 I'm going to call this June 20th meeting of the Montpelier DRB to order tonight introducing the members present starting on my right we have Hi Abby White Mike Miller staff I'm Rob Goodwin chair of the DRB Sharon Allen and on our Zoom platform we have Michael Lazorchik Hello everyone thank you and we have Jean Leon Hello everyone and then we are waiting on Joe Kiernan and Captain Burgess but as we wait for them we will turn it over to Meredith to just give an update on our remote meeting procedures and processes and if you have any questions about that okay so I am going to share my screen just a second with all the other stuff I've been doing I don't have things as organized as usual all right this is partly for people who are also watching via Orca media all right can everybody see that PowerPoint okay so for anyone who is viewing this meeting via Orca media you can participate in tonight's development review board meeting via the Zoom platform you can use the link shown here on your screen just type that into your web browser or you can call into this phone number and plug in this meeting ID if you're having any issues getting logging in you can email me here at mcrandle.org I'm monitoring my email throughout the meeting for those attending via Zoom turning your video on is optional for everyone attending please keep your microphone on mute when you're not speaking this is going to reduce background noise hold on one second somebody's trying to come in and it doesn't look like anybody's on via phone tonight so that's helpful please note that the Zoom chat function should really be used only for troubleshooting technology or logistics questions and if you have a question or comment about tonight's application we ask that you raise your hand either physically when we can see you on the video or by using the raise hand button on your toolbar if you're having problems finding either of those and we're in a sex time where we are taking public comment at that time and we had a quiet space for you to just state your name and ask for permission to speak otherwise you know once you've raised your hand we're going to ask that you wait for the chair to recognize you I'll be helping to monitor that for the online and Mike Miller who is staffing in person and council chambers will help monitor for those who are attending the meeting in person we do ask that once the chair has recognized someone to speak especially for the first time to make sure to provide your full name and your address tonight's this is going to help with our meeting minutes and just keeping track of who has raised comments and questions in case we need to get back to them they're depending on how many people we ultimately have for comments on tonight's application when we hit that public comment period the chair may try and put an initial time limit on initial comments just so that we can make sure everybody has a chance to speak but the chair can grant additional time for speakers who have follow-up questions or comments in the event that we're having problems getting people in because this is a sketch plan application and I'll describe that later we'll just try and collect those comments your email if I need to but otherwise we will keep moving forward I'm going to now hand this meeting back over to the chair thank you Rob thank you Meredith the next item on the agenda is approval of the agenda so I would accept a motion to approve the agenda with one amendment we have to elect a acting chair for this evening's meeting I will discuss more but I will be recusing myself from the application on Isabel circle and so with that amendment I will accept a motion to approve the agenda second by Sharon if people can make sure to speak really clearly into the microphones because I didn't hear who made the motion there's no motion so we need a motion someone make the motion agenda motion by Abbey second second by Jean so all those in favor Abbey how do you vote Sharon how do you vote Michael yes Jean yes Rob myself was yes we have an agenda for tonight's meeting so we are moving on to after a few brief comments from myself as I said I will be recusing myself this evening from the sketch plan application I'm an employee of VHB who is providing the permitting services for the applicant and so I feel like it's only appropriate for me to do so and you know in lieu of that as discussed we'll be holding a election for a temporary chair that will carry out this rest of this proceeding and I'd love to hear this application I think it's very great project but you know it's only appropriate and so with that I will move on to the approval of the meeting minutes which I think we can at least do one of these with people we have does anyone have a second eye on this we can do the May 16th minutes because Michael myself and Jean and Abbey are all here and so do we have a motion to approve the or amendments or comments on the May 16th DRB minutes motion to approve motion by Jean second by Abbey Abbey how do you vote Jean yes Michael yes self-rob votes yes the minutes are approved for May 16th Meredith or Mike or April 4th I think we've already been here before and had trouble getting votes for this what are our options here can we approve this or no so I've seen all that says you can so I think we can do it okay so I would now accept a motion to approve the April 4th meeting minutes motion to approve motion by Jean second by Abbey and Abbey how do you vote and Jean yes share it Rob myself votes yes April 4th minutes are approved okay wish this moves on to our next item on the agenda is I will accept a nominations for a acting chair for this evening's meeting given that I will be departing the chair seat momentarily make a motion that Abbey be the acting chair this evening a motion by Sharon for Abbey to be the acting chair do we have a second a second a second by Jean and so Abbey how do you vote yeah Sharon yes Michael yes Jean yes and I will abstain from that vote I believe gives us four votes we still have four votes there yeah all right perfect Abbey will be our chair for this evening's meeting you all are in good hands all right thanks Rob so moving on so we're here for a sketch plan review of the project at zero Isabel circle and so really tonight is just the opportunity for the applicant to share with us their plans for this development for them to hear from the board and also to hear from members of the community so we'll take time to hear from folks who are interested in speaking we just ask that you know limit your comments to a couple minutes or less just be mindful of the time and also as you know if you hear a comment that's already been made no need to restate it you can just say that you support it and we just ask that if you're going to make it comments that they're in addition to what's already been stated so I'll just kind of end with that there's not going to be any formal vote tonight again it's just an opportunity to hear and to discuss together and I think that's it so Meredith I think what I'll do is I'll start off and just ask you to provide an introduction to the application then we'll turn it over to the public to do their presentation we'll open it up for for board question and dialogue and then finally we'll open it up for for questions from the public so I'm good great so Meredith I'll turn it over to you to walk us through just highlighting some of the key issues well do because it's a it's a long staff report there are a couple of copies of the staff report on the table by the sign-in sheet and if afterwards anybody who's on remotely wants a copy it's linked in the agenda on the website feel free to email me and I can give you the direct link and Abby sort of stole my thunder a little bit it is a sketch plan review of a subdivision and planned unit development the way we do things here my player is you have a sketch plan review which is just an ability to have an informal discussion about a basic application before the board can make any kind of decision on the application the applicant is going to need to file a completely separate application that we call the final application that will have a great deal more detail in it and that will fill in all those areas in red in my staff report that say we need more information on X Y and Z so right now informal discussion but this is a really good time to get your questions comments out so that the applicant can address them before we get to final both from board and from the public so this sketch plan review is a proposal to subdivide a 72 acre parcel off of Isabel circle into at least two parcels that will contain a little about eight and a half acres of land used for a cottage cluster planned unit development so that lets the proposal have smaller buildings closer in proximity than you would normally do under regular zoning standards then they'll also be an additional 16 individual parcels each of those past parcels able to have at least one single family unit one single family dwelling and then one of the parcels is actually large enough so it could conceivably hold four dwelling units there's also sort of remainder of 55 plus or minus acres that will contain the stormwater management areas and some just what I've been referring to as remainder land and exactly where those parcel lines will be to divide the sections a little bit in flux there's some discussion about that in the staff report um so one sort of big disclaimer and this is for everybody this is for the board members this is for members of the public that even though it's mentioned a couple times in the application discussion about what's happening with that remainder land and potential especially potential conserving it or transferring that to become part of a park those things are outside of the zoning purview it's not actually part of the proposal that future whatever's happening to that land and the board the board cannot condition what's being applied for here on what's done with those 55 acres right now that's just not it's not part of any of the trigger points in the regulations that have been that are going to apply to the subdivision and pd application so we really just don't want to talk about that um you know those can be discussions among the public outside of here or between the public and applicants if that opportunity arises but it's not something that the board can consider or talk about um that gets into sort of an unconstitutional area that we don't want to touch um and then finally there are some things in the staff report that aren't the normal just the applicant needs to answer these questions or fill in items before the final application these are things that we really recommend that the board try and discuss or at least think about tonight and have a little bit of discussion with the applicant um on pages 12 through 15 of the staff report there's an overview of the planned unit development criteria this is the very first time the board the city has actually applied these criteria because this is the first time we've had a pud since these regulations were adopted um and four years ago and there's some terminology in there that isn't really well defined um you'll see that like I said pages 12 through 15 stuff about um which direction the front entrance of a cottage faces whether or not there's a view from the porch whether or not the cottage is a but a common area that I think the board should maybe discuss a little bit tonight um I've specifically highlighted in that section cottages that I think might be problematic so you can zoom in on that and see where you are