 Okay, all right. So good evening, everyone. Welcome to the city of South Burlington Development Review Board meeting of February 2nd, 2022. My name is Dawn Filibert, I'm the chair of the DRB and with us tonight are other board members, Mark Baer, Frank Coakman, Jim Langen, Stephanie Wyman, Dan Albrecht and Quinn Mann. And in attendance in the city of South Burlington, Marla Keene, our development review planner and Delilah Hall, our zoning administrator. We are using a new platform for audio video conferencing tonight, we're using Zoom, this is the first time. So bear with us if we encounter some little glitches as we go through the meeting. There are, yep. I understand that it's possible. Are there any people in the audience, Marla? Okay, good, thank you. So there, okay, thank you. So there are a number of ways for people to participate in this meeting, virtually as we are doing now, in person at the auditorium at City Hall and also by phone. For you folks who are actually in the auditorium now, thank you for all of you, thank you for attending, but for those of you at City Hall, at the back of the room, there are two sets of doors and in an emergency, you can evacuate the auditorium and the City Hall by going through either of those doors and turning left or right to get outside. Couple of guidelines for virtual attendance and we don't know how many more meetings we're going to be doing virtually. We had the pleasure of being in the brand new auditorium for a couple of meetings and here we are back again and I don't think we know what the near future is going to bring, but please keep your microphones muted and your cameras off unless you've been recognized to present. We will leave the cameras of the board members on for people to see. And during the public comment, if you wish to participate, either raise your hand if we have, if we see, turn your video on and raise your hand or you may make a comment in the comment section or the chat function to be recognized. And please try to avoid crosstalk in the chat function. First of all, it's not part of the public record and second of all, it can be very distracting for all of us, so thank you for that. So let's turn to tonight's agenda. The first agenda item, oh, let's see, emergency evacuation procedures, which I already did. And then number two, additions, deletions or changes in the order of the agenda items. And we do have one change tonight or one addition, I should say. And that is, and Marla, I'm sorry, I don't have the name of the number of the project. So that's SD2201 of five, Johnson and I. You have that, okay. We are going to open that hearing up again because some issues have come up that we need to resolve. So I would entertain a motion to open that project. Don, I'll make a motion that we reopen whatever that project number you just said. Okay, thanks, Mark. Do I have a second? Reconsideration. Great, thanks. Second? I'll second. Okay, thank you. Any discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No, okay, thank you. So we will open that up and review it at a future date. Announcements. Are there any announcements? Let's see. I think the meeting is being recorded. Thank you for attending. We talked about signing. For those of you who are in the auditorium, please make sure you sign the sign-in sheet in case you wanna have party status at a later point in time. Those of you on the phone or virtually you can indicate your participation by either noting it in the chat room with your contact information or by emailing Marla at M-K-E-A-N-E at s-b-u-r-l dot com. Are there any comments or questions from the public that are not related to the agenda? Okay, hearing none, I think we will move on to our first item. The first one, a number five on the agenda is the continued final PLAT application SD 2126 of Greenfield Capital LLC to consolidate three lots of 6.77 acres, lot 11, 6.62 acres, lot 12, and 6.42 acres, lot 13 into one lot for the purpose of constructing a 130,790 square foot on a single 19.81 acre lot. The application for development is being reviewed under separate site plan application and this is at 443 community drive. So what we have before us tonight is a draft written decision that Marla has presented to us and it is before you now. And I do not actually see any red comments from Marla. So I think, Marla correct me if I'm wrong, you're just, we are just voting to close this. So I'm just going to go through these comments on what was in the draft draft decision and then if the board had any things that they wanted to talk about and then you can have a public comment and then close. Okay, good. All right. Hi, Don, Don, this is Jim Lang and I, I'm gonna recuse myself from this. So I'll step away. Okay, thank you Jim. And Stephanie, you're recused too, aren't you? Yes, that's great. Okay, thank you. So who is here for the applicant? Because I saw John Illich, I think earlier. We have some folks here in person. John, are you here? We have several members of the team. Okay, who's here for the applicant? Chris Huston, Johnny Illich and Mike Obiyama. Okay. Okay. I'm not a thank you. Thank you for coming in on previous nights. Marla, do I need to swear them in again? Correct. There are other members of the team here as well. And I believe you all have, haven't you? If you're not gonna be providing testimony, we don't need to swear you in. Perfect, thank you. Okay. Yes, that's correct. Okay, good. So is that your name, Chris? Are you? So Chris, this is an opportunity for you to respond to anything in the draft decision that you might want the board to hear. Yes, I think so. Simple as that. All right, thanks. Board, any comments that people would like to make? Send me by email. This will be- Questions or comments? No. I did because, and I tried to call you because I didn't quite understand what you were proposing to do. You had the requirement of an easement D to an indeterminate entity. And I thought that was legally questionable. And apparently you've done it before with a blessing. Presumably with the blessing of council, I'm not sure. But I'll illustrate what I mean. Before the statute was changed to, you know, if so fact that according to the legislature make an estate, a death estate, a quote entity, you could not convey property to or from the estate of so-and-so. You had to convey it to or from the named executor or administrator as executive administrator because that was a tangible actual person. That's the principle behind the question I had or the concern I had about the way the condition was framed for the easement D. What I read was a D that went to the undefined owner of lot nine B. To me, that violated the legal principle. I'm particularly anxious to have, if we're gonna pursue this at all, to have Jim weigh in on that. Or- Yeah, I did pursue it further. So I looked at the D that they had sent, which I will look at again now. So I have it right in front of me. Jim's recused. Jim's gone. Oh, Jim's, he's recused, right? He's recused. So lot nine B Anyway, that's the comment. Yep. Can you- Can you still hear it? Can you not hear us? I'm sorry, Frank. What did you say? Okay. Okay. So- No, I can hear you fine. I just thought this was the best I could get. Greenfield Capital LLC, which Frank correctly states does not yet own the lot, to the Community Drive Burlington LLC this easement. So I think the defect here, Frank, if I were to restate it, is that Greenfield Capital does not yet own the land that underlies the easement, and therefore they cannot convey it to Community Drive Burlington LLC. Wait a minute. Has it been revived? Because the one I saw just said to the owner of lot nine B, that was my concern. In other words, I don't have any problem if you set a condition of this permit, is that upon prior to doing any work or you shall convey an easement substantially to Community Drive LLC in the form attached or the form of this easement deed. But that's not what I read. What I read was something that ran to quote the owner of lot B, of lot nine B on the face of the deed. And that's what I was raising as a prop. Delilah's gonna pull it up on the screen. It's 21, 26. And if you saw it by most recent, it's the newest thing in the folder. This is very strange because Delilah and I had to switch computers as well as being a new meeting. Perfect, yeah, cause I'm in it. And then she's just gonna share a screen. I think right where you are, right, the first page. The Greenfield Capital, does freely give grants, self-convey, confirm unto the lot nine B owner. Okay, all right. Community Drive does exist, right? All right. No, I would throw the concern. I'm sorry, I misread it. I thought you were going into an indeterminate person. Yes. But Community Drive LLC is- Okay, and then we'll change the condition to say instead of prior to recording the Mylar because Greenfield Capital won't own it at the time of recording the Mylar to before getting the zoning permit because of that time they will own it. Okay, okay, sorry, that's fine. Dawn, I think you're muted. Indeed I was, thanks. Thank you, Frank and Marla. Are there any members of the public who would like to provide testimony about this project? There are not, no. Any present in the auditorium? And Delilah, are there any online who have indicated an interest? No, okay, thanks. Okay, hearing none. I would entertain a motion to close this hearing. I'll make a motion that we close final application SD 2126 of Greenfield Capital LLC. Great, thank you. Second, thanks, Dan. Any discussion? All in favor of closing this hearing? Say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No, it is closed. Thank you, applicant. We're moving right on to your other project. The next agenda item is item number six, continued site plan application SP 21046 of Greenfield Capital LLC to construct a two to three story 130,790 square foot light manufacturing warehouse and office project, 418 parking spaces and associated site improvements on a proposed 19.81 acre lot at 443 community drive. We have a staff report. I've got to get mine up here. So this is a draft decision. And there are a couple of staff comments as well. There was one, I think red item in there. Right. I don't seem to have mine. Okay. I don't seem to have mine on my iPad. So if we could turn to the red areas, please. That's right. Page seven and page eight. Thank you. So this was about the plan soil preparation specification. They actually did provide that. And the city arborist did review it and said it looks good. So my proposed modification here would be to I guess it's up to the board, but I would, I mean, we would have to change this to say that it's fine. And then the board, I'll have to decide whether to include the comments of the city arborist anyway. So we can do that quickly, delivered to flee later if we'd like. Okay. Okay. Fine. Everyone okay with that? Yeah. Okay. And the next comment on page eight. I think we're going to have to do that. Okay. And the next comment on page eight, there's a comment, I believe this is about screening of the transformer with you shrubs on three sides. So the open side shall be turned to face the building so that the cabinets have at least possible visibility from the public way. Is everybody on the board okay with that? Anybody have any problems with it? Is there a problem in closing the electrical transformer with some sort of gate. Rather than having it open. Well, they will have this will have trees on three sides. Right. And I'm saying on the open side, instead of having it open. It would be possible to have. They certainly could. I think this is correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is like, it's a typical transformer like the light green, fully enclosed box, right? Correct. All right, they're all over the place. They're routine. Okay. I would throw the comment. Okay. Thanks, Frank. I think that's it. So. Fucking dick. Pardon. Um, I think that's it for the comments there. Okay. Are there any other board questions or comments? Are there any members of the public that would like to provide testimony? Any, any indicated online. Um, Delilah. No, okay. So, um, I would entertain a motion to. Close this hearing. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Do I hear a second? Sure. Thanks, Dan. Any discussion before we take a vote? Okay. All in favor of closing. SP 21, zero, four, six. Say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Nope. Okay. The hearing is closed. Thank you all so much for the time. Really appreciate it. Good luck. Super excited about seeing this project here in South Burlington. Thank you very much. Good. We'll look forward to seeing it. Seeing it emerge. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Next item on the agenda. Uh, item number seven, which is preliminary and final flat application. SD 21 41 of the Snyder group incorporated to amend a previously approved plan for planned unit development on 25. 