those larger storms. Um, let me just look at this. Uh, so that, that's my, that was one of my major concerns. My second question had to do with how traffic was going to flow. Um, and initially I asked, so I did call earlier today, I'll float disclosure and spoke with Scott, Gustin, to try to figure out, you know, how people were going to access, um, the project and was, were they going to use the intersection that had the traffic light and that I learned that, unfortunately, um, not that the developer didn't want to, but couldn't get an easement so that that is not the main entrance. And so it will be the un-signalized entrance as was stated. Um, so I'm not going to be critical of that. It's not as ideal, but I'm not critical. I did want to understand, um, there's going to be a cafe, at least, um, you know, when the sketch plan review was done, the cafe was going to be available to the tenants, but also to the public. And I wasn't quite sure how that was going to work and how, where people, if they drove, I think the intent was people would walk to the cafe, but if people, if it was a good place to eat, people, you might become popular and, um, where would people come? Where would they park? Is there adequate parking, behind the project? Um, I wasn't quite sure about that. I couldn't figure that out from my own, um, review. Um, and then a question that I have, um, to other points, and then I'm done, um, um, does, when someone develops senior housing, does anybody, is there any review? Is there any reaching out to like AARP to talk about the amenities and how it's laid out? Is there any kind of conversation that occurs prior? I'm just interested in that. I think it would be very helpful if that was known and occurred. Um, and, um, the other point, um, that I wanted to make was that I, um, I wasn't, I didn't really focus on how, um, stark the back of the structure was and there were no really details. And so I don't really know. I heard that, um, there was a distance from the Champlain Housing Trust properties, um, on Hillside Terrace, um, and this project. Um, it's unfortunate because I think if those were river watch houses, more interaction would have occurred, um, because those are more owner occupied with some rental, whereas the housing behind this project is all rental and low income. And I think that it is deserving of some consideration of, of, um, screening also, if that could be contemplated. Um, and Brad, the last thing I wanted to say was that I really wish the city would look at, I'm really glad to hear Paul Bierman's class, Professor Bierman's class is looking at the whole corridor. Um, and I really wish the city would look at the whole corridor to understand this instability so that when there are still some parcels that could be developed, when a developer decides to move forward, they would have a reference point to go to and understand the nature of the problems that they might have to address and, and resolve as they move forward with their project. It's not the developer's fault. It is the fact of the matter of the instability and what was there as a landfill and how water runs from Colchester Avenue, as we know, down over the bank and how water is a mighty force. And I don't think anyone takes it seriously. And I think it's really, really an unsafe area of our city that is deserving of real attention so that we protect the people who are going to live there and help the developers who want to develop there. Thank you. Karen, I think there's another member of the public who wanted to speak. Am I correct? Bob Plutani? Yep. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. So, uh, the reason I'm here is that I'm concerned about, um, I can hear you very well. Not much. You got to get closer to the mic, whatever mic you have. How about now? Can you hear me now? Yeah, it's better. If you stay that way, yes. So the reason I'm speaking tonight is because I have great concerns, uh, that stem from my own neighborhood, Fletcher Place, where a developer believes that I've got approval to put in a 71 housing development. You've got a bad connection here, Bob. It's very hard to, you're fading in and out. Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay, so this particular project that's right across the street from Hall's Hitching, and given that it's a serious project, how are the senior projects that get up and down the whole place that's there? We're really going to have trouble hearing you, Bob. You're jumping back and forth between two inputs. There's a phone number and your name show up on the screen, and it jumps back and forth. Are you on the phone or are you on the Zoom screen, Bob? Are you still there, Bob Bhutani? Can you hear anything you're saying, Bob, and on the phone? No. It might be trying to reconnect to just the disconnected thread. I think the phone caller is Sharon still. It might help for others to mute themselves when he comes back on, just so there's no confusion in the source. So I just enabled Bob to talk again. How about now? Let's give it a shot. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, I'm very sorry. I didn't want to delay your proceedings here. I had my laptop in the docking station, so I just pulled it out. So, anyway, how are the seniors supposed to get up and down those four flights of stairs, is one question. There doesn't seem to be any elevators. The other thing is to follow Dr. Bierman's testimony. This is right across the street from Hall's hitches, where I believe the Halloween landslide had a dramatic effect in clothes, that hiking path. Looking at the A&R Atlas, there seems to be 80% impermeable coverage from this project. And that stormwater will be collected in pipes going to an outfall, where will the outfall hook up with the piping that comes from Riverwatch community, and then into the Winooski River. Will that further destabilize the banks facing the Winooski River? There are other questions that you had, Bob. And the reason for my concern is we live on Fletcher Place where a developer, believe it or not, got approval to build right on top of a gullyhead failure. Thankfully, it's been caught by the Act 250 Commission. So, you know, there's a lot of concern in this area as it was articulated by Dr. Bierman and Sharon Buscher. And that's all I have to say. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Am I correct, Scott, that that was the last member of the public, or was there somebody else in the public who wanted to speak? That's everyone who had their hand raised. Okay. I guess for the applicant, you can hear the concerns have to do with geotech issues. If you have any comments about that at this point. I made a couple of notes here. Just a couple small things, a couple larger things. First of all, I just wanted to note for the board, there is an elevator in the building that goes to all floors. The comment about parking for the restaurant, this was discussed when we were before the board for a sketch plan. And you know, even I was a little wary asking questions at that point as the underbuilding parking is designed to be for residents only. However, I was strongly encouraged by the board to pursue that concept of a, you know, food services open for the public. And I was reminded that there is public parking on hillside. So, you know, where there certainly was our concept from the beginning, it was not without encouragement from actually all of the boards that we met with that we continue to pursue that as a component of this project. From a concept design standpoint, just to quickly touch on that, over the last four to five years, we have developed in excess of 500 units of senior housing across three states, the lion's share of it being in conjunction with large national and even in one case, multinational partners. So we, where we are a local developer, we have had the benefit of working for and with other owners, equity groups, REITs, as well as the management companies for those organizations on specific design details. And, you know, where we won't go into it tonight, there are a lot of elements of this building that that draw on that four to five years worth of experience. And lastly, to just touch on the larger piece, as Cleary said, we are the last people who want to watch a $10 million worth of construction slide into the abyss. We're not unfamiliar with challenging structural sites. We're building buildings right next to the railroad and S6 junction. I dealt with a lot of these same concerns to do with the rail lines, what have you. The simple fact is there is the the review and soil analysis then leads to structural design to compensate for what is discovered in that review. And so the cart and horse piece, we can't really, we can certainly do some, you know, we've scheduled the analysis, but but how you deal with that comes from the structural design and we wouldn't structurally design a building unless we had approval for that building to move forward. So it is a bit of cart and horse and I would obviously the board is aware that we need to get through, you know, construction permitting. There's a tremendous amount of oversight on the actual construction of the building. And where I do recognize the concerns that have been raised tonight, I am confident that our structural design team will be able to put a building there that will withstand future challenges. Would it be beneficial to the board? I don't have, I'm not a geotechnical engineer or structural engineer. I have a fair amount of experience with the construction process and about how the investigation generally ended taken. Would you kind of, would you guys like me to kind of go through the process of how they will do the investigations and prepare the report and analysis? It's a lot of, based on science. I don't think the report itself would be more interesting. Yes. Mike, can I ask a question about that, Brad and maybe an interview and then also of staff. The, right now the proposed conditions just require you to have the analysis done prior to construction. I presume that condition is acceptable to you. But Scott and Mary, is that the same condition we used for the project just down the road? Did we require them to come back to us with the geotechnical information prior to releasing the permit or approving the permit? Was that down the road? Do you mean 110 Riverside? Yeah, in the corner. Yeah. That, that was denied, but had it been approved, there was a condition. Well, there wasn't even a condition. The board had reopened the hearing to address several items, one of which was having the geotech analysis done for that, retaining wall behind. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to understand is the sequence there. And I know there was a retaining wall and that one not proposed here, but it seemed like we required the geotechnical work to be done before we approved the permit. In that case, we denied it. But the sequence was we saw the geotechnical analysis before approval. Well, I think the differences, I think there's a difference between geotechnical analysis associated with civil matters. So, you know, this, we would anticipate that the civil design for this site will be completed. So, if we're building in an upslope retaining wall, yes, we would need to provide all of the basis associated with that. However, really the geotechnical, the soil analysis for the building doesn't, and please correct me if I'm wrong, architects on the board. That is simply data that is then processed by the structural engineer as they create a design schematic and spec for the footings and the, you know, the underpinnings of the building. The data in itself is just raw data. Right, so I'm going to solve the problem. I guess one of the interesting things here in this conversation, so to speak, is, and I'm not sure we have any ability to do this, is the conversation