falling on that and then the other one is um in subdivision streets requirements there is a bit of a conflict between what that section and this is on page 23 of the staff report what that section requires for sidewalks as compared to what our DPW Department of Public Works standards um are for when we require sidewalks so there's a conflict there um that we're going to need to figure out how to deal with so those are the two big areas I suggest that we definitely talk about but any other questions anybody has of course you can go ahead with alright that's it sorry it was long okay thank you Meredith any questions from the board to clarify for Meredith okay thank you so now we'll hear from the applicant so welcome hi thank you is this working yeah so I appreciate the opportunity to get some initial feedback on the concept I'm Gabriel Lajanas I'm the sponsor of this and myself and some investors have been looking for opportunities to to work on the housing crisis that we have in Montpelier you know going back a couple years and conversations with city staff to try to understand those areas some of these are outlined in in the master plan and certainly many of them are outlined in our zoning regulations many conversations with landowners trying to identify a good good opportunity and this land presents a unique opportunity probably once in a lifetime to you know really accomplish a number of things including at the housing which which is a primary goal but also some some other which we don't get into all the details obviously but preservation and other things that are important to to the community so the the the basic overview is and Jeff Zwayber from VHB will go through this in detail and we'll answer questions but just the basic rundown is 38 cottage clusters the idea of a cottage cluster is homes that are you know that cars are sort of in the periphery they're off to the side front the the front of a house faces common green space you have greater density it just creates a better sense of community and we can look across all across the country where these have been done they're really beautiful neighborhood so it's the first that will be done under the cottage cluster provisions in our zoning 38 cottages you know from one bedroom to three bedroom 800 to 1400 square feet and and then some lots that would be created around that 15 lots and then another lot that's actually set aside we're having some initial discussions with downstream about some things that might be able to do together there so to be determined that's the basic idea is to create a really walkable beautiful space where we can take a little bit of a bite you know I I would say you know we talk about the ecosystem of housing you know the domino effect you know if you're looking at we're really targeting the missing middle these are people who are you know maybe first time home buyers or they're trying to downsize we know it isn't meeting all of the housing need but the people that are currently renting right they would they will move out and they'll provide some rental space that people don't currently have access to and also people maybe in larger homes that don't need those or don't want those that may want to have a smaller footprint it just provides it's not the solution for all what we need we know that but it's a it's a first first bite to try to get some development that hasn't been done in a very long time so with that I'll turn it over to Jeff to go through the details. Thank you. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to present this project tonight. I think it's an exciting project and appreciate Meredith's very detailed staff report I think there's a lot of elements in there that will eventually work and and get the information and make the calculations and provide but I want to try to maybe kind of walk you guys through our thought process and and outline how we wave this project out when Gabe came to us to integrate it into the community and integrate it into the natural surrounding environment. So in order to integrate it and make sure that the project minimized the amount of footprint for and provide the appropriate number of houses what we used is as Meredith and Gabe mentioned the cottage cluster development and so the cottage cluster development and this is kind of a screenshot of one of the areas to kind of zoom in on that and it shows in this case nine cottage homes around a single green space so it shares the backyards kind of and it has that shared sense of community with sidewalks that go between them around a functional shared green which will function as these people's backyards but more of a shared sense as opposed to each person having their individual backyard but they also have their individual identity and their individual homes you know with their own four walls so it kind of provides a mixture of kind of community and individuality typically around a house the parking is right at the house in these cases the parking is a short walk away so there's in this cluster here there's nine cottages and it's next to 18 parking spaces for the houses so each house has two parking spaces that'll be assigned to them and then where the two are there we understand that people have visitors and deliveries so there's additional parking for visitors and deliveries along the road and next to the cottage cluster parking area and then there's the ability to park also along the road you know from time to time there'll be parties and things where there'd be more visitors and people can park along the road and only one side of the road has a curb on it so it allows that wider sense of temporary use beyond the paved area and on the shoulder and so by using the cottage cluster development it allowed us to minimize the footprint of the project and so that only 20 acres of the 71 acres of distracted land are proposed to be disturbed by this project and that includes all the areas associated with the roads the sidewalks the street trees landscaping houses stormwater management areas included in that 20 acres and then sewer and water mains that have to extend beyond the road all that's within only a 20 acre footprint on the 71 acres of land and then when we're laying this out we also wanted to make sure that we provided access to recreation for the people of this project and also that the adjacent neighborhood miss bill circle and once it's built right it's going to become integrated into a single monolithic neighborhood so the people that live on his bill circle and the surrounding streets will have the opportunity to walk over other people that are in this area of Montpelier that you utilize the area of land that's just south of the loop will be able to park there and walk in through the land that's owned currently by the by the city of Montpelier and then on to the remainder portion of this project that won't be utilized for the development of the built area this section of road on the south side of the cluster on the right side the north side of the road there's the cottage homes and then on the south side it's undeveloped so people can park on the street should they want to access the trail heads to the remaining parcel of land and then although we're using the cottage cluster in the central portion of the project when we're laying this out we really wanted to make sure that we complemented the existing neighborhood density and making sure that we transition from that size and shape of the existing lots in a respectful and similar manner so along the the west side of the project it's worth to note on all our plans north is to the right, west is to the top of the sheet so these six lots are all similar size and shape of the existing lots on Isabel Circle so we wanted to make sure we made that nice gradual transition to a slightly denser and different configuration when it comes to the residential lot configuration that the cottage cluster uses and then it's a large track of land, the 71 acres which we're only going to use 20 acres of it we wanted to figure out where it makes best to connect and the flatter sections of the land that are away from the wetlands and the streams and are located at the northwest corner so we wanted to connect where the existing residential project ended and then a makeshift turnaround was constructed over time I guess it, I don't know if it's really constructed but it's just dirt that over time from delivery vehicles and people needing to turn around formulated a turnaround on this track of land so it made sense that the most developable land was at the northwest corner and the makeshift turnaround was located there to the Isabel Circle now I kind of talked how we integrated the project into the existing community we want to make sure that we integrated into the surrounding environment as well we're going to do that by making sure that we more than adequately address stormwater and we're going to do that through seven treatment and attenuation standards six of them are formulated by the state water quality, channel protection, groundwater recharge so that's in quality overbank protection flow and extreme flood prevention and then the seventh one is mandated by the zoning ordinance and that is during the 25 year recurrence rainfall event to make sure that we're reducing the peak flows from that rate so when we look at these seven treatment criteria they cover from small storm events to large storm events to make sure that the runoff from this project does not have any adverse effects on both things that are constructed downstream and natural things downstream one of the things we heard from the neighbors Gabe reached out to them early in the process and we had a neighborhood meeting to the north of this project along Taplan Street there's some exists sounds like there's some existing homes that are struggling with runoff that's coming towards their property and we want to make sure that this project does not make that any worse and we want to make sure that to the extent that we can that we can address anything that over time has shifted there's a power easement and things that are constructed uphill on his bill circle and make sure that adverse things have not been shifting drainage towards these properties so we're not quite at that point to do a detailed study on that we have our servers on schedule for later this summer to get out there make sure they do a field of the lineation of the topography and make sure we understand where exactly each of the the rainfall drops are flowing right now we feel we have a pretty good sense because we're utilizing statewide are but but you know nothing's as good as taking the stuff that's remotely sensed from from airplanes and satellites and making sure that we couple that with what our field surveyors and myself as well going reaching out to those neighbors to make sure we understand how the rainfalls flowing on another one of the opportunities that this parcel provides is that there's municipal wastewater available it allows us to connect at the end of his bill circle to a wastewater main that was sized to extend that road at a certain time you know this time is now come so that we do not need to construct large bleach fields you know other projects that and in my failure and statewide that don't have municipal sewer available largely to need to be constructed and compasses cutting down trees or taking existing farmland and removing it from service to provide waste on site wastewater so we feel fortunate that municipal sewer is available and there's adequate treatment capacity. There's also adequate municipal