93 acres consisting of 18 single family dwellings. 10, uh, two family dwellings, three, three unit multifamily dwellings and an existing single family home. The amendment consists of eliminating an approved left lane, turn lane on spear street, modifying approval landscaping approved landscaping. Um, along spear street and minor minor modifications to water sewer and drainage pipes. Uh, 13, oh, two, 13, four, oh, and 13, five, oh. Spear street. Um, Stephanie and Jim, I believe you're back with us. I'm back. Yes. Okay. Good. Thanks. Welcome back. Um, So, um, Let me find mine here. All right. Um, are there any recusals or, um, Or things people would like to disclose? Okay. Hearing none. Let's move on to the staff comments. Be already swearing. Um, Comment number one. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Who is here for the applicant? Please. I'm sorry. Andy row with Lamar Owen Dickinson and Gary Farrell. Land over here. And is also on line with us tonight as well. Okay. Thank you, Andy. Um, would you both please raise your right hand. Do solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth under penalty of perjury. I do. Thank you. Uh, Gary, did I hear you say yes? I, I do. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Gary. All right. Um, Would you please give us a very brief overview of. What is before us tonight. Andy. Yep. So this project was originally approved by the board in 2017. Staff report gets into a little bit of the history on the delay. But construction is now underway on this project. Late in the fall. Um, this application. Uh, primarily involves a number of technical modifications to the plan sort of housekeeping items that evolved as we reviewed. Um, The plans for construction with the, uh, public works department and water department. And the elimination of the southbound turn lane on spear street. Um, I would note that in 2017, when this application was under original review, that the turn lane wasn't warranted at that time, but it was requested by the director of public works. When it was revisited, actually, uh, the issue was raised by the director of public works. Um, Earlier in 2021, um, We redid the analysis again, came up with the same conclusion that it was not warranted. And the public works director, uh, at this time agreed and we're now moving forward with the application seeking removal of that turn lane requirement. Okay. Thank you very much. So let's turn to the staff report comments on page four. There, uh, the first comment is, um, Approval of the southbound. Left. Turn. Uh, board accepts. So, so the, the question is, does the staff. I mean, does the board accept the recommendations and conclusions of the director of public works that this can be eliminated? Yes. Uh, this is, this is Jim. I, I have a number of questions and concerns that I can wait for other folks to weigh in, but, um, I have, I have a few questions. Okay. So, so do I, but I'll defer. I'll wait to hear what Jim has to say before I voice. Is there anyone else other than Jim and Frank who would like to weigh in on this? No, don't. In regards to specifically the southbound left turn lane. I don't have. I'm not in conflict with the director of public works as a recommendation to accept that change. Okay. Thanks, Mark. I would like to obviously hear what the other board members. Sure. Of course. So Jim, go ahead. Tell us what your thoughts and concerns are. Sure. Yeah. I just, um, I mean, I, I drive on this. Uh, segment, um, daily, um, and, and I'm a little, it's the proposed. Intersection here is, is really where the left hand term would be is, is really close to swift and spear. And just with the traffic volumes. That are going in both directions, especially in the PM hours. It's going to be hard. For someone to turn left. Um, Into this new development. Um, and I think it's pretty likely that the cars, cars would be backed up into the intersection of swift and spear. Um, Waiting for someone to be able to turn left into this development. Um, and, and I think that's, that's going to create some, um, Some additional problems in an already problematic. Intersection that's swift and spear. Um, so it's, I mean, it's a pretty steady stream of, of traffic, um, heading in both directions. Um, you know, around, around five o'clock. Um, and I, I, I see it as, as, as, as an issue. And then, So that's my sort of general concern. And then just looking through the traffic study. Um, I have a number of sort of questions. Um, on page. On page 20 of our packet. Um, you know, it's using an assumption for. Traffic levels. Uh, it's using 2013 numbers. Um, Not statistics, but just sort of statements that. You know, Traffic volumes in Vermont's urban areas have declined since 2008. Um, which. May be true if you factor in sort of, you know, urban areas around the state, like. You know, Rutland or, or Barrie or St. Albans city that are declining in population, but. Um, since 2008 South Burlington is a lot larger and so is Shelburne. Um, And so is, uh, The sort of the campus. Um, That is at the top of spear street that. Um, A lot of these cars are going to both the medical center and the university. And so I, I don't think that's, I think. I'd be surprised if the 2013. Numbers on spear street as opposed to Vermont. Um, Um, You know, So the crash data, this is a high crash segment. Um, and it's sort of explained the way that. You know, The crashes are occurring at the intersection of swift and spear for the most part, but. Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Cool. Um, Um, Um, That's sort of exactly my point. Um, You're going to be impacting this, this segment. So on page 23. Um, It feels like the, the traffic assessment is explaining a way. Um, The fact that this is already a hide, a high crash zone. So that's a concern to me. Um, And I also just want to point out that, um, This, although the speed limit is 35 miles an hour, who drive this regularly would agree that that is not the speed that cars are going on this road. And so I think most, you know, most cars are going well above that speed. And so I think having this without a left turn lane here, I think the chances of rear end crashes seems to me to be high. So I'm not a traffic engineer. I'm a local resident. I have been on the board of local motion. So I've studied some of this stuff, but I'm not a student of it. But those are my concerns. Thank you, Jim. Very articulate, as always. Frank, do you want to follow up with this, with your thoughts and comments? Broadly, I did not put in the work that Jim did on the particulars. I just have the same concern as a regular user of the road segment. And particularly with the knowledge that traffic is only going to continue to grow on Spears Street. There's no possibility that there's going to be anything over in the coming years, except in opposed to the change. Let's keep it simple. I think Jim articulated all the specifics. But as a user, my empirical sense is that the left-hand turn lane belongs, if it's already in there, and we are not required to grant the amendment, which I don't think we are. If anybody wants to make the argument otherwise, they can't. I would oppose the amendment in that respect. We're basically judging reasons. Don, I just wanted to make one point that I forgot to make was that also the, I mean, there was a 2004 scoping study for the Spears Street corridor, and there have been a number of changes since then. But one of the facts in that study that's on the DPW, not the city's web page, is that the intersection at Nolan Farm, Deerfield, and Spear is already at a level F in 2004 was at that level. It is much worse now. And the traffic study says about 20% of the traffic from this development is going to be diverted to Nolan Farm, which I think will contribute to it. So I think we've got some issues. I mean, it's not specific to this turn lane, but there are real issues on this stretch of the road that I think this turn lane was, at least originally, trying to address. Thank you, Jim. Other members of the board, what are your thoughts? Don Mark here. No, I would just say that with Jim's explanation and the fact that it was originally approved, and I see where he's coming from, and I don't see a great reason to reduce and reduce the ability to provide turn lanes on an already heavily trafficked road. Unless, for some reason, adding, putting this turn lane adds to a traffic issue or something that makes it more dangerous, I agree. I think we should leave it as is. So Marla, do you thank you, Mark. Do you have any insight into why Justin thought it was appropriate to remove the turning lane? Would you like to hear from me, or would you like to hear from Andy in response to some of these concerns? OK. Well, Andy's the applicant. I'm really interested in what. I'm happy to hear from Andy, but I'd like to hear from Justin's perspective first, please. He said, I'm good with the analysis that's presented and agree with their proposed removal of the turn lane. However, Justin reviewed the study in pretty great detail and sent some minor corrections to the study back to the applicant in his initial read-through. There were some numbers transposed, and he asked them to provide justification for the 35 miles an hour. Ultimately, my understanding is that, well, two factors. One, the city is sort of in the business of getting away from widening our highways. More pavement means more speed, means more maintenance costs, and it's just sort of philosophically the direction the city wants to head, which is to increase multimodal connectivity rather than increasing the speed and facility of our vehicular network. So that's part one. And then part two is there is a short term to medium term plan to restripe Spear Street so that it is presently two 12-foot lanes. And then on the east side, it's a two, one and a half foot shoulder and the remainder on the west side. So it's between four and six foot shoulder on the west side. I'm sure you've seen it. People bike on the west side going southbound. And then when they loop back, they loop back on Dorset Street going northbound just because that's the way the shoulders are safest. The long term plan is to, or the medium term plan is to restripe Spear Street to be two 10-foot lanes and two 5-foot bike lanes. And so in that scenario, it would be a slower speed road and there would be sort of more consistent treatment along and there would be more room for bikes and pedestrians along the side. So I think that he was thinking of that sort of medium term plan in having this be compatible with that. But doesn't that exacerbate the traffic analysis that this is not warranted from, warranted is a scientific term in this case, from a traffic analysis perspective. So while everyone perceives traffic in their own way, there are specific metrics. And those specific metrics included that this turn lane is not necessary in this location. OK, thank you. So Andy, talk to us about this, please. So again, just as a reminder, I think one of the things that Marla relayed from Justin was the city's thought process has evolved on this. Because again, and I mentioned this earlier, the turn lane wasn't warranted in 2016, 2017 with the traffic study, the larger traffic study, and the turn lane analysis was originally performed. And just to note, I'm not the author. Roger Dickinson, our traffic engineer, is the one that authored this analysis and the original report. And just responding to a couple of items that Jim had raised, the entrance to this project, the Elm Street, Spear Street intersection, Elm Street being the proposed street into Spear Meadows, is about 1,200 feet south of the intersection of Swift and Spear. And I was pretty conservative in measuring that. That's probably from the self approach on Spear Street, from about the stop bar. So I'm not measuring to the north side or to the center of the intersection. So I think the example room for cars to queue up during the peak hour, if there's somebody stopped wanting to make a left turn in and it does result in a queue behind them. There's 1,200 feet there, which is a fair amount of room, a lot of room for vehicles to queue behind them. The point that Marla relayed from Justin as well is if you've got the turn lane, it allows for a freer flow of traffic, which can also result in higher speeds. The volume of traffic can also tend to slow things down as well. I did wanna point out that the count data that the traffic study was based upon and the updated turn lane warrant analysis was based upon was a continuous count recorder that's located on Spear Street, just to the west, I believe, of Swift, excuse me, on Swift Street, just to the