that we've heard tonight from some of the public is issues that aren't necessarily on this site. It's on the other side of Riverside. And will the analysis of this site on itself yield the information or is it necessary to get information about the other side of Riverside? Again, I don't know if we have the authority to ask that. So, Scott, is that a, where's our realm on this one? Oh, you were looking at a permit for this property on this parcel. I understand the larger context and at risk of a 15 second tangent. I know there is an analysis being done of the slope along the water side of Riverside Avenue. And I've checked in periodically with Noram Baldwin, the city engineer who's spearheading that. The short answer is we don't have even a draft to look at yet. No timeline on that. Boy, you know, the pandemic sort of blew that up. I'm not sure what the end point is. Okay. And I, Ben, I appreciate that perspective. And I think in a standard situation, what you're proposing, you know, and after the fact confirmation that everything is fine or that the building can be revised in a manner to accommodate any new information makes sense. I guess my biggest concern is under the zoning ordinance, the major impact review standards. Do we have sufficient evidence absent a geotechnical study to say that it meets those standards? And I know, Brad, I hear what you're saying about where the evidence indicates a problem. But this is pretty close to that. And are we sure that, you know, authorizing this kind of construction on this parcel won't have consequences that impact the road and other building other properties up or down slope? To Jeff's point, I'm close to my camera. And we certainly do that to some extent with traffic studies, right? I mean, we, we, we ask for intersections that are affected that are not on that site. And so I think if there's a concern that, you know, I, I think it's, we can't ask the applicant to look at a geotechnical analysis of the entire slope of Riverside. I mean, obviously that's a problem much bigger than this. And the concern that there could be a slide in the future is one that I take seriously. But I also say, well, you know, what can you do about that? You can't not build on Riverside, because the uphill bank could eventually slide. I mean, take all the trees down, those could fall too. But to Jeff's point, I think there's a legitimate question is to say, Hey, we just want to make sure this project will not exacerbate or cause unreasonable soil erosion in a sensitive area. And I think that is within our scope of review. And I don't think it's unreasonable to say, Hey, can we have the geotech before we approve this? And I, again, it seems like a good project, but this is an area of heightened concern. And that's a question we can ask the geotech person, if they do this analysis is how, you know, what is the impact of this project? And is there any instability that it's creating and going to be subject to and can it be made more stable within the confines of this property? You know, we, we need more senior housing. And I think it's a good project, particularly in the city, but I just want to get it right here. It sounds like that. Possible, right? Can I, do you mind if I ask a question? Go ahead, Jeff. Like, what are some of the boards? I do understand that there's, you know, this certain fear of, of, you know, the building falling down because there's been significant slides in the vicinity. But like as far as the permitting process, there's, there's many hoops that the applicant needs to go through. And this is land use planning. And we need to make sure that it addresses certain key things, traffic, storm water, things like that, and soil erosion. And, and if this was on the north side of the, if this was on the north side of Riverside Avenue and the building was turned around so that the parking was behind, I think that these would certainly be fair questions. With the parking hemmed in behind the building, you know, I think we want to make sure that we take a scientific approach in this and make sure that, you know, after we obtain zoning approval and active 50 approval, we, they develop a robust geotechnical, you know, analysis. There's limited, there's many civil engineers like me in Northwest Vermont. There's only a handful of geotechnical analysis and they always do. And in this project, I'm certain that they'll undertake, you know, an in-ground exploration activity with pouring. All we're saying is that's what we're going to do. So I don't think you're providing any information that we don't need. Right. I guess, I guess my, my men trust the comment that was to move this forward to, you know, obtain the approval so that we can move it forward to active 50 and so that you move to active 50 now. You don't have to wait for us. It's one of the supporting documents that they like. I understand they like it. Can I, can I say something, please? Jeff Zweber, I think that we're collecting the water from the roof and the site and we're actively slowing it down through retention systems and then we're putting it into the city's pipe storm water system. Isn't that correct? That's correct. So, you know, people have, I think I've heard a couple of times people talk about the water from this site being piped into the river and the existing condition on this site is that all of the, the rainfall goes across the driveways and the land and into the, into the soil and migrates down to the river. But what we're proposing to do is actually capture all of that water and put it into the city system in a controlled way. So, I, I very sincerely appreciate this conversation about stability, but, but I think that what we're proposing to do, the likelihood is actually that this is going to really improve stability rather than aggravate it. I think the, not to interrupt you, but I think that the answer is that we need to go through our deliberative. I