water supply at the end of his bill circle this will provide both drinking water and fire protection flows for the project. And then this project can be constructed without any wetland or stream impacts there's wetlands and streams VHB did a field delineation of the the wetlands and streams and they're prevalent more on the eastern and southern portions of the track of land and up at the northwestern corner corner of this parcel at the higher elevations there's no there's no wetlands or streams and their associated buffers that will be impacted and we're constructing it on the flatter slopes this parcel so the slopes range we can we still need to get out there and do a field delineation but it's very apparent that you know it's the flatter portion of it and it's the slopes range from a very manageable five and 15% slope and the way we laid out the loop street it follows the grades so that the cottage clusters have that the ADA accessible and sidewalks can be less than 5% so the the cottage clusters develop ADA accessible and then the single family lots work well around the perimeter of the project and the ones on the the east of the project you know they're gonna have the the configuration where they have the the front the front level being at the first story and then like a basement walkout so it works well like a 20% grade transitioning to the east side of the project and then you know both from a long term and a temporary perspective we want to make sure that we have adequate erosion prevention and semi-control measures I'm sure you guys are no strangers to erosion prevention semi-control plans but we certainly do one for the entire project we provide the sediment control and through the use of temporary sediment traps and silt fence and check dams but also making sure that we prevent erosion should a larger storm event occur during construction it'll have the project in a phased approach very small sequencing where small areas of the project will be exposed during at one time while it's under construction and also during a limited duration just to really reduce that risk should a large storm occur when the project's being constructed looking at our typical street section there's some elements we met last week with EPW and as far as specific elements like the road cross slope and the presence of sidewalk you know DPW indicated that they don't even want sidewalk necessarily on that's as low volume as this and we agree with them from a safety perspective we don't necessarily need to have sidewalk we think it's a great amenity especially when coupled with the cottage homes we generally try to put the sidewalk on the cottage home side of the project so that the sidewalk really kind of serves as a linking mechanism because there's already sidewalk that travels away from the right of way kind of links those stubs of sidewalk together we certainly think it's safe to have a low volume of traffic to walk and bike directly on the road both on this visible circle extension loop and the existing portion of the project there's landscaping on both sides of the street and then a swell particularly on one side of the street so the stormwater can flow across that and be treated through both structural and nonstructural treatment practices it allows it to infiltrate in a more diffuse manner stormwater management areas that will construct such as a gravel wetland or biretention that will both provide treatment and slow down the runoff from the peak storm events so that's kind of some of the thinking behind why we integrated and mixed it up between having a curb on the sidewalk side and then a swell on the dish side this is one of the drawings that we submitted during sketch plan and there's typically very similar all four sections are very similar they kind of vary between which way the road is curving which side the cottages are on and single family homes so which way it slopes and the swales on and the curb there's one segment where the cottage homes are on both sides so it sidewalks on both sides with normal crown and the curving but I look forward to getting further input from the DRB and DPW I think we have many of the key elements but we still, as Meredith kind of outlined in the staff report we still need to work through on the specifics as far as what the curving and the cross sloping and the widths and everything but I think we're close pulled this slide deck together before Gabe and Meredith went so I think they've probably more than adequately covered what we're looking for a built environment the 38 cottages with the range of sizes around six of those green spaces that I previously previewed 76 parking spaces 15 single family lots and one lot that supports four dwelling units I appreciate kind of the opportunity to just quickly outline I know Meredith staff reports in much more detail but I thought it was kind of important to kind of go through on a high level to figure out you know how did we come up with you know the 70, what to do with 71 acres land and how we laid this out so thanks for the opportunity to present how it fits into the surrounding community and the built environment all right thank you for that overview so now let's turn it over to members of the board I believe there's four of us here including myself Meredith did anybody join kind of during the presentation we have Catherine she's gotten on okay great so we've got five members of the board so I'll just query the board questions what questions do you have for the applicants I had a question just about and it sounds like a lot of the sort of final measurements for things are not done like setbacks and but in looking at the can you just talk through a little bit with the cottage cluster that setback is supposed to look from the outside like the neighborhood setback right so yeah my definitely like to get further input from you guys in Meredith but my understanding how we read the zoning ordinance is that the single family lots and the quadplex there's the codified front side rear setbacks right for the cottage cluster there's two parcels one in this the middle of the loop street and then the one on the right side of loop street which is the north side and those parcels those setbacks around along the road they're the same as a single family setback so those there's no interior setbacks between there's a lot of certainly a lot of dimensional requirements of where they need to be oriented but there isn't the the zoning ordinance of like a front side setback of cottage cluster there's there's reference to like where the like a private garden area like that they're a private one area should be located where the green states should be located but not not per se the the setbacks under the zoning ordinance for the cottage cluster okay interior I guess I understood to read that that the perimeter of the cottage clusters would have the same setbacks that the residential neighborhood isn't that right which we did provide yeah yeah okay and and then I did notice that there didn't seem to be any designation so for sort of there's like a private yard designation in there yeah um it's like 300 square feet per cottage right and so on one of the drawings that we submitted I don't have in the slide deck but we did show like on each of them there is like a 300 square like they don't want a cottage my interpretation of intent and maybe it's wrong but next to each of the the cottage is like there is the 300 square feet between like the road and the the cottage that they can use for their personal usage right and then the green area is more of the shared common area thanks for their questions so I want to go back to the pages that Meredith had called out in her staff report so there's a lot that's in this staff report so my intent is not to go through every section and every highlighted area if board members have one that they want to focus on please speak up and let me know but what I wanted to focus on together as a board is starting on page and then related to the PUD standards and then kind of get some clarification or just kind of hear from the board on how each of us is interpreting some of these new terms so for example it the regs require for porch to offer a view of the common space and in certain instances it appears as if with certain of these we can't quite see there but if you if you were to zoom in we might be able to see a little bit better of the image yes you can want to zoom in on cottage 22 area yeah that's I think we're looking we're getting close to it right okay in this case you know it doesn't appear as if cottage 22 has much of a view at all of the central green area from its porch and how are we viewing that they have a view of other green areas but not kind of this common one I'm wondering if the board has any views on that I guess it's not the only location that that's true isn't 25 also in a similar situation yes it is okay yeah I think that's a question for you all you know how are you how are you interpreting this this section of the regulations so we tried to lay it out with working both with the department like there's just a certain limit of how you put the puzzle pieces together and acknowledging that there's various levels of people that want to share in the same experience we felt that you know each of the units would appeal to probably different types of people I definitely agree with you on 22 there isn't necessarily from a strict sense a view of the you know a very prime view of the the centralized green but they kind of get different different views from different windows and I guess I'd definitely take direction from the board and if they think that the views and the direct line of sites need to be adhered to more strictly we can take another pass at it okay what are there others on the board think of that can you unzoom so that we can look at I think that there it seems to me that there are several other houses that are sort of in that position yep there there are a few so maybe just maybe looking at all of those so 22 which is why the end of that garage 31 is kind of in a weird spot you know I mean it's a corner any corner lot here is going to have that same thing where and then honestly the four units that are in the center there 26 2523 and 24 I mean I guess they all look like they're oriented away from the greens that's yes you know so you know I mean I guess that's where it starts to look less like in that section there you know when 22 at the head and then those four units place down there it looks less like a cottage development than the rest of it maybe you know it looks a little bit more sort of traditional neighborhood he yep and that also relates to another specification but the principal entry to face is to face the open common space in case it's not just the view but it's the principal entry is oriented in the opposite direction so I think I mean I I think that you know our our work here is to ensure that the regulations are being upheld and I think there's a few instances in the design where that could be pushed where in the cluster that Sharon laid out here orienting the views towards the common green orienting the principal entry towards that would be good and then there's finally another depulation that directly abuts the common areas that may be to to to figure out in terms of like how everything gets oriented with the topography as you said but that might be another thing to look into Abby just so you know Catherine has her hand up Oh thank you Catherine yeah thanks Abby and I'll admit I'm traveling for work and got really delayed on the train so my apologies