west of Spear. So while it was not capturing the data on Spear Street itself, it certainly is in the vicinity of the project and it's not another municipality or another part of Chittin County, a less urban area. So what year is that from? That was a 2020 continuous count. During the pandemic lockdown, what was that? Yes, but I think it's also important to note that the D-Trans growth factors look at a longer period and that's where the 2.5% increase comes in. Certainly traffic volumes have decreased during the COVID period. They also decreased and have only, and again, I'm talking sort of in general terms, but from 2008, the downturn in 2008, they're only getting back now to about 2008 levels. And around that time period, or since that time period, D-Trans has been looking at those growth factors and they've been much more modest growth factors than some of the growth factors that have been applied prior to 2008. So I'm not disputing the traffic volume that exists, especially for somebody that commutes regularly on Spear Street, but rather pointing out that overall traffic volumes aren't increasing at the same rate that they have in the past. Is it due to commuting patterns, working from home, multimodal, probably a combination of all of those factors? Yeah, yeah, I mean, it was 2020 was a different, I mean, Spear Street was pleasant for a while actually. So these numbers were recorded in 2020. I mean, that when, yeah, that's, I mean, I would think that that's gonna be the low point from the last 10 years. So that's interesting. Yes, but we weren't looking just at the 2020 data, not just a snapshot, but that was the most recent data looking up to and including 2020. Okay, thank you, Andy. Any other board members wanna weigh in on this? If I can just offer one more thing. I mean, if the board is looking for additional information or is leaning toward requiring keeping the left turn lane or is interested in continuing this conversation with Roger Dick, it said we prepared the traffic impact this afternoon originally, and both of the left turn lane analyses, he can certainly be available. He's not available tonight, but if you wanna continue the hearing, he could be available at the next opportunity. Again, if you want to get into a greater more detailed discussion on the analysis. What do you think? Thank you, Andy. What do you think board members about continuing? I have a question just for clarity. Sure, Dan. Well, it's a southbound lane, or it's a lane within Spear Street to enable people turn left into the development, correct? Correct. Okay. Second question is when this was approved before, I see the thing about the trip ends. Was it required because of the trip ends or was it just sort of like the board thought it would be a good idea? I don't wanna speak for the board. I'm not sure how many members were on the board at the time this project was originally reviewed, but we had provided a traffic impact assessment that included the turn lane analysis to Justin, who was public works director at that time, and it was Justin's request that the turn lane be provided. It was not because the turn lane was warranted. And again, my recollection was it wasn't something that was requested by the board. It was that request originated with the public works director at the time. Dawn. Yes. I can speak to... I think Frank was too. Loosely only because I probably am the only member of the board that it's... Yeah, it's a 2017. Frank was there. Dawn, for the initial, Frank was as well. Original, original, no. Oh, 2017, okay. I'm thinking back to like the full... The gosh. Yeah. Hot. But I think in regards to turn lanes, typically, and I think this more goes to the board's general consensus is that, we get recommendations that staff and the applicant and public works have worked out. And in general, we rarely sort of make recommendations for a requirement. It's something that's brought to us as a board and we agree or disagree. And we generally, and this is historically, agree with public works as recommendation for how it should go. So, I hear Jim's argument. I'm in agreement with it, but I also hear the technical side of it, which is really what the reality versus perception. So, I am leaning towards, I can hear from Roger Dickinson, but we're just gonna get more numbers. And I think this might be sort of like a longer term issue, especially given the information regarding the future planning of going down to 10-foot lanes, which will also slow down traffic because 12-foot lanes just feels like a raceway and getting better bike lanes on both sides than just on one side. So, I think this is something where we need to get some more testimony and I'm not prepared to make a decision tonight. I could kind of go both ways because I typically err on the side of providing better safety features, but I don't want to require it if we're gonna be changing it long-term. Can I make a request to the applicant? And it's just for, I was trying to look it up on my employer's website and I shouldn't be doing a better job at this. Can we get a simple, I started going to the AADT traffic volume data that's linked on our website, but it's a little clunkier system to look up. I mean, I think if we just had sort of like southbound, well, south and northbound, Spear Street, traffic count data, just raw data, just so people can think about this, you know, because yeah, that would just sort of help and obviously 2020s of, I don't even know how often it's been assessed, but I'm sure it's got relatively robust data and it'll tell us something and what's real and what's not. So, Marla, what are your thoughts about that? Is that possible to get that data? I'm asking the applicant to do it. Oh, all right, thank you. Yeah, we'd be happy to provide the count data, both Bailey and A.M. and P.M. Peak Hour, first Spear Street. Okay, good, good, good, good, good, good. Kind of shows what that P.M. Peak Hour traffic is. Does it not, I'm not super great at reading these traffic studies. It has the design hour volume for the P.M. Peak Hour, or you can determine that from the, from Figure Three. Well, of course that reflects current conditions, right? You'll find. Right, that's the 2022 estimated, but we can certainly run it again. That's estimated, that's not the actual count. No, Figure Three presents the estimated 2022. Which includes the project, right? That's what makes it estimated. Design hour volume for the P.M. Peak Hour, correct. But it's also increased from the count data that we had obtained to get to the year 2022 and then it was also projected out to 2027. I want to get into the technical volume. I'm sorry, and you went in the middle of something or something. Thank you. You're breaking up a lot, Frank. It's kind of hard to hear you sometime. Is this any better? Yes, yes. Let me leave. I'm some distance away from, because it's set up for the TV. Can you hear me now, okay? Yeah, I didn't want to interrupt Andy. I started to say something, but I cut him off in mid-sentences. Andy, you want to finish your thought? Yeah, so the volumes were also projected to 2027 to reflect the full build out of the project. Okay, now I'll say what I wanted to say. A couple of... Oops, you cut out, Frank. So first, it's crystal of the case law that of course there's nothing about the traffic studies that bind us. They're simply an aid if we want to use them as a matter of law. Secondly, I don't want to get in a technical argument with Roger because it's entirely possible I'll hire him next month to do exactly what he's doing. But thirdly, I've had enough experience with the traffic studies over the years to know that projections for years out are like budget office, budget projections from the federal government. And finally, on this particular project, my feelings are pretty strong. I don't need to hear more from Roger. I don't need to hear further quote technical analysis because I don't think technical analysis really answers the question, which is... Frank, we can't hear you. I've got to go with my instrument. You're breaking up. Can you hear me now? How's it? No, you're buzzing out. Oh, I'm sorry, it's my... How about now? Yeah, I can hear you now. All right, let me actually get on top of the other thing. All right. What I was going to say is bottom line over the tackle, we are authorized to do by the court because in this particular case, I just trust my on the ground feel more than I trust. Any technical analysis and there's only going to be growth on Spear Street. The study periods are from a particular down period. The adjustments are what they are, but I still don't buy them for the long term. And, you know, we have a given situation. The only, the applicants only motive can be presumably economic. There's no functional feature of his development that's going to get better because he doesn't have a turn lane. So I'm not knocking an economic motive, but after all, you know, it's part of what the developer's doing, what the developer's doing. That's perfectly respectable, but we don't have to yield to it. We have something that in the long term, I think is going to be better for Spear Street than not having it. That's my rationale. I think it's Jim's when he can speak for himself. I don't think additional data from the same source is going to change that. Okay, so we're, thank you, Frank. Where do we go with this? Mark, do you still feel like it's, like to see some more data? You know, I could go either way. I am, I hear what Frank's saying, you know, I'm just not sure how I feel about this. It's not an easy cut and dry kind of decision. I think, I mean, can I weigh in here? Sure, Stephanie, please. So, you know, I think that, I understand where like Jim's coming from and wanting to have the turn lane and the comfortability of the motorist, right? So if you're driving down Spear Street, you're trying to get home, it's peak hour traffic. The person behind you is in a hurry too. They don't want to wait for people and for traffic to clear out, for you to make that left hand turn. So they're going to go around you if there's no turn lane there. But I think we don't always need to be putting in these turn lanes if they're not warranted by the traffic count. And I do err on the side of what is in the data because that's the metric that we have to go by as engineers to do designs to make these decisions. And kind of to what Marla was saying is you look at the future and what's the way that we're going with city planning and what is, you know, there's a bigger push on multimodal use and to narrow down our travel lanes and make things more by again pedestrian friendly. So by expanding your pavement, by expanding the presence for lack of a better word for the motorists and having an easier commute time for them, you're kind of negating the thoughts of, okay, but what's the overall experience for everyone? I agree to some degree it's a little bit, it can be perceived as more dangerous if someone's trying to cut around, someone's trying to make a left hand turn, they're not looking in their side mirror and they clip a bicycle, you know, a cyclist who's going down the road or a pedestrian that's walking in the shoulder or something. So there is that account, you know, to take into account there, but I still hesitate to say, okay, we should put this in because it feels right if the numbers aren't warranting it. And, you know, that can come up the same thing with the signalized intersection. People are going to be like, well, I want to have a signalized intersection or I want to have, you know, head push buttons at every crossing because it feels more comfortable to the user, but it's not necessarily warranted. And so I think, you know, that I always, or I prefer to look at the numbers and to read the report and say, okay, you know, these are design metrics. So is it actually warranted by the study? I'm sorry. Frank, I was just going to, I appreciate it. Frank, go ahead and then Jim, you can go. Yeah, I would respond to that this way. The one piece of data I'd be interested in based on my experience is the 10 year track record collectively for all the traffic engineers comparing their projections with the demonstrated reality, looking at what their projections were 10 years ago. The numbers, you know, are not magic. I believe the number, I believe the count. When you put the counter out there and you say there's so much traffic today and that's in such a year and that's in such a month. That's fine. It's the accuracy of the projections that I'm taking an issue with. And until it's demonstrated to me that those are reliable by a study or a meta study showing that they are over a period of time, the grain is sold. Jim, thank you, Frank. But I just want to say, I appreciate what Stephanie was saying. And as a former board