appreciate what you're saying. I understand it. I understand you might get the approval and we can word it a number of different ways and I think that's sort of what we have to discuss in that deliberative. Can I share my screen one more time? I wanted to address the back side issues. No. I think we're okay with that. I think we, we, I'm not really worried about that one. We've had a lot of dramatic photographs. We've had a lot of concern expressed. We have to decide what is our responsibility to the project. The thing that I was going to do was just, if you go on Google maps and drop the, the little perspective guy on, on, on the east side hillside terrace and sort of look at the perspective that you get from that side of the project. Brad, I don't, I don't disagree with you that the, the back side of the building is plain, but I think it's worth just looking at that to understand the context that this building sits in. You're going back to that. Okay. Well, it's been brought up a couple times, Brad. So, okay. Well, I would say you go look at the Eagles. I think it's called Eagles landing on St. Paul Street and the back of that, what you see coming down Maple Street. And, you know, it's, it's smaller and it's, it's sort of shocking to see that. But anyways, that, I maybe don't know who feels anything about that. Can I just add one more thing? And, and it's really just a question is what is the context of the information we're providing? So, if we're providing a geotechnical report, I don't see and correct me if I'm wrong that it's anything more than an FYI because as Brad pointed out, any problems and that isn't to say there is a problem, but, but by definition, the geotechnical report gives you the data of what's under the earth and those problems. No offense, but I think everybody's trying to somehow get us to not do something in our deliberative. And, you know, you're just stalling for us not to get to do our deliberative. Okay. All of this, I understand what you're saying. I understand the concerns. I understand you want us to get on and approve the project and not make a big deal out of this. Maybe we won't, but we won't know until we get into our deliberative and telling us about that, that it's not a big deal of this other solutions or that, you know, we're just going in circles. And I was going to offer that it's more of the building permit. And I guess I'm thinking that it's more of the building permit per view as opposed to the zoning permit. And I guess that's all I have. It would, I would think it would be the, the building permits department. And I guess my concern is less about between now and, you know, the next meeting or whatever, if I complete a report and send it over to you and we get approved months from now, like, I guess that's fine. What, what, what, I'm not, I'm not getting heartburn over that. What, what my concern is, is that what conversation does that spur? So I'm, I'm, you know, I have the general understanding based on previous exploration of this site, which is not pertinent here, but that this site is non native soil. It has never been the location of a slide, which leads me to believe that it's probably going to give us a relatively bland soil report. So is it as simple as I provide a bland soil report and everybody says okay, or are we opening Pandora's box here and we're going to find ourselves, you know, off in the weeds talking about how we should maybe address something structurally, which, you know, is sort of beyond the purview. So, so that's really my question. I'm not asking for an upper downvote necessarily. It's more just where are we going with it? That's a fair question, Ben. I appreciate that. And I guess quickly what I would be, I think what I would be looking for, Ben, is the geotechnical report and an expert who can opine that based on that data, developing this project, both in terms of its weight and other impacts on the soil will not result in any of the undue adverse impacts that we look at under the major impact review standard, such as unreasonable soil erosion or unsafe conditions. So it's not just the data in my view, it's us having someone we can rely on who's going to be in front of us and say, I've looked at the data, I am an expert in these issues, and I can give you, Board, some comfort that by approving a project of this size and weight and this design with the following stormwater features is not going to cause problems in this area based on this data. So that's what I imagine. Whether we need that right now, whether it's a condition that you just come back, you know, later, I'm not sure. But that's what I have in mind. I want to close public hearing. I agree with that. We can keep discussing this, but until we find out what the Board really thinks and deliberative, we're not going to know the answer to the questions that the applicant is asking. So I appreciate that. Appreciate everybody's participation. And with that, we will close the public hearing. Thank you, everybody. We have some other business tonight, and we have a deliberative held over from last time for tonight. So we're getting a little long of the truth here. And given how late it is, I'm wondering if we would want to put off the other business until another meeting where we're not quite so late and we don't have specific deliberatives to do. So moved. So that's fine for the zoning amendments, but we actually do need you to take action on the schedule. Okay. Long story short is if you don't approve it, then every meeting's a special meeting, which is a pain in the neck. We don't want that, Scott. I move that we adopt the meeting schedule proposed. Awesome. Is there a second on that? Caitlin seconds, it looks like. Any discussion? All in favor? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So I think we will, if we can, look at the zoning amendments another time at this point, we will then close the hearing. We're adjourned.