I missed much of the presentation but you know I'm happy to have happy to be here and to have reviewed all the materials on this question yeah I also when I was reviewing the plan in advance of this meeting had yeah some hesitance around understanding the orientation especially for the lower left hand cottage square I think for the the ones to the right you know you have that very clear orientation where the porch spaces are facing the common greens and then to the left yeah there I was you know in interpreting this alongside the regulations where we're looking at whether the whether these common spaces are abutting the green space there is definitely some questions for me there I also wanted to understand an apologies if you've covered this in the presentation I don't think we had an image quite like this with the the parking drop-off spaces that to's here labeled so clearly as to you know you have maybe this will be covered later or was covered but the the changes in the street frontage and you know there is a whether that has any impact on the the orientation or the treatment of the facades so as far as the like the park it goes from a 22 foot section to a 30 foot section where the number I guess I'm not necessarily following the question as far as the effect of the treatment facades and you know when I was reviewing the plans I was curious as to how the drop-offs would be managed you know visitors groceries etc so this definitely answered that question for me but then you see you know you have some of the the cottage is essentially directly face you know one of these the pull-ins or whatever that whatever the term is for them and yeah you wonder it does that mean that they have a they don't necessarily then have a direct access point like if you look at 19 s for example you know the most likely the visitor or the groceries are going all the way around the entire house if they're using the design walkways so I was just curious yeah whether what's the philosophy on that so like on 19 s sir I guess what I as let me look at like 30 W right and even 31 W those cottages there's the shared green but then there's also you know in the traditional sense of you know front porch and the street I don't think like 31 W it's necessarily more undesirable to face the street then to face a and with an adequate front yard then to face the the central green so each of them kind of varies and then like back to 19 s that one the parking would be would be to the to the north over here so the walkway is directly past all of your neighbors you know for 19 s the parking you'd pass 1816 1718 to get to 19 so you're kind of sharing that integrated sense of community and then there is a drop off area like right to the page bottom which is the east where you go you go around and that distance is no more than like the distance of 24 s so we we tried to make sure that it integrated throughout with others and I acknowledge there is some tradeoffs and you know putting together the puzzle pieces we felt like this kind of offered the best combination between street front edge and because being you know having a house along a street is also desirable and not necessarily strictly having one fronting a green other questions oh Meredith go ahead so I'm just going to throw something out here because it's about something I think one reason this was designed this way it that goes to Catherine's comment so there is a requirement right that street front edge have a principal entry way that faces common open space that's not separated from that by a street or a driveway right so you have to end the whole design of this you have to have the parking off to the sides and your your principal entrance has to face that common open space that doesn't mean this also something to maybe go back to the building where the buildings can't have a secondary minor entry way right where the building isn't designed it doesn't look like your main entrance to your building so theoretically you know your 19 through 16 could have a back door here out of the yard with you know little not paves maybe entry ways but little stepping stone entry way you know entrances or something you don't you don't your buildings that doesn't isn't restricted to having just one entrance it just has to have that one principal entrance that is probably where the sidewalk would go be made gas just a file are the units designed with doors on that side sorry I think and forgive me if we're kind of stumbling a little bit on concise answers and your question is great like you know what exactly is the unit and so as far as and Meredith correct me if I'm wrong like this is like a sketch plan of the subdivision right we're looking at the overall layout of the items and really you know we could come with just the subdivision in the lots and I don't think that'd be beneficial for anybody right we want to kind of give you as much information as we can and so I guess I'm that's a long preamble to like we're still early in the process as far as what the units specifically are and how they're all they're laid out right but this having this discussion about how the building is oriented where the principal entrances are thoughts about access is all going to bleed into them building that bigger application but agreed you don't have to have the house design set up yet right right well I think your point Meredith about secondary access and whether that in certain instances because the topography it may be very difficult to have every every view of of equal value to the green space and in every entrance aligned in that same way but looking at secondary entrances you know to do the best that you can to fulfill the intent of the regulations I think is important I think we can definitely make improvements there can I just ask a question about the view Meredith where that comes up I'm just looking at the in the rags it talks about the principal entry way this is in 3404 H right this is the principal entry way that faces the common open space and shouldn't be separated but then right below it it mentions that 50% will but it can't can't be any further than 60 feet long so just as we're trying to lay these out and the other thing too I think just generally you know the units the individual units will be we're going to pre-sell we hope and so what that actual unit is I mean this is a footprint general footprint right but I think it would be useful as we go back to make sure that we're complying you know what what does that mean so we know we want to we need to face that but the way that it's worded here in that you know subsection 3 you could be 60 feet away as long as you're facing that direction you're still in compliance right so there's those items and then there's also separately having the view from your porch which is earlier right which is 3404 G where is it it's about the porch that your minimum porch size and that within that porch it has to have a minimum dimension of 8 feet on any side that offers a view of a common open space oh I guess it's any so you know what I may have misinterpreted this as I'm going to this my like fifth time but on this application so the cottages have to have a roofed open porch at least 80 square feet in size with a minimum dimension of 8 feet on any side that offers a view of the common open space so the porches don't actually have to offer that view but if they do offer that view it has to have a minimum dimension of 8 feet on the side that offers the view sorry guys my staff report has an error there but this is one of those how that fits in with like you said you're a budding and the having the principal entrance face the common open space this is the very first time we've applied any of these so getting your input on when things do not work is going to be important thank you for that clarification appreciate it yeah well and thank you for making me reread it again so going back to the board question Catherine I see you have your hand up oh yeah thanks just before the conversation moves on it's glad to hear that acknowledgement earlier that the circulation could use a little bit more work because I do think especially with this additional clarification from Meredith around the philosophy you know the around the regs you know it's clear that the design philosophy here is that people are parking in the shared parking and walking by their neighbors and having you know that design contributes to the community feeling here but I think it doesn't take away from the community feeling to have the secondary access points like especially thinking about winter conditions and other situations where it's like the grannies and groceries point like there will be situations where it's people will create a way to get into the houses easier more easily if there isn't a naturally designed circulation point so okay so I want to move on from this section unless there's other questions about it I had a couple quick other questions about this section no not about this section okay we'll do those okay Sharon go ahead what were your other questions I just wondered and maybe it's not an appropriate time but when looking at the stormwater management steps that you were taking are you factoring in a conceivably pretty large parking lot with your four unit building and the private driveways that are coming on board I realize that would that be a focus right now would that be part of the end game plan certainly yeah we will make sure that the stormwater management will be built to accommodate any reasonable build out of the single family lots including quadplex and then the emergency services has looked at this plan so I'm going to go through the technical review meeting last week it seems like it would be hard to get to some of the cottages so there are we still need to go through and look at the building codes that have been adopted and how far access points need to be and we'll make sure that it meets all of the state standards as far as emergency access okay and then I just said one other just kind of passing questions I said it carry out today but with the garage structures that you have it's just going to be open I'll just say I think it's going to end up being a cost factor what it's going to actually look like we'll see price of materials are coming down we're trying to target the missing middle and if you start factoring in a fully built out garage starts getting really expensive so we'll we're out there it was wondered yeah thanks Sharon I had a couple other questions as well and then I do want to talk about the new street requirement piece as well so I'm wondering did you explore any commercial use in this in this development in terms of like something that would be misuse yeah I didn't see any allowance for that I didn't consider it I mean we're really looking for housing project but I didn't see an allowance for much commercial use in an R9 unless I'm wrong on that Merida what do you know I think he's right okay sorry did you want me to take a peek at that no that's fine okay I mean I think there are things I mean I think there's childcare there's things like that that you can do but yeah I didn't see a lot of other and we weren't we were really looking for housing you're looking for housing okay and I'm also wondering if you could talk about you know road access so it funnels through Isabel circle did you explore other access points in the design yeah so I'll just I'll just comment sort of on the the large larger issues associated with other access points and then Jeff may have some more technical things to comment on you know the original project