member of Local Motion, very, you know, understand the concept of not wanting to expand pavement and be aware for all users. But I do think it's a real concern of people cutting around what will be through the bike path and just the rear end crashes in what is already, I mean, I've read the report and that's, as the report says, this is a high crash area already without the development there. And so that's a reason to have a left hand turn lane, you know, even without the development there, you know, without the added numbers. And so that's a concern. And then just reading the report, you know, as far as the number assumptions, I just, it feels like, like it's low. I mean, 2020 was a ghost town on Spear Street. It's just not reflective of what a typical year is. And if we're going back to 2013, there are just so many more developments in South Burlington and Shelburne that are now using Spear Street from that time. So it's really just a different animal. Thanks, Jim. Jan, you have your hand up. Yeah, I just want to, Marla did the question, this whole thing about Justin Wanda did it a couple of years ago and now he, and then before he left, he said it's okay if it isn't done. Did anything materially change and the data presented to him? You know, I didn't read the 2016 traffic impact study. I do think that what sort of change, I think that there was a more explicit position from the city, Jan, that traffic calming was the direction that the city wanted to go in when approaching road design and the multimodal and designing for all users of the road, not just vehicular throughput and that that was an adopted position of all departments of the city. So he started approaching his reviews with that frame of mind and along with all of the other reasons that Marla voiced. And so while there may be developments in communities further south of South Burlington, the vision for Spear Street is not to be a highway that's an alternative to Route 7, it's to be a local street for South Burlingtonians that others may use every once in a while. So to design it for throughput for multiple communities is not the goal. It may not be the goal, but it's now one of the years to panel appropriate traffic to the appropriate roads if you design it correctly. So yeah, I mean, there are designs. I mean, I think we unanimously supported eliminating the left-hand lane for Jefferson and for eliminating the right-hand lane at Allen. So I don't think there's a, I mean, I'm not predisposed to say we need more lanes. I just think there's a reason for this one. Marla, I've got a quick question for you. Do you know that in the re-striping, are they proposing to put any of like the candlestick vertical barrier between the bike lane and the travel lane at all? Andy, I saw you raise your hand. Yeah, I just wanted to point out, Jim noted that there was a high crash location here. The high crash location was addressed in the April 2016 traffic impact assessment. The intersection is the high crash location. Again, the intersection of Elm Street and Spear Street, Elm Street being the proposed street into the neighborhood is about 1200 feet south. So the traffic study in 2016 addressed that given that the project intersection is 1200 feet south of where 14 of the 19 crashes that were reported occurred. And if again, jumping back to the 2021 turn lane analysis, you know, it's not like this turn lane warrant is close to being met. If you look at page two, it talks about increasing the advancing volume on Spear Street, if that was, that would have to increase by over 40% to get to the point where the left turn lane would need to be warranted. Again, somebody asked about the data changing between 2016 and 2021. I don't think the data has changed. The conclusions of the turn lane warrant analysis were the same in 2016 as they are now. I think as Marla and Delilah commented on, the philosophy has changed. So again, this is a philosophical question for the city, but as far as the data, nothing's changed as far as the data, there are the conclusions between 2016 and now. And it's not like this analysis is close, or the warrant is close to being met. It's not. Okay, thank you, Andy. That's Gary Farrell. Yes. And I'm, somebody had a gentleman, you have your hand up and, oh, okay, Gary, go ahead. Yeah, if I could just make a couple of comments. So one were, you know, in the process of, that we've been through all these years, of course, we're asked to provide a traffic study at significant cost. And I would hope that the numbers that are provided, they use actual traffic counts, are given some consideration. The other thing that a couple of comments that I heard Justin had made was, and certainly you can ask him. And it's what Stephanie brought up, which is I think a very important point versus worth reiterating it. And that is people, when you create a left-hand turn lane, people are just gonna tend to go around, you're gonna give them more space so that people are gonna go around them. And the interfacing with the bike path, which is fairly narrow on Spear Street to start with, it was a real concern. And I guess I would differ. I've lived at that very location on Spear Street for 44 years. And I can't recall that the traffic during 2020 was much different than it is now or before. Most of that traffic is generated by the Medical Center and the University of Vermont. And the only time when you might say it might been reduced is when classrooms were virtual and kids weren't actually on, but still those teachers were, I assume we're going to school and doing their virtual teaching from the campus. And that's where most of the traffic is. And it's, we've lived with it a long time. And I agree with what Andy said, if there's any problem, it's more right at Swift Street because those streets are not aligned for starters. It's kind of a disjointed intersection which causes problems in itself. But I, so I think the comments that Stephanie mentioned that Stephanie made, I respect other comments and I understand there's, from what Jim had said, the board member, Jim Lankin, that there is a lot of traffic on Spear Street. I guess nobody would suggest there isn't, but safety-wise, the city, from what I heard, the city opinion is coming from Justin is that left-hand turn lanes cause more problems than they solve and they're leaning away from putting them in. So thank you. Thank you, Gary. Dawn. Yes, Frank. Respectfully, I would say that the point that Stephanie can clarify, but the point that Stephanie was making about going around people was really the opposite of what Gary thought he heard. That is it without the left-hand turn lane, people will go around to the right, they'll make incursions into the bike lane, thus increasing hazard. If they have a left turn lane, they go in the left turn lane, you don't have that problem. Stephanie, if I misunderstood you, I apologize, but I think that's what you meant, even though your overall thrust was to support the request. Right, yes, so you're correct. If there is no left turn lane, the motorists are still going to do the exact same thing, they will go around the person that's trying to make that left whether or not they're in the left-hand lane or not. I think it all depends on what the overall pavement with and does that support the bike lane plus a right lane and a left turn lane. Just to clarify the point that I made, and it's not quite correct Frank, I don't think. The left-hand turn lane gives them as one encourages people to go around them, there's space, but the concern is that they're going to encroach upon the bike path. If there is no left-hand turn lane, then there's no room for them to go around. There's not adequate space for them to go around the car. And that's where the conflict is. If I'm not, hopefully I'm remembering it correctly, but you don't want to encourage cars. So with a left-hand turn lane, which is not a full lane, but it encourages people to go around those cars and you don't want to encourage them to be encroaching on the bike path because there's quite a lot of traffic on that west side of the street from walkers and bike riders. We'll have to agree to disagree on that one, particularly on this petite piece of highway where you have a fairly wide bike path on the west side, you're going south. You're going to use that to go around the car if traffic is backed up. Well, and I think too, if I can chime in here, I think to some degree, having a left-hand turn lane prevents people from slowing down, right? So you'll see someone going to the left-hand turn lane, but the person who's trying to go through now has the opportunity to go through at a higher speed than they maybe would have if there was only one lane, someone's trying to turn left, then the person behind them would then have to slow down. I think that a more aggressive driver or someone who's more impatient is still going to go around to the person if they have space or not, but she's going to slow them down, hopefully. Thank you, Stephanie. Dan, is your hand up or have you just not removed it? No, my hand was re-raised, so. Okay, go ahead, Dan. I'm a Zoom pro. Yeah, I can tell. Unfortunately, pathetic life we all lead. I have a question for Marla. Marla, are we allowed to close the hearing tonight with the acceptance of written information submitted up to a date certain? You have to keep the meeting open. So I guess I have a question for the board. It seems to me there are a couple of options. We can move on to the rest of the staff comments and deal with this in deliberations, and that's where your vote has power, or we can ask for more information. So give me some guidance, please, board, about how you'd like to proceed. Oh, and I don't, I personally think we can handle it in deliberations. Okay. I think at this point it comes down to a matter of reviewing the data we have. I'm not sure if more data is gonna change lines one way or another. I think it's just a discussion. Okay. Does anyone disagree with that? I don't disagree, but I have a question for Marla back. I would really love to see a simple table that shows Spear Street Northbound and Southbound. Got it, yeah, so if it's totally available. From a traffic counter, that's all I'm trying to do. Can we close the hearing? Yeah. Yes. Right, so can I look that up myself and when we have deliberations, bring that. And that's not considered new information. Okay. If that's the case, we'll try to gather that data ourselves sometime before we meet so we can find out what the reality is versus everybody doing their best based upon memory. Okay, good. Can we move on? Thank you everyone for your patience. So number two is about the, I need my glasses here. It's about modifying the utilities to be located in the right of way unless prevented by ledge or other physical constraints. So Andy, what are your thoughts about this? So the utilities, at least electric and telecom utilities want to be outside the right of way. That's where they're planned for and easements will be conveyed to them outside the right of way. So we'd be happy to add that to the plan, stipulate that easements be provided, but utilities want to be outside the right of way. Almost. So Marla, are we okay with that then? How wide an easement, just so I can write the condition appropriately, how wide an easement would that be? Okay. I believe where it's directly adjacent to a right of way, green mountain power and they're typically the one who the easement is conveyed to and then the telecom utilities are subsidiary to that. It's typically 10 feet wide, directly adjacent to the right of way. So are we good to move on? Number three, this is about screening criteria. Marla, it's about moving the berm and the hedge. Marla, I need you to explain this, please. Yeah, so the first- Maybe it relates to the next staff comment. I don't know. So the first question determines whether you have to go to the next question. So there's a couple of little pictures here. Delilah has the first one up. This is the originally 2017 approved plan. So if you can see on this plan, and I actually just got into the meeting, so maybe I can even annotate because that would be cool. Annotate, yeah. All right, sweet. I am. So there's this berm here, and I'm Delilah because we switched computers with some trees on it. And so if you scroll down to the next page, the applicant is proposing to remove the berm here and just keep the treatment the same as they had originally proposed over here and are still proposing over here. And so the question then is, let me go back to the staff comments. Landscaping, fencing, land shaping, and or screening is required along property boundaries when the board determines that two adjacent sides are dissimilar and should be screened or buffered from each other. So if, so the