that was proposed here you know back in 2007 2008 it got all the way through active 50 there was another access point down to the Barry Montpelier road it required about 250 in units to be able to support that I mean it's a multimillion dollar road bill steep slopes lots of disturbances we didn't want to do anything like that you know there's a lot of people that use this land we want to preserve as much of it as possible and so the focus was how do we minimize how do we keep away from the steep slopes as much as possible there could be some potential that you know to sort of hook up and around to where the existing condominiums are I've talked to some of the people in that community and I think that would be very unpopular so and it's also not in the scope of what we're trying to accomplish we're trying to you know how do we do a substantial development of housing but we're also not trying to knock this all out of the park there's a lot of other proposed projects the Montpelier if they all came together we'd make a good dent in the housing we're not trying to do everything no and we well a little bit I guess about like looking at Herbert road and the ability to connect there it that's the rights there are complicated so we thought that it was not the best way to go there Isabel circle then to that was kind of the natural point where the it met up with the natural train right it's the most it's the most developed portion of it for housing it's gave is looking for housing project not a commercial project so all like very quickly like when we looked at where the streams and the wetlands everything we very quickly focused in on the northwest corner of this property okay thanks for that additional information other other questions from the board okay and I just want to now also turn to the second section that Meredith flag for us thanks Mike age 23 okay and just to acknowledge that that the sidewalk requirements conflict in many cases with the city's road typology components and tears is used by DPW so as we understand it this is this is a matter for the planning department and DPW to take a look out and to coordinate recommendation but I wanted to just give the board any opportunity to weigh in and share thoughts on on that that portion of this but yeah I'd be interested in what exactly is going to be the determining factor for whether that's a private or a public road so I think the intent of so I think there's a couple different like when you look at private public there's a couple different aspects of it whether it will be publicly accessible and open for people to walk across and I believe that's the that's the intent so it's going to certainly be like so the general public can use the road to access the existing conservation recreation area then regarding whether it's a public or private road and the long-term maintenance of it it's going to go down to whether it's constructed a DPW standards and the city council is willing to accept it as a public public road so we're hopeful that we can work through with DPW I think this is you know it's a loop that that a lot that properly terminates the city's long-term use and ownership of it last week we did have some discussion whether we're going to sidewalk right they don't necessarily want to come up here and plow the sidewalk you know it's more of an internal remedy to the cottage cluster home so I think at this point we can kind of wade through the conflicting requirements we're getting from DPW and the zoning ordinance you know the zoning ordinance kind of gives preference to and it's not necessarily for a safety perspective it's like just a nice amenity hey we want we want two sides sidewalk on all roads you know from this level of traffic like that's just not warranted you know not even that that's around one side but like on the cottage side we could install the sidewalk and that could be either we could maybe push it back beyond the right of way or have it like in the right of way but with it a private easement over it so that it's privately maintained by because you're going to have to plow the sidewalk throughout the the cluster anyway so the private maintenance of the sidewalk and then there's also like shifting back now to like the two sides on it it talks about the overall density of the project and the cottage cluster is more dense than is it too too dwelling in its breaker but not necessarily when you look at like the two sides on it it talks about the overall density as opposed to like the density like right there sidewalk on one side might be approvable so long way saying there's some conflicts conflicts and the nuances but I think we're pretty close to what everybody's looking for. Okay. Sharon did you have other. I did have another question on the separate on the separate section. So I don't know where we are. I don't have anything else on that one. I just want to before we I want to see if there's any other thoughts from the board before we move on from this section here. But I thought that the way that you described it that that seems to make a lot of sense. You know you look at the overall density of the of the entire parcel. Okay. Okay go ahead Sharon. There was a brief mention in here of a homeowner's association. Is that what the plan is for all that. That's a lot of internal plowing you got going on there. Yeah I think in nowadays even without. I think there might. Move it up to the attorneys but. Nowadays. Any projects typically requires when you have stormwater and though ownership and maintenance and ongoing reporting that's required by the state. It will require a homeowner's association for that maintenance long-term maintenance and ownership. There's single family lots that benefit from that. And the cottage cluster as well. There's also many that are just associated with the cottage cluster. I think we're in early in the process as far as how we slice this for homeowners associations. But before it's also and then I'm sure there will be one if that too. You know or at least. Until we get until we get some legal advice as we move forward. It's hard to know exactly. But because we have these wastewater. Or stormwater you know retention. It's almost like everybody here needs to have a piece of that. Which is sort of deaf different than the cottage clusters that you know need to take care of the green. Need to take care of private parking right all those things. And so they're probably are at least two. But again until we get legal counsel and get a little further. We you know the whole point of this is to get some good feedback. So as we spend a lot of money on engineering. We're looking at the right things. So we really appreciate that. But we definitely need to figure that out. Okay, great. So just looking at the time. I think we want to create some space now for questions from the community. And. Meredith or Mike. Do you have suggestions on how we do this? So usually what we do is we will start with the folks who are here in person. To give comments or ask questions. And then after they are completed them. And we will go to. Meredith to help. Organize the folks online. Okay. That sounds good. And so if anybody is, is interested here in the audience and asking a question or saying a few words. Just come up to the mic here and. You'll have a couple, couple minutes. Please do make sure to announce your name and your address, whether you're commenting there in person or commenting remotely. Thanks, Meredith. Hi, I'm Trish Eaton at 29 Hebert road, which is a stage where Isabel circle. Comes in. Sort of a butts my driveway. So if you're driving too fast up at Isabel, you go into my driveway instead of going up Hebert road. And which makes it quite interesting. We have an awful lot of traffic that goes through. And a couple of weeks ago. I happened to see our chief of police. And I asked him in regards to the possibility of having a traffic counter. Located at the. Just as you come down on Hebert road. And I noticed the other day there was one. And there's an awful lot of traffic that comes through. And in fact, some people seem to think that there's an awful lot of traffic. There's an awful lot of traffic that comes through. And in fact, some people seem to think that it's a, their whole road. And I ended up going almost. Into the area by Tina's house. We're coming across. I was coming from the area. On Hebert road past Berlin coming from Berlin street down. And you have to watch it. Coming down around the turn. There's a lot of traffic that goes through the area. Once already I've found as I made the turn. There are three little ones. Unaccompanied by an adult. And one was trying to learn how to ride a bicycle in the middle of the street. So people have to slow down. And then as I continued on. And where the next corner is for the turn by velvet's house. And then I ended up on the other side of the road. I ended up almost taking out. By a Julian Anthony's house. I was onto the property across from their house. And they have a little library type thing. That's the end. I almost ended up in that because people come way too fast. And just don't seem to. Care that there's other people. That may be using it. It's just crazy. And one thing that was. Mentioned in regards to down at the further area down there. When the plow trucks come through and stuff, I mean. They have to leave all the snow down there. But what happens when you have your school bus. That stops right at the top of. Isabel circle and Hebert road. And then all the kids have to come up the street to catch. The school bus in the morning. And then when they finish, they have to catch these section eight housing. And then all the others. So it depends. We may end up having to need a second school bus. If there's more kids that are going to be attending school. So my thought is it's just an awful lot of traffic. The street is not wide enough. And. I mean, I sometimes get to the stage where we have tractor trailers coming down through and heading down Isabel. And for them to turn around. It's one of those situations where. Hey bud. Use my driveway back straight up. Isabel circle. Straight into my driveway because you're not going to make the turn going on to Hebert road. I don't know what the traffic is. I don't know what the traffic is. I don't know what the traffic is. Use my driveway. And then they can pull out and go up Hebert road. But it's just the traffic is incredible. I don't know what the data was from the traffic control counter. I don't know what the response was on that. But we do have an awful lot of traffic coming up through. And I can imagine with more housing coming up. I don't know what the traffic is. I don't know what the traffic is. I don't know what the traffic is. They have improved. They have improved somewhat and stuff with repairs. But. I'm telling you, we have our share of stuff that's going through. So that's my comment in regards to that. Yeah. Thank you. Well, something's got to take place because the roads are just going down through our two skinny. And two. Snake like. And you never know what you're going to find around the corner. So that's my comment. Okay. Anybody else in the room? Yes. Come on up. Thank you. For the record, my name is Paul Burns. I live at 18 Isabelle's circle. I appreciate developers being here. I appreciate the DRB and the work that you do. I also want to say I am strongly supportive of more housing being built in Montpelier. I know that it's an important need. I very much support the idea of increased housing. And I think the project has a lot of merit. And so I am, I'm definitely not here to oppose this project. It is in my mind, all about the conditions that are placed on this project. That could help to mitigate the potential adverse impacts on the folks who live there. You'll hear various different opinions. I'm sure from all the folks on Isabelle circle, Hebert and others. About the project overall. Or what might be needed there. But I think that if the developers are willing to address a lot of areas that are not yet in the current proposal, that it would go a long way toward increasing the support. For me, but for others who are in on Isabelle circle or again in the surrounding neighborhoods. So I'll just, there are two things, two chief concerns that I wanted to just raise here. One is the increased the traffic, certainly a substantial increase in traffic as it would essentially double the number of housing units that are currently on Isabelle circle. I think there's any question that that would rise to level of a substantial increase in traffic there. In particular, there is a kind of pinch point of where. Isabelle leads into Hebert, which leads on to Berlin street. And there's a sharp incline on Hebert as it approaches Berlin. In the winter with icy conditions there that can be a particularly hazardous spot. If you're not familiar with that area, the slope seems to me, someone like Park Ave in front of union elementary school where there isn't a stop sign at the top of that, I presume because they want people to have, you know, some, some motion to be able to make that turn at the top. I've always wondered why there's no stop sign there, but I kind of presume that that's why it is. Well, you got to have a stop sign at the end of Hebert road before you go out into Berlin. And it is a challenge. It's not infrequent that we see cars that are coming back because they couldn't make it all the way up that turn. A substantial increase in traffic there could create a more hazardous situation where that, that kind of situation is more likely to occur. Beyond that, I think the, the issue is one of sidewalks as well, not for the development itself, but for the people who already live in this area. Some years ago when the road was narrowed, Hebert in particular, some sidewalks were built on one side of that for a certain distance, but not on the most hazardous part of Hebert. There's a sharp turn and an incline there. And for those who, who are pedestrians in there, a lot of people do walking to lose the sidewalk on the most hazardous part of the road is already a risk for the people who live there. A risk that would be exacerbated by having both more cars and more pedestrians. So the height of sidewalks, the question of whether sidewalks are needed or not needed in the development, I don't have any strong opinion about that. But if we're talking about actually protect, protecting pedestrians in the community that would be affected by this development, it is that point. It seems to me that is a far greater concern. It is already a concern. And I know there are issues there. It's a challenging spot. There's a drop off on one side. There's rock ledge on the other. But that's a serious issue for, and of course we want to encourage more pedestrian traffic around. Finally, just with respect to traffic and what could be done to mitigate that undeniably substantial increase in traffic. I know it was mentioned that the previous development had proposed going down to 302. I still think that another point of entry to this development makes an awful lot of sense. I don't know about the economics of it, but it would certainly be. It would reduce a lot of the concerns that people have about the increased traffic that would come on Isabelle circle. Again, there's only 20 some homes on Isabelle circle. Now we enjoy that, but recognize that some increase in traffic is not unreasonable, but this would be more than just some. I think it would be a very substantial increase there. So either going down to 302 or finding some other means of mitigating against that I think would be helpful. And I do have questions and I assume that they will be addressed in the traffic study, but there is a talk about not an undue adverse impact and no substantial increase in traffic is just one of the criteria that is how you define an undue adverse effect. There is a lot of language there that it's not perfectly clear what it means. I don't have a substantial increase in the neighborhood. I don't have the exact language in front of me at this moment, or for other uses and so forth. I mean, again, I think some, I assume there'll be greater clarity on that in the traffic study, but that's something that I'm looking for. And again, I can just say we are concerned about that. The risks are an awful lot of children on Isabelle circle already. So I'm sure I've taken it more than my time, but I appreciate your willingness to listen because I'd love to see this happen. And I think that those people in our neighborhood welcome it happily. And I think that that's possible with a bit more work. So thanks very much. Thanks so much. Anybody else in the room. Thank you. My name is Christopher. I live at four Isabelle circle. I'd like to thank the development team and the DRB for having us. So I want to also remain open minded. And I truly understand that there's a great need for housing in Montpelier and the surrounding area, especially for folks at the low and middle income levels. So just a few things. The majority of the neighbors got together on Isabelle circle. And we presented Gabe and his team with our collective concerns, concerns. The number one was the road and the traffic. So this is just one word, one road in one road out in this current plan. And we have a lot of traffic in this area. So we have about 38 houses in the proposed cottage cluster, 16 housing lots sold separately. That's around 50 houses to possibly two cars each. That would be 108 new cars. Commuting at least twice a day to get in and out. Yeah. So this is a dead end road. And of course all this traffic feeds onto Berlin street. So we have a lot of traffic in this area. And we have a lot of traffic in this area. So we have a lot of traffic in this area. And I just mentioned the low volume of traffic in the proposed neighborhood. So there's no need for sidewalks. But that, of course, comes at the significant, at the cost that comes at the cost of a significant change to the volume of traffic in the existing neighborhood. So district three often feels left out of the sustainability conversation. The conversations around pedestrian friendly development in Montpelier. Personally speaking, my family and I, you know, we have a lot of traffic in this area. But fine, Berlin street, greatly lacking. Safe sidewalks and protected bike lanes. And those things that would encourage a safe pedestrian commuting for families with children. So, you know, Obviously we want to keep in mind our local response to global climate change. And I'd love to see more opportunities in our neighborhood for, you know, us to get downtown without cars to not be so dependent on cars locally. And, you know, I just think that we should collectively explore housing and development in a smart and future oriented way. Instead of just creating new commuters driving a hundred more cars in our past the existing neighborhood. So I think it's pretty, you know, kind of collective concern so far. So thank you. Thank you. Come on up. I'm Tina Muncie. I live at 27 Heaver Road. So also at the end of Isabel circle. I want to thank the developers. They came to listen to the community. And I think they have listened, which is nice. I just also want to say that. I'd like the city to support. The development that happens in Montpey. We certainly would like more housing to take place. And for that support. We've several people have spoken about sidewalks. And there are now at the end of Isabel circle sort of right in front of my house. There's a possibility of 12 children getting on the bus in the morning. If we assume some of the people that move into this development might have children that would add more. And I think the idea of the city, supporting the development by putting a sidewalk, at least on one side down Isabel circle and around Hebert to where the sidewalk is now is an issue of safety. I know you said within the development, perhaps that isn't necessary, but I think if the city were to look at it, it might be necessary to support the development. Thank you. Thank you for that. Anyone else? Oh, come on up. I think. What's your, what's your name? Heather Sepola, 24 Isabel down near the end. Most of my concerns have been addressed by my fellow neighbors. I'm, I was really sorry to see that the traffic report wasn't, wasn't back yet. I think we're all flying a little bit blind and talking about assumptions and things without that. And I look forward to having that. I, I'm probably not as concerned about the additional traffic. So my neighbors, although my children are grown, my dog is fat and lazy. She's not going to end up in the street. But one of the things I wanted to point out, a few of my neighbors have spoken about how Hebert was narrowed that when they repaved Hebert 10, 15 years ago, I just wanted to say that the city really bears some responsibility for what it did there. When the city repaved that road, I don't know if they do this in other rows of Montpelier. Sometimes I think like one of my neighbors mentioned, we in district three, maybe have a little chip on our shoulders. I don't know of any other streets in Montpelier that in order to repave a failing street, the decision was made to significantly narrow a road without a decide walks on it. So Hebert is an even greater concern to me than Isabel. Isabel is at least as wide as it always has been. And it allows a, you know, fair about a wiggle room. Hebert is flat out dangerous. It's been dangerous since I walk a lot. I will not take that right. I come to the end of Isabel. I will not walk Hebert in the wintertime. Once the piles of snow go up, it's my, you know, I leave for work at the same time the school bus comes down. I'm always terrified. I'm going to hit that first curve at the same time as the school bus. There's no room at all. Once walking home from high school in a snowstorm, my son almost got hit by a plow on Hebert. So I just want to, besides emphasizing the narrowness of Hebert and the dangerous of it, I really want to lay that at the feet of the city. The city messed that up massively 10 or 15 years ago. I always meant to holler about it. Not that organized, never hollered about it. So. I think the city really, if this goes forward, the city needs to do something about Hebert because it's, it's a disaster. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments from people in the room? Come on up, please. Hi. Hi, I'm Rachel caribou and I live at 28 Isabelle circle. And like my neighbors have addressed some of my other concerns, like with another exit. Can you see a little closer to the mic? Thank you. One of my big concerns is the wastewater stormwater. My lot gets all of that from the whole development that we have now. So I am totally like flooded. I have ditches on all sides of my law. I have like one on the left side of my driveway that goes down through. And then there's one that comes across. From the. Back of the houses on Isabelle circle. So that's two going down into the bat. And then on the right side, there's the big culvert in the back, the box, like they put in the road and. Like in the spring, like I've got like a roaring brook where there's no brook and it. Overflows the, you know, the ditches. And it just, just roars and, you know, damages the property. And in the back of my lot, it'll be all sitting in water for quite some time until it. Can disperse. And it's that water that also goes down on Taplin street. But it's not only Taplin street. It gets hit. It's me. If it's any more water comes on all that. It's going to flow to. Float away. So where is your wastewater going. From your development. Is it coming to that big culvert on my land? Waste water is going to be. The municipal collection system. So Jeff, you're going to need to talk into the microphones. Everybody else can hear you too. Sorry. And. Yeah. Waste water is going to go into the municipal collection system. And I think that's going to start water. Let me, I'm not sure exactly where you live, but let me make sure we're going to address again. 