question is, is this site that we're looking at dissimilar from those adjacent to it? And if so, then screening is required. So I kind of go into a description of what the adjoining properties are. Right. Excuse me, Marla, is that literally right? We must screen it if they're- It says development review board will require landscaping screening. And then there's farther, and then there's like five standards about what that screening is if it's required. And the final one, the fifth one says where existing topography and or landscaping provides adequate screening, the development review board may modify the planting or buffer requirements by decreasing or increasing the requirements. So it's pretty open in terms of what that screening could be, if the board determines that the properties are dissimilar. No, but where's the part that, that's what I'm asking, is this the mere fact that it's dissimilar require screening? So it's 3.04C. All right, so it's not cause and effect. It says two adjacent sides are dissimilar and should be screened or buffered from each other. It doesn't say if they're dissimilar they must be screened or buffered from each other. The determination of whether they should be screened or buffered, whether or not, even if they're dissimilar, still lies in the discretion of the board. That's the language. Which we only have to adjust the screening. And then your next comment, number four, Marla, determines that the sides are dissimilar and should be screened or buffered from one another. But don't you make the recommendation in the next one that the board approved the requested landscaping modification? Yeah, but I also kind of make that recommendation in three, I guess, so either way, yep. So, board. Well, I mean, I'm inclined to go along with the staff recommendation, but I don't read. I mean, I take some issue with the language. The fact that it's dissimilar does not require screening or buffering. Yeah, I think you're right, Frank. And I appreciate your interpretation. Buffering has a matter of what the ordinance says. Whether, if it's dissimilar, then we exercise it. Then the next step is we exercise our discretion. Is there something about the dissimilarity that requires screening and buffering? For example, like a glue factory next to a residence. Okay. We come out in the same place in this instance. So, I'm sorry, Frank, say that again, please. I'm comfortable with the substantive recommendation of the staff. I just don't agree with some of the reasoning that's all. Okay. I don't want to be labored further. Okay. Other people, any other thoughts? Are people comfortable with approving the landscape modifications? So, can I just get a clarification on what is being asked? Because we sort of went back and forth and then I'm just a little confused. So, right now there's a landscape berm along with some street plantings, street tree plantings. So, we're talking about getting rid of the landscape berm and just keeping the street trees, correct? Yeah. We are getting rid of that very heavily dense cedar hedge right on spear shoot, correct? Okay. I'm fine with that change. My concern was that we were leaving that cedar hedge and I just had major issues with that potentially affecting sight lines of turning vehicles. So, yeah. No, I don't feel we need to require additional screening or a non dissimilar use or something that's not been requested by an adjacent property owner, you know, because of turning headlights and stuff like that, which we have done in the past. Is there anyone on the board who is not okay with approving the landscape modifications? Okay. Hearing none, we'll move on to comment number five, which is about re-rooting the existing drain. The applicant is okay with the two revisions requested by Public Works. The addition of the backflow prevention valve and noting on the plan that it's private. That wasn't comment five. Okay. Great. So we can move on. Any comments? Staff comment five is about the existing footing drain and re-rooting it. Sorry, I commented on the Public Works comment. I think planning and zoning staff asked that the applicant demonstrate why the existing daylight location is not suitable when the currently daylights that what would be or what will be the back of the homes along Halcyon Lane. And so having that footing drain daylight at that location will discharge water onto the surface behind those homes in an area that it would have to travel quite some distance over land in order to get to catch basin three rather than create a wet area and a potential nuisance in the backyards of 39, 40 and 41. Instead, the footing drain is proposed to be piped to the catch basin. So are you reluctant or not willing to move that? Yep. Or re-rooted? This is a slightly new standard. No, you want to re-rooted. And not slightly. This is a new standard. So this is the first instance of seeing this new standard which is house footing drain shall only be connected to drainage facilities located in the street right of way when a suitable location to daylight the footing drain cannot be found. So presumably, if I were to take a well-educated guess the stormwater department wanted this standard because daylighting the footing drain gives the groundwater that the footing drain has removed an opportunity to re-infiltrate into the soil rather than be whisked away to the nearest water body. But not the hill I'm gonna die on. Just wanted to make sure we cross our keys and dotted our eyes. Okay. Board members, thoughts? So people can live with us. Dan, do you want to be recognized? I got a little message. Well, that's an old message. Okay. Sorry. Okay, are we ready to move on? I think that we are done. So are there any members of the public that would like to comment on this project? And Delilah, do you see any in the chat box that indicate people want to make comments? You do not. So no one is here to make comments. Okay. Thank you. So I would entertain a motion to close this hearing. In fact, I will actually move that we close this hearing. Do we have a second? I'll second. Okay, thanks. Any discussion? All in favor of closing this hearing signified by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you all for your patience. This was an interesting issue. Thank you. So thank you, applicant. And we will move on. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm just gonna get my document up here on my iPad. It's always a little tricky. All right. The next agenda item is item number eight. Continued final PLAT application SD 2125 of Green Mountain Development Group, Inc. For the next phase of a previously approved master plan for up to 458 dwelling units and up to 45,000 square feet of office space. The phase consists of two four-story multi-family residential buildings on lots 10 and 11 with a total of 94 dwelling units of which 79 are proposed inclusionary units and two city streets at 255 Kennedy Drive. So once again, staff has worked very hard to pull all this together in a draft decision. This does have a number of red areas for us to discuss tonight. So I think we will go ahead and welcome the applicant and see where we go with this. So who is here for the, oh, let me just first say, are there any disclosures or recusals? And I will disclose that I own a town home in the hillside development, but I don't believe that it will affect my decision-making unless anyone has any objection to that. So who's here for the applicant? Tom Getz here for a Green Mountain Development Group. Hi, Tom. Hello. Andrew Gill here with O'Brien Brothers. Hi, Andrew. Hi, Evan. So you've all been sworn in. This is a continuation. So I think we're good to go ahead. Before we start going through the comments, are there any comments that you three would like to make with your general comments? No, Evans. Yes. Mine. Oh, Evan. How about now? Much better. Okay. Sorry about that. Yes, sir. All right. Guys, do you have anything you'd like to say before we start diving into the comments? Nope. Okay. All right, let's... I'm excited to be this close, guys. All right, so the way Amarla did this was she has numbered comments and the red markups that are not numbered will be answered when the numbered comments are. So we will move along to the numbered comments. And the first one is, let me see here, on page six. And this is about the inclusionary units and requiring 47 total between the two buildings and making sure that there's enough in each so that they're physically integrated. And the comment is, staff recommends the board find that the proposed building shall contain no fewer than 47 total inclusionary units and that each building must contain at least 10 affordable units and five market rate units. So applicant, what are your thoughts about this? I guess I'll jump in. Go ahead, Andrew. Well, we, you know, I think in general understand the feedback. We had discussed, I think at the last hearing, something along similar lines related to the sort of requirements for the inclusionary housing. I had submitted a letter today that I assume that you guys haven't had the chance to thoroughly read, but I did talk about this a little bit in the letter. I think that in large part, summit is planning to do an affordable housing development. And so having a condition that there be affordable housing units in the buildings is probably not problematic. You know, the only thing that we sort of wanted to clarify was that saying that they'll have 47 inclusionary units, the terms are not interchangeable. And so I think, you know, an inclusionary unit is required as an offset for a market rate unit. And the first building that gets built in the project can't have 47 inclusionary units in it because there are no market rate units to be offset. And so like, while they can be inclusionary units for future market rate development, and that's the intent, I just, you know, we'd wanna make sure that that condition was clear. And if these inclusionary units would support the preliminary plot. It just is a little bit murky in our minds. The buildings proposed for preliminary plot. So this would apply to, this final plot is applicable to the entire project area defined in the preliminary plot. Which I think is what you're saying, right? So our intention was not to say anything different than what you're saying. I, yeah, no, I think, you know, I would probably, I don't know if it causes any confusion or not, but to me like it would say, if it said 47 affordable units, I think that would be, you know, easier, but yeah, 47 inclusionary units, you know, is fine in the sense of support that being understood PUD-wide across all six spots. You know, the challenge which I alluded to in the letter as well is that the inclusionary units have some requirements that are sort of difficult to gauge this early in the project, you know, and that sort of, it just is, it becomes a little bit complicated in terms of the like analysis of the bedrooms and the mean number of bedrooms and how you're making that determination prior to the market rate bedrooms being constructed that these are in compliance across all 47 units. And so I was trying to make a distinction that, you know, they're only inclusionary when they're offsetting a market rate apartment that's built. And so, you know, I think that that's a framework that makes some of the other criteria more easy to get through. So I'm just saying, I'm saying that we would build how would you meet your requirement to provide inclusionary units? These are affordable units that I think what I'm saying is will become inclusionary units when they're offsetting something that's built. No, so the request is that you're saying that there'll be 47 inclusionary units. And in another section of the opinion, the draft decision, there's a framework to evaluate the mean number of bedrooms for those inclusionary units. And the framework is problematic because the framework is predicting, is not predicting the number of bedrooms in the five or four lots coming after this project because it doesn't know what they are. And so what I'm saying is that they're saying that these four, these are the 47 inclusionary units, means that you have to prove out that they have the same mean number of bedrooms as the market rate units, which we can't prove out right now because the market rate units aren't built. And so I'm just saying that the decision needs to account for the fact that as the market rate units are built, that criteria needs to be built. And so I'm just saying that the decision needs to account for the fact that the criteria needs to be evaluated once those bedrooms are known. I can't tell you right now if the 47 units that Tom builds will have the same number of bedrooms as the five buildings that remain on the site, right? And so the decision just needs to account for