28 is a bell circle. It's also like on that blind corner with that road. Going to now be a, you know, constant. Traffic going down through. So it'll be hard, harder for me to get in and out. Okay. But the storm runoff. Where's that water going? Is it coming to that culvert that's on my land? Yeah. We'll definitely need to look into it. And we're going to have a field survey of all of the existing culverts in the surrounding area. So the intent is not to change anything. Regarding the runoff. This project is located where, where stormwater goes to the northeast and south of it. And we're going to make sure at all of those locations, the stormwater discharge improves. And I guess I can't directly answer your question. Yeah, you say you're not going to change it, but it's already bad. So. Because. Like I even get water coming off like he, but road, there's a culvert up at the top that's under the road. All the water for that area lands on my law. So just a reminder to direct comments and questions towards the board. And then, and, you know, part of this is so that the applicant can get your concerns. And if, you know, fold that into when they're doing their work, moving forward. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely appreciate your comments. And let me, let me take it. And it'll take some time here to come up with a solution and an adequate answer for you. That I look forward to providing a future. Thank you. Thanks for listening. Thanks very much. Okay. So I think we can turn to questions, comments. Okay. So I have a couple of questions from. Zoom. Can you help to. To identify those for us? Yeah. So I do know that there's a couple of people at the hands up, but I also know that George Johnson got on at the very, very beginning and let me know he had a question. So I want to make sure George has an opportunity. Okay. And I just want to remind. And I just want to remind folks that. If your comment is the same as what you've heard. I just want to make that very quickly. And then if there's an additional point, please take, you know, no more than two minutes. So thanks everybody. All right, George, go ahead. You have to unmute yourself. Can you do that? Can you find your little mute button? About now. Awesome. Okay. Good. I had a question, sort of a technical question. I looked at the proposal online. And then in section 35. Oh, two. It says quote moves Hebert road and Isabel circle to a different tier. In the road typologies. I don't know what typologies means, but I assume it means the classic class of the road. Like a class three road, a class four road. Is that right? Not quite. So. Mike would know a little bit more about this. I think it's a little bit different. I think it's a little bit different. And organized. All of the different types of streets within the city in a more of an internal topology where they, depending on the density of the population, the kinds of traffic it sees. How wide the road is. Determining whether or not. You know, there's a lot of sidewalks either on one side or both sides or no sidewalks. And Mike, it looks like you just opened up your camera. I don't know if you want to talk about this a little bit more. If you could. Yes. So the, the quick answer to this is. In 2017. While the city council was adopting the zoning. So this is why there's, they're not well meshed between these two plans. The city council, the city council, the city council, the city council, the city council planning and DPW working on a complete streets plan. So what this complete street plan was trying to do is to make sure that every street. Was walkable, bikeable and addressed cars. I mean, we've spent a hundred years addressing cars. So usually that's not the issue. It's, but it's making sure that. All of our road system work for all of the users. And so what the way we did this was to divide the, you know, the city council. And type seven is the smallest street, which would only have just the road. And it was assumed that because it's low traffic, you could bike and walk safely on the street. And then as you move yourself up through the ranks, you get a sidewalk on one side sidewalk on both sides. And then you start having bike lanes. And so as you get all the way up to the type one street, which would be, you know, main street. And then you start having a sidewalk on both sides of the street. And then you start having a sidewalk on both sides of the street. And then you start having a sidewalk on both sides of the street. So the street types. That's what the street types are looking at. Now it was a first draft that kind of went through. So Isabel circle and in. Hebert are both. Classed as a type seven street. So it's. Does not under that typology say that there should be sidewalks. Now. We didn't get to spend. A detailed time on every single street. So we just kind of a lot of work on that. So that would be, that would be a kind of, kind of giving us an opportunity at DPW. And the planning department and working with the developers to go through and say. To look at. Will the additional traffic. Move them move you, move the streets, if this is developed, will it move it from seven to a six. And if it moves into a six, then there's a sidewalk requirement. And if there's a sidewalk requirement, accomplished. And I can't speak to whether that would be, you know, in other parts of the country they would tag that on the developer. In Vermont it's a little less so because it's so expensive to build. So maybe part of our municipal part of this to go through and say maybe we need to have this, but we won't know that till we have the traffic report. And so that's why there's a little bit of question here about the street types is whether we're going to be shifting from that type seven, which says no sidewalk is necessary to being in type six, which says it is necessary. And there's no clear 100% line. But the streets were narrowed before we had these street type typologies. And they were narrowed for water, stormwater reasons. There was too much stormwater runoff. So they tried to reduce it. Whether that was, you know, that's basically how we got to where we are. And now the question is, what do we do to try to match our street types? Because the expectation is you want to have this right street type for every street so that it's safe for everybody to drive, safe for everybody to walk and safe for everybody to bike. And that's that's the key to our complete streets plan, which the city council has adopted. Okay, thank you for that. That clarifies that part. In a later section, 3504, apparently an expert of some sort said that at peak, there would be an additional 60 trips up and down these streets. And because Isabel Circle and Hebert are considered class three roads, he said that a maximum of 50 additional trips at peak morning and evening would be the maximum. Am I reading that wrong? It seems like we're at least 10 and quite possibly a lot more trips over what he recommends for a class three road. Does that have any impact on the approval of this whole project? So the 60-trip estimate, right, that's not based on a traffic study. That was information from Jeff, the consultant that's on here with the applicant. And I think is pulled from just some base tabular data that is out there right now. I can't think of the name of it. That's correct. The ITE, Institute of Traffic Engineers, they use different land use codes. So this land use code would be a residential complex. So it's just a based on, even if you know, it doesn't necessarily have to be development specific because people are individuals, they do things at different times. But very consistently, if you have a 57-unit development, it will generate in the morning. And the ratios are slightly different. It might be around to the same one, but in the morning and evening, during the peak hour, 57 cars will pass by. So everybody can do the math, right? That's one minute additional. So thinking your head, car passes by. Wait a minute. Another car is going to pass by. So that happens in the morning and evening. Okay. As Paul Burns said before, though, and he used the same words I'm going to use, I'm going to quote here, it's up to the developer to demonstrate no adverse effect upon traffic. And traffic will not be substantially greater. This is substantially greater if one car a minute is going to go by. That just doesn't happen now. This is a substantial increase in traffic by any stretch of the imagination. And possibly the 60 trips morning and night are an undercount if you have 100 cars in this development. But that's up to debate, I guess, if you have the numbers. I think the terms Paul used were right from the proposal. Substantially greater traffic and adverse effects. So I'll leave it at that. Later in this same section, it references two access points for a typical development like this. And it says that the board may waive this requirement if it's impractical. Again, I'd ask what the meaning of impractical is and who determines that I assume it would be the board. But what are the criteria for determining that it's impractical to investigate or build another access point to this development? And why would the board waive that? And I assume that has nothing to do with the price of constructing a road, which would be very pricey to do. That's not the board's that's not the board's purview to worry about what it costs to create the other access point, I don't think. And finally, there was a section dealing with compatibility with the existing neighborhood. And I'm not going to get into that because that's a real can of worms. But in the staff comment after that section, it said, and I quote, the board should keep in mind history of subdivision development in this neighborhood. And I'm not sure what that refers to. And maybe Meredith could address that. What history is being referred to there? I'm sorry, I'm kind of lost what you're talking about. I know, I didn't write down that citation on it. I'm puzzling you. Yeah. So I think that might have been in relation to like what else is going on with the neighborhood that there are multiple developments in the neighborhood, either that happened or that were proposed, that it's it's a it's sort of a planned neighborhood of residential groupings, right? And so that's what I meant by the compatibility. It doesn't tie into necessarily specifically traffic, things like that. But you know, we're not talking about starting a proposal that is a mix of uses with subdivision and, you know, with residential and commercial all mixed in in the midst of a grouping of small residential neighborhoods. That's where I think that's where I was getting at with that in mind what's happened here before. Okay, I was just