the ability to say over time of the units in the summit project, these are the units, these are the number of bedrooms of those units and those units comply with the number of bedrooms of market rate units we're proposing in this next bill. That's, that's the like crocs of the distinction. I find, can you hear me Andrew? Yep. Okay. And Marla too, I, I take the silence to represent of the board to represent confusion to some extent. I feel the same confusion. I think what Andrew was saying is, well, you said it, you can't, you can't tell me that the inclusion, that the affordable housing units, which I'm going to call them that from it, have a, any ratio to the, the non affordable housing units, the number of bedrooms in the, in the non affordable housing units until the affordable housing, the non affordable housing units, the market rate units are, if not built at least locked in as far as their design is concerned. I get that my concern. And I think maybe although Marla will speak for herself, I think maybe the counter concern is this. So what, you know, if we don't have some measure for requiring, if we don't have some, if we don't have some measure for requiring, shall we say something other than studio apartments to be, you know, to overstate the matter. We would like some control over, over what the, what, what the affordable units consist of. So given that it's difficult for you to meet this precise measure that was accepting for the moment, in the draft, what measure do you propose? Affirmatively for allowing us to, in the end, be assured that there's a fair distribution between, with respect to number of bedrooms per unit, unit size, if you like, a comparable distribution among the affordable housing units when compared to the, to the market rate units. What is, what is your proposed alternative? As I understand your desired alternative is let us build, you know, don't, don't impose this requirement, but I think that's maybe a non-starter and we're looking for some standard for assuring that we get a fair distribution among the affordable housing units. I hope that was not too garbled and you get what I'm getting at. That's helpful. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think, you know, I had, there's a couple of ideas. You know, you could start with a super simplistic one and you could probably move on to something more complicated. You know, at a, on a, on a very simplistic level, you could say that the criteria would be evaluated, you know, beginning with the third or fourth building that's constructed that way. You know, you're, you're looking at a zoning permit after there's some market rate units built and saying, you know, at that point you either need to build more affordable units because you're out of whack with your bedrooms or you need to adjust this project to have units in line with the affordables that you pre-built. So you could just delay reviewing it until, you know, a mass of buildings had been constructed. That would be a sort of simplistic way. And I think, you know, another alternative, which we were thinking through over the past few days is that the inclusionary units that are required at each building would be measured against affordable units that, that were selected from the units that, that summit is building. So if you think about lot 10 in isolation, it's a 47 unit building. If that's the first building that pulls the zoning permit, that building has a requirement of seven inclusionary units. And at that point you would say in this building itself, these seven affordable units are have this many bedrooms, the remaining 39 units of this many bedrooms and that ratio matches at the next building that came online, you'd have another seven inclusionary units required. And you would look at the requirement on that building between the two buildings, you would then need 14 of the affordable units to meet the ratio. And when we came in with the third building, say it was 100 units, you would then have a requirement for another 15. And so you'd be consistently drawing from affordable units that Tom had prebuilt, qualifying those as inclusionary units at that point in time, and balancing the bedroom ratio with those units against the new ones, market rate ones being constructed. So if we had a minimum, of course you're saying seven, and Marla saying 10. But if we had, if you're saying building by building, you have to keep the ratio the same, then that's easy to understand. And I were down to argue with that, what the number of affordable units are in each building, which I think you didn't want to be held to some, I may be remembering that. But that's the distinction that I was making between affordable and inclusionary. So Tom's buildings are going to have affordable units in them that meet all of those income restrictions. And there certainly will be more than seven. And so I don't think that there's any issue with saying, with saying that. The distinction I'm making is that the zoning regulations require seven inclusionary units that meet the definition of inclusionary under the regulations when we propose a building of 47 units. So you can call those 47 units market rate for the time being from a zoning perspective. But at the point that we pull them in because they're rent controlled and say these are meeting our inclusionary requirement. That's what I'm talking about. That's the distinction. It's not an inclusionary unit if it doesn't meet this bedroom ratio, it's just an affordable housing. And if it's not required because you haven't built any market rate units, they're not even required to be inclusionary. So it's, I 100% think that it's absurdly complicated. But I think that we take the silence to mean that. What we're trying to avoid to be clear is that Tom's first building. And his second building together might have a great bedroom ratio to apply to the first market rate building. But the first building might be heavier on studio apartments than the second. So I'm saying on a step-by-step basis, every building must comply. It doesn't give an opportunity for the PUD to ever be reviewed. It just puts you in a box out of the gate with whatever that first building is. I am confused because I thought you were proposing to comply building by building. I didn't I. So I'm really. It's really hard to understand you. Evan, I'm sorry. Is this better at all? A little bit. Maybe clear. No. Sorry. I can't tell you how norms my heart to see other people's. I don't know. Can I interject? But, you know, I don't want to step on it. Yes, I was just going to turn to you while Evan. You know, I was to figure out the board has been in this situation where the applicant proposes to. Deal with the deficiency. But now. The board's been in the situation. I can't hear you though. The board's been in the situation where the applicant proposes to. The board's been in the situation before, right? All right. Can you guys hear me? Wait a minute. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Marla, please for one second. Evan, can you hear us? I don't think he can hear us. And I want to hear what Marla has to say. Yeah, go ahead Marla. I'll text. I can hear you guys now. Okay. Can, can we let, thank you, Evan. Can we let Marla. If you say, well, we'll. Go ahead Marla. You know, maybe, maybe. These first buildings on lots 10 and 11 consist of. You know, 30 studios, 10, one bedrooms and seven two bedrooms, for example. And then. Andrew says, well, I want to build a building that's all two bedrooms, but we'll true up by the time. So, but my building only contains, you know, 47 units and there's seven two bedrooms in this building. So we're good, right? That's what he's explaining because there's seven two bedrooms and 47 units would require seven inclusionary units and there's seven inclusionary units. Great. Next building comes along and Andrew says, I want to build some more two bedrooms. Well, you've only got studios. If you build anything bigger than studios, then you can't, you can't have your project. And while we may say it's too bad, we know from past experience that the city and the board is also interested in having housing across the appropriate range of sizes built. And so it's very difficult for the board to completely deny an application when the applicant has already submitted themselves into a corner. And we've run into this before. I think that I'm not a, like, I've struggled really hard to convey the problem. And I think that the letter that we sent today, you know, in three or four paragraphs, I thought was conveying the problem. Maybe Marla and I are the problem or the solution. Both. Maybe we're talking around each other a little bit. But the way that I read the draft decision was that you were saying when Tom comes in for his first building, you're going to say that building has 47 units. Let's for like ease of numbers, you know, call, say that, you know, there's 39, I don't know, it's not an easy number, 39 affordable housing units. And there's eight market rate housing units. So let's figure out how many bedrooms they have. When you determine the bedroom ratio. In order to meet this inclusionary requirement. What is the math that you're doing, right? So if the math that you're doing is that you're saying all 39 affordable units, let's figure out how many bedrooms they have and divided by 39. And then the eight market rate units. Let's figure out how many bedrooms they have and divided by eight. Those are your bedroom ratios. And you're going to have to get the test because there's, there's 39 affordable units when only seven inclusionary units are required. And so you're, you're lopsiding the test and coming up with ratios that aren't representative of what the future market rate number of bedrooms might be. And it's just, if Marla is saying that you would look at in the 47 unit building. You have seven inclusionary units required. So pick seven of the affordable units and call those. Your fort, your inclusionary and run the ratio on seven units. And then on the next building, now you have 14. And I'm saying that's problematic. Units. That's exactly what I'm saying would work perfectly. I'm understanding you and restating what you're saying. And then concluding that it's problematic because you're painting yourself into a corner. But I'd like to go back to something you said a minute ago, that it's an unfair test, fair or not fair. The regulations are clear. The average parentheses mean number of bedrooms in the inclusionary units in the inclusionary units shall be no fewer than the average number of bedrooms in the market rate units. Right. But the market rate units aren't built and you don't know how many bedrooms are. Well, inclusionary units are built because they're being built first. This is the crux of the problem. How do you know how many bedrooms are in the market rate units and the other four or five buildings that are not built at the time, the first zoning permit for Tom's building is submitted. That's the problem. So we need a solution. And, and, you know, when we've run the math on this, we're talking about being within, you know, if this were to cause a problem for us based on, you know, our current best estimate as to how many bedrooms Tom is thinking he's going to have in his buildings and how many bedrooms O'Brien brothers is thinking we're going to have in our, we're off by like one bedroom across 375 units. So we're not, we're not wildly divergent here, but we risk our zoning permits being, you know, denied over one unit that, you know, at the point in the process that we're in proposing for final plat, you know, it's really problematic to redesign a building to get a two bedroom if you have a one bedroom, right. But that isn't even a problem when you look at, when you look at all four of the buildings together, it's only a problem when you look at how the potential conflicts in the phasing of the four buildings. When you just look at all four buildings that we have planned our best guess of what will happen now we comply, but when you look at them individually one by one over time, it can cause an issue. So, and, and I, you know, I just want to reiterate it's a, it's a challenge because we're leading with the affordable units. Right, right, right. So we're sort of being penalized for the fact that we're delivering the affordable housing units before they're required. That they were okay with this standard. Yeah. In lieu of the standard that required the, the units be the same size as the market rate units. This is, this is the standard that replaced that making them the same size standard. And so they made it as crystal clear as possible. I don't want to interject myself too much into this because this is more Andrew and Evans, but I will just make the short comment that I did think