I thought it was puzzled by the word history there. I can give you one piece of history for the board's edification here. When this proposal was last brought to the attention of the city in 2007, a big development was proposed for this parcel back there. I think some entity in the city, perhaps the DRB, finally decided that there should not be access from Isabel Circle, but they were going to require the developer to build a road up and down below. And at the end of Isabel Circle, there would be a high curb constructed so that only emergency vehicles could get over it and regular cars could not get over it. And that was a compromise to allow access for emergency vehicles to that proposed development. I don't know whether the board considers this a precedent or not, but I certainly would think that they should take this into consideration to a previous board that was their solution to this same question of access from Isabel Circle. And granted, it was a much bigger development at that point, as the current developers pointed out. But again, is the cost of something a factor which the board has to consider? I don't think so. Thank you. Thank you for that. I think that's it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, let's keep going. See Barbara? Yep. Thank you. I'm Barbara Thompson. I live at 35 Hebert Road, Unit 2 in the Stonewall Meadows Condominium Association. This has been a really interesting discussion and I thank everyone for participating. It's brought up a lot of things. I share the interest in the concern about Hebert Road as a dangerous road. It has no lane markings and people use it as a one-lane road. I also share very much the concern about stormwater and drainage issues. And the stormwater, I wanted to ask the question about the stormwater retention areas in the plan of the developers. There were three areas that were mentioned and I wanted to know a little bit more about what those would be. I'm concerned about the neighbor on Kaplan Street, who's had a lot of water problems. And then the neighbor at this meeting tonight, who talked about her drainage problems. Because I see from our condo association, which is part probably of the history of subdivision development in this neighborhood, many issues which I'm concerned about. And perhaps I have a unique point of view as a condominium owner. When I looked at that plan tonight of the cottage developments, my first question was who's going to manage this? Who's going to plow those sidewalks? Who's going to landscape those common areas? How are people going to agree on that? Because I live in a 12-unit condominium. And it's very difficult and very expensive on our area, on our sloping areas to maintain this. And we 12 homeowners spend a lot of money maintaining it. We have supposedly municipal water and sewage. But we have a very expensive pump system that we have to pump our sewage water up to meet the city water, excuse me, the city sewage drainage. And this has put additional costs on our homeowner association. When I look at the plan for this cottage development, there is no way I would buy one of those. How are you going to have people walking in the middle of winter along those sidewalks with no car access? It's just totally impractical for Vermont winters. And that's all I have to say about that. And I'm sorry because I like the idea of the cottage clusters but I don't think it's practical for our winter situation. Thank you. Okay, thank you. And next I see Ivan. Thank you board members for providing the opportunity for us to comment tonight. I am remotely participating in this meeting. And I'm here tonight to comment on the design identified as for the Isabella Circle in Stonewall Meadows. I'll be brief. The infrastructure that we have, the right-of-way, public right-of-way infrastructure that we have is not capable of servicing this design. Our as-built neighborhood right now has 49 single-family homes, 12 condominium units, and 10 apartments that makes a total of 71 dwelling units in the neighborhood. This application has approximately 54 additional dwelling units to be added to the neighborhood. That's an increase of 76 percent to the number of dwelling units that are to be served by the intersection of Hebert Road and Burley Street, which is an unsignaled intersection. It has a bent T geometry and the percent slope on Hebert Road near the intersection is as high as 16 percent to 19 percent. And those aren't numbers that I obtained just by eyeballing it. That's from open source state one-foot contour data. And if you add snow and ice to this geometry, which is way less than ideal already, it makes it even less than ideal for traversing through that intersection there. And otherwise, the prior comments captured what prior comments captured the other points I had to say. Again, thank you. Thank you. Okay. Julie Griffin, you're next. Hi. I'm Julie Griffin. I live at 222 Berlin Street, so a little bit outside of your guys' neighborhood. But I kind of want to jump in on the traffic bandwagon here. My family's lived in this house since 1967, which means that we predate Stonewall Meadows, Isabel Circle, Shaw's, the mall, Cardiola ships. And I can say that the biggest negative impact in quality of life over the past 50 years has been the amount of traffic that we have going up and down Berlin Street. I mean, I understand that my situation is very different from yours. But I would say that if you have bought places on Isabel Circle hoping for a quiet neighborhood, doubling the traffic will be a negative impact on you, I would think. And I also think that Berlin Street has kind of gotten tapped out with how much traffic pressure it can have and handle with school buses, car delivery, delivery stuff, residents. And I love the idea of affordable housing, but I do think that if there can be almost like a pressure valve release with the access point being to the very road, that would be super helpful. And not in a single access point, if that's even possible. But I think that kind of having the quiet neighborhood that you guys have now, I would think you would want to preserve. It's pretty impactful to have cars going by all the time. And that's my biggest, that would be my biggest concern from my perspective, adding 100 more cars potentially per day, twice a day. And I can only imagine what it would do to you guys, but that's my input. And this has been pretty informative, actually. So I thank you for having it. Thank you, Julie. Mori Lynch. Thank you. Thank you again for the board and developers for the presentation. And I pretty much will just reiterate what George and Paul and Ivan and Julian, most of us, have mentioned with the traffic. Oh, and for the record, that's six Hebert Road, which is right on the bend coming into the neighborhood. So after you go down the steep slope, you come right around the bend and my property is right there. So yes, the additional traffic would be quite a concern. You know, it was mentioned during the board section about emergency response or for the particular development itself. But the other concern would be emergency response into the development with all of those additional cars. And, you know, both in inclement weather and, you know, it was about six or seven years ago, there was a telephone pole that came across, came down across the road. And there was no access to this entire neighborhood for four or five hours, six hours. So yeah, just again, reiterating what's already been said. And thank you for your time. Thank you, Mori. And last I see is it Peter Kelman. I'm Peter Kelman. I live in District Three in the other major access area on North Field Street, but I live in Mountain View Street. And I'm going to address here not so much the DRB, but address Mike Miller, Planning and Zoning, the Public Works people, and Bill Frazier. I think it's very clear from listening to all the comments here that many people have described a situation that is already difficult in terms of traffic and street safety and erosion and so forth. This is going to be true for all developments that are proposed in Montpelier, whether it's this project or Habitat for Humanity or the Elks Club or the possibility of having something at the corner of North Field Street and our neighborhood. And I think that the city has a great opportunity, and I think Mike Miller actually identified this, the city has a great opportunity to support development by making an investment in infrastructure that will not only make possible the new development, but make the older neighborhoods safer, better serviced, etc. And Bill Frazier often says, well, we don't do development, developers do that. Yes, that's true. But what the city can do, and Public Works has got to play a big role in this as well as planting and zoning, what the city can do is to make the infrastructure investments that will make the overall city more livable. If we have traffic flowing down Northfield Street, traffic flowing down Berlin Street, this is going to cause incredible traffic problems where we already have traffic problems at the intersection of Northfield and Riverspeed. So the city has got to do some planning about this. I'm very much in favor of this project. I'm very much in favor of all those projects. But the city's got to step up, I think, and support the projects with the proper infrastructure. Thank you. Thank you, Peter. Okay, I don't see any additional new hands raised. Meredith, am I missing anything? Well, I think Barbara had actually put her hand down and then put it back up. Julie's is still up and Peter's is still up. There's didn't go away, but I think Barbara's actually went back up. Is that right, Barbara? That's correct. I just wanted to affirm what Peter just said. I believe what I've heard from this discussion tonight is that the city needs to take more responsibility for building up the infrastructure that will support these kind of development projects. And I also wanted just to reaffirm about the access. We had a tree down at the beginning of Berlin Street and Hebert Road one last year sometime, and we were not able to have access to this whole neighborhood for half a day. So that wasn't a problem that day, but in terms of having more climate emergencies, more, you know, we need another access point to this neighborhood. Thank you. Okay, thank you. So I'd like to wrap up the public comment period now, and I just want to thank everybody for turning out tonight and for sharing your thoughts and asking your questions. Applicant, I'd love to give you a couple of minutes in close or response or anything that you'd like to say before we wrap tonight. I just say I just thank everyone who participated tonight. Really good feedback. We the more information we have the better we can, you know, produce something that people are going to be we're never going to satisfy everyone we know, but that certainly safety is a number one concern of all of us and a priority for however we might move forward. Thank you. Okay. So thank you everybody. We are coming to the close of our meeting and going back to the agenda. So other other business. We have next meeting scheduled for July 18th. Is that correct, Meredith? Yep. Yep. Everybody gets a July 4th holiday, including me. Oh, good. You deserve it. Okay. All right. So with that, I think I'll take a motion to adjourn. I think a motion to adjourn. There a second? I'll second. Thank you, Catherine. All right. So Sharon, how do you vote? Yay. Catherine? Yay. Michael? Yes. Gene? Oh, I think we lost Gene. Okay. And I vote yes. So with that, we are adjourned. Thank you.