that the solution that was coming up preliminary plat was somewhat elegant. That was you have the first four buildings by the time that fourth one is done, you have to demonstrate that you've met your inclusionary requirements or you don't get the fifth building. And so that was already in the preliminary plat. And if you just didn't add any of this new language, that would exist. They would then be stuck not being able to build their fifth building. And this I'm admittedly confused by some of it too, would go away if you just stuck with that sort of simple elegant approach from the preliminary plat. But if others don't like that, I'll sort of back out because our plan is to build our affordable units and get them online as fast as we can. Well, the problem, you know, it may sound elegant, but the problem is so you can't build the fifth building. But in the meantime, there are four buildings that exist. So I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I just don't comply with the requirement of the regulations. Yeah. I mean, that was the risk that preliminary plat was. The approval was willing to take back then. I don't know. I wasn't part of that. That it seemed like a. Knowing the developer and knowing the commitment to affordable housing, I guess. Felt like it was a worthwhile. Compromise. And back then, so if the board still feels that way, I think it's a reasonable way to say that was the right thing to do. I think it's a reasonable way to say that. Let's stick with that. And. Made sense then, and then we can abide by that. And just to restate the reason why that, that agreement or kind of compromise that came up with. Was because of the vagaries of the. The affordable housing financing process. And so the original reason for it was that we weren't sure that the affordable housing units were going to be able to come online. We were not sure that they were going to come online. So in fact, we're actually reversing this. And so the city is getting the affordable housing units. It doesn't, doesn't clear up the issue that I think Frank is pointing to, but I think kind of getting to what Andrew had said, you know, the, the likely risk here. In terms of being out of whack is pretty minimal. And it's something that can be made up fairly, fairly easily on that fifth building. Yeah. I haven't, I, I have to admit, I'm hanging on to understanding this. By a thread, but. Is there any way to put the onus on a Brian. To make this true up when you build the fifth building. Yeah, that's, that's a six building. I should say. No, we're, we're saying the fifth building. It has to be within the balance, but are you required to build the fifth building? What if you say, you know, the market's not so hard. I think we won't build it. Well, no, we're, we're not required, we're not required to do it, but I mean, and you could also make the problem. Well, right, Frank, but you could also make the argument that the market is really challenging to build a market rate building right now. And so all you may end up with is a bunch of affordable housing units. But Frank, if there's a challenge. If we never build the fifth building, and that building is a hundred units, then we'll just have such an excess of inclusionary units pre-built that it would just be, this is the point that I was trying to make is that the inclusionary unit having the same number of veterans, any unit can be affordable. We could build 47 studio apartments that qualify as affordable housing. What makes them meet the requirements? Inclusionary housing is required when you build market rate housing. So if we build 10 units of market rate housing, we're required to have 1.5 inclusionary units. If we never build that hundred units. And we're counting the, the full 15% of the maximum density of the PUD and using that and calculating this inclusionary ratio, the whole thing's off anyway. Let's, let's assume for a moment. That the problem is this, at least the simple problem is that what do you need to do to comply with the regulation? The regulation may be ill-conceived, may be a bad idea. But until we have a solution that is consistent with the regulation, with this, with more than a straight face and then without a wink, wink, then we got a problem. No matter how bad the regulation is, right? You get my drift here with. I have, I think that we have a solution. And the solution is that every zoning permit for each building will make a distinction. And that will, will, will qualify the inclusionary housing that's been pre-built as meeting the test of the bedroom. Mean average. So Tom builds the first building, it's 47 units. There are 39 affordable units in that build. That's 47 unit building requires seven inclusionary units. And the other 39 units in the building or whatever it is, our market rate. Until they're qualified as inclusionary by the next bill. The next building is 47 units. It again requires seven inclusionary units. Now we pick another seven of the affordable units, qualify them as inclusionary. And then say, of the so, so many units that are proposed, 15% of those must be inclusionary. Here are the 15 inclusionary units. Here's the number of bedrooms balanced against the other units, which are now just still market rate. And it meets the tests. Third building comes online. Another 10 units are required. We take another 10 of the affordable units. We qualify them as inclusionary. They meet the test of the ratio across the full number of units now built. We're still in compliance with the, better ratio and we continue that through the sixth building. Okay. Every time we build a market rate building, we access more of the pre built inclusionary units and qualify them. And move on. Which means you can build a couple of buildings with no inclusionary units. Right. With no, with no affordable units. You can have a requirement that says that the first building, Tom's project, the requirement to have 47 affordable units. Put it in. Well, affordable, not inclusion. How about the second third? How about the second third and fourth buildings? If you're drawing, if you're in other words, if you're using your, your first building as a stockpile. From which to me. Which is a, which is allowed having a stock. Yes. Okay. That's the front loading. Isn't it that Evan referred to. Yeah. So all right. I'm starting, I'm starting to slowly. Painfully slowly. Get the drift of what Evan. Of what Andrew was saying. Marla. I kind of get what he's saying, but it, it has this feel as we're talking about before. It has this feel of, as the Lila said, a shell game. And, you know, we want to make sure that the regulations are being met both in letter and in spirit. And I guess we would have to spend some time thinking about it and make sure that. There's not any deficiencies. So given that, Marla, are you saying that we cannot close this tonight? That we'd have to continue it. Sort of like a dare, but. And I know we have other issues. It feels like their proposal is sound. Then. And they trust that the board can. Well, we could get to yes on it. Then. I don't think we need any more information. Okay. We can always, if we give, if we, if they're banging our. Wooden heads together for a while longer on this formula. That does take longer than just continuing and like, opening and saying, all right, we're done. But it. So if there's a, if there's a, if there's a, if there's a, if there's a, if there's a, If there's a, if you think you might need more information, I would recommend keeping it open. With the intention of just saying we're all set. Thanks. Good night. I would just. Like to weigh in and express some concern on that because we are confident that, that this does balance out. And, you know, I think, I think, you know, with a little bit more kind of closely reading of what we're proposing, I think, I think it does make sense. And it does meet both the letter and the intent. Of the regulation. We just happened to be providing the units upfront. And I think the concern really, and, you know, I'll rely on Tom on this, but there is a timing concern with the financing for the affordable and inclusionary units. So there, there is a sense of urgency here. You want to weigh in on that? We serve. Yeah. We certainly have a sense of urgency. I mean, we're saying we've submitted. Three housing applications. And I think we've got about six funding resources we need. And yeah, they all, they certainly rely on, on getting permitted to get those resources. I think that we all talk through that. I think my only question is, is everybody, did I, is everybody a. Feel that the answer that was to this question that was already in the preliminary plat, which is. They just have to meet it by the fourth building. That that needs to get scrapped for some reason. Yeah. Yeah. They were going to be all submitted. All of the final plots were going to be submitted together. So though the building was going to be constructed in a certain order, I think that we were going to know. Certainly before the final plot was concluded where it was going to be. Andrew's nodding. Yeah. Well, I'm just, I thought maybe that. I could summarize the problem. I think that we trust that you guys can come up with a solution. I think we've made. The point of what the issue is. I would say that we would trust the board to make, you know, the permit work. I guess that what I just would leave. Maybe leave this subject with. Would be like an example of what we think the problem is. Tom. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm just, I thought maybe that I could summarize the problem. I think that we trust that you guys can come up with a solution. I do agree with what you guys just said. So the question is, Tom, Tom's group summit and our group. Brian brothers. Are both applies for a final plant. And we're both racing to construction for our projects in this site. So we've applied final plan for a lot 13 and 15. For a project that's going to be in front of you. And I hope very soon. affordable housing on his two lots. And what I would hate to see have happened, all four of our projects, all four lots, when looked at together meet this requirement, the inclusionary requirement for the mean number of bedrooms. So we've done the analysis and they need it. But if one of Tom's buildings comes to market first before ours and the other one doesn't, there's a chance that we could be off by one bedroom or two bedrooms and it could tank our ability to get our zoning permit. So you could end up in a situation where if we go first, we're fine because Tom meets our project with his. But if he gets to the starting line first with his zoning permit and you review it the way that you drafted the decision, we could potentially not be able to get our zoning permit because we wouldn't meet the requirement even though we have a final plat for our units. So there's just this sort of funneling where all four buildings work together fine, but depending on who gets to the starting line first and the way that the condition was worded, we have that problem. So that's the problem we're trying to solve and what we're trying to avoid. And I think the solution we just talked about is a great way of doing it. If you guys can come up with an alternative way that would be fine as well. I guess I have a question, another question that occurs to me about the math, so to speak. If you're gonna stockpile your units in Tom's first building basically, 39 affordable units, aren't you hemming in what you can do with the later market rate units because you have to make, you're sort of predetermining what the mix needs to be in the later market rate units. You're making decisions about the number of bedrooms in the affordable units. And therefore limiting your discretion in the later use, right? Tom's two buildings have different unit mixes. They have different distinctions. So while all the floor plans are the same, one building might have 10 affordable studios and another building might have two affordable studios. His floor plans are the same, but the units designated as affordable that would qualify for inclusion are different. So depending on which of his buildings comes online first, the balance of bedrooms could be off from our project. But when you view both of his buildings together with our project, the bedroom balances out and it all works. So that's the problem with looking at it, building by building zoning permit by zoning permit is that Tom's two buildings don't have the same market rate and affordable units. They're the same units. They are each 47 units and they're each whatever, in this building more studios are affordable than in this building. And I don't know why that is that has to do with the financing that they're applying for, but that's the challenge, right? So depending which one comes online first, the ratio could be off. And you could say that that's the challenge, I guess. But when you look at them together, the ratio is on. And- Are they being permitted together? I mean, excuse me, are they being approved together? Are they being proposed as part of the same development or are they each separate phases? They're separately financed. We're hoping that the financing gets approved simultaneously, but it's separate applications under separate programs. Ah, what a headache. You mean the two buildings that you're proposing to build, Tom, are different funding sources? Correct. Wow. There's not enough money. Yeah, we had to spread it out. There's not enough money to do them all as ones. Had to do them as two. But we're also, in his combination of buildings, Tom's proposing I think the current is 70 affordable housing units, right? And our required inclusion area is only 47. And so, we're significantly overbuilding the number, which means that if we're only drawing on 47 of 70 units, the likelihood of being able to make this bedroom mix work, cumulatively, is fairly easy. Because if Tom builds 23 studios, we can just not even count, right? Because we only need 47. So when you look at his project as a whole, it all works really easily. It's just this looking at a singular building and then applying that ratio potentially to our building second that causes a problem. Okay. All right. Marla. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Sorry, I just wanted to confirm because I just to go back to the initial point, I don't think we'll need additional information to come to a conclusion in deliberation. But I did just want to confirm kind of to the concern that staff noted of like a potential shell game kind of situation. So what I wanted to confirm is Andrew, your suggestion to kind of qualify the actual inclusionary units kind of seven at a time as the buildings come online, right? Yeah, my proposal is, yeah, to qualify the number that would be required as 15% of the market rate proposed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, with that. So what I wanted to confirm is that am I correct in understanding that like once you qualified a certain number of units, the example you were using was like seven in the first building and then the second building comes online and you need seven qualified inclusionary units, you would still be stuck with that, that first seven you qualified. You wanna just pick, we can pick a new 14 to make it work if to make the bedrooms work, you would just like once you qualify a set of units, those would be qualified. And then you're adding to that, you're not picking and choosing from the new updated pool, is that correct? I think so, I haven't thought about it, but I think that would be right. Okay, because I think maybe, I think that maybe would help, but I don't know if that addresses any concerns. Frank, were you gonna say something? No, I think it's covered, I think. Okay. You state what I thought was being said, but I think I get it. You get it, Andrew, you don't get to throw the first seven back in the pot and pick a different seven in order to make it work. That makes perfect sense, yeah. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I don't think we need to do that. We would pick seven that were closely in line with the ratio we needed and we would do that all the way through. Okay, I just wanted to confirm that component, great. Okay, can we move on? All right, guys. I hope they're like us. I feel like that really was a tough one. The rest are so good though, everything else is just pretty safe. All right, let's move on to number two. And this is asking for a modification of the landscaping to address the site distance issues. Yeah, we submitted an updated landscaping plan. It might have gotten lost in the mix. I referenced it again today. We did provide for plants that were 36 inches or less in those locations. We're happy to change it again to make them all 18 or less. So it could be a condition of the zoning permit, whatever you guys want for those plants. Yeah, I'm gonna say what I say a lot. Marla just said do it. Andrew's word that what he says is correct and reflected on the plans, yes. Okay, good, thanks. All right, the next page, number three, this is improvements to the pocket park. Andrew and Evan and Jim, what are your, Tom, I'm sorry. What are your thoughts about this? Yeah, that's a fine condition. If you wanna have the requirement that there be semi-circle seating and a covered table, we're happy to add that to the pocket park. The board wants to do that. Easy peasy. Number four, this is about the lighting plan. We need more details about the lighting and. I had, I submitted a new lighting plan today with big red text on it that said the street fixtures are 14 feet tall. We had also submitted and I think the impiles might have been labeled improperly. So there was some confusion, but we did submit specs for the poles and light heads. I think they said parking lot poles on the file name. So there might have been a little confusion there, but we can provide the spec sheets if that's needed, but we did update the plan to confirm all the lights are 14 feet tall. Because they need to be compatible with the city standards for the street. So. Yep, we submitted the light fixtures. They're the Metroscape LED. Make sure that the city prefers. Because your naming is wrong, I guess, is what you're saying. I'm just gonna write the condition that says the street lighting shall be Metroscape, according to city standards and shall be 14 feet tall. Is that okay with you? Perfect. Yep. Good. Okay. Moving on to number five. So this is about the ramps. And it's about whether the ramps should be removed. And if my memory serves. So they were never on the plans. The thing is that the ramps are not a good idea to do away with them. Is that correct, Marla? The applicant's traffic consultant. And so the staff's recommendation originally was to keep them. So I'd love you to pull up page 30. I think it might be a good one. And so I'm gonna draw, that's not page 30, that's 31. I'm stepping up for a minute, Dan, if you could take the ramps. When the project kind of goes from a rec path in this location to a regular sidewalk in this location, there would be sort of a ramp from down this way to get people out into the road. And same deal, down this way to get bikes out into the road. So staff reviewed that more closely and we ultimately think that it would do more harm than good to include them. So I think that we are walking back to our previous recommendation to include them in the same way the applicant walked back to their recommendation to include them. So we're all agreed, right? Sure are. All right. Soky. Next comment. Hang on, we're on six, which is on 20. Scroll back to that, thanks. Wait for it, 20. I'm back. We're on six. All right, I'll give you back the wheels. Scroll up a bit. We're on seven? So this was about maintenance of landscaping in the right of way. So I watched the video and I listened to everything everybody said and it sounds like the board didn't like the idea of the applicant contributing to the city's landscaping budget to have the city maintain this landscaping, which was the recommendation of deputy city manager and the director of public works, by the way. So our alternative proposal is that the applicant can maintain it on their own. However, they would be required to record a memorandum of understanding that said if the landscaping was not maintained the city had the right to remove it. And the reason we're proposing this is because we have been a number of times in the past in the situation where somebody says they're gonna do something and then they stopped doing it and then the people who live there say city council, why does our landscaping look like crap? Why don't you make our DPW and maintain it? And then we're on the hook for paying for something we never intended to pay for in the first place. So in order to reduce the taxpayer burden we would like a memorandum of understanding saying that the applicant will maintain it and if they don't, we can remove it. Yeah, that's perfectly fine if you guys wanna prepare it. We just wanted to make one distinction I think I might have mentioned it in the letter but I think this says removed at the applicant's cost which is fine for the memorandum to say that we just would like any time that that's a remedy there's typically an allowance for the person to cure the deficiency. So if we don't repair it we'll remove it ourselves within 30 days the city can do it and backcharge us or whatever. Yep, that's fine. I have a quick question on that, ma'am Chair. What's to prevent any applicant from, is it only because of the right of way issue? Just because I can see like they'd plan it and then walk away and I guess as long as it does, I'll put it this way, does this planting within the right of way help meet their landscaping budget? Okay, all right, nevermind then. Okay, moving on to number seven. I'm not sure I understand this. On January 4th, the board determined they would allow credit for the incremental cost over standard features. The applicant indicated they would provide this information but that has not been done. So have you now provided that information? And we provided it today. We provided it on the 24th but I think that it was a little bit confusing maybe in the spreadsheet but we sent a new spreadsheet in today that we updated to make more clear what the reductions were based on base cost of paving or whatever versus concrete paving or a base cost of concrete versus colored concrete that kind of thing. So we did provide updated estimates that reduced the dollar amount by the base cost. Okay, thanks. Number eight, this is about should we allow credit for the silver cells? My sense is we should because they contribute to healthier trees but entertain other thoughts from board members. I'm okay with allowing the cost to be applied. Is anyone in auto? I'm sorry, Dan. Likewise, I agree. Okay. Is anyone not in favor of this? I think that was the last red comment. But you're welcome to discuss anything else. Moving on. I think that's it. And there's a couple of red items in your conclusions but they relate to things we've discussed tonight. So I guess the question to the board is do folks believe that we have enough information to close this hearing and deliberate? Are there any members of the public who want to comment? Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Okay, let's take that first. Thanks, Dan. Are there any members of the public who want to comment or are there any online Delilah? No. Okay. So back to the question. Do you think that we have enough information that we can deliberate and make a decision? I do. I think that we obviously have a few issues that we're gonna have to spend some time discussing. But I think that we have all the information we're going to get. And it's up to us to craft the conditions based on the regulations and the testimony we've gotten. Okay. And by us, I mean staff. Could I ask the applicant's one more question? Sure, Frank, go ahead. Can't hear you. Can't hear you. Okay, do you want to ask the question? Oh, let me move again. Is this better? Yes, it sounds like I'm giving you your exercise for the day. If you don't mind, what are your funding? What's the mix of funding? Are the tax credits involved? VA, HDB, or one housing finance agency? What do you raise the issue of the uncertainty of the funding? What's the mix? Yep. I don't know that you have to answer the question. I'm just very curious. Happy to answer it. Yeah, so we've got a mix of 9% tax credits, 4% tax credits, CDBG, Community Development Block Grant Application, Federal ARPA funding, the one-time money, the VHCB, is in charge of giving out efficiency Vermont rebates, a pretty significant deferred development fee, and then permanent amortizing debt. That's sort of the capital stack between the two buildings. Each building is a little bit different. Those are all the sources, though, I think. No, Housing Investment Fund through VHFA and Vermont State Tax Credits through VHFA. That might be all. That's practically free. Yeah, if you get it all. Yeah, about $10 million in permanent amortizing debt. They're $9 million in permanent amortizing debt, so there's some debt on it. But, yeah, it's a lot of applications. Thank you for satisfying that. All right, anything else before we... Oh, yeah, well, let me back up. I'm sorry, Dawn. Okay, go ahead. Do you have the 9% tax credits are competitive and hard to get? Do you actually have some committed or is that the issue? That's one of the issues. Is that application is due next month for decisions in April or May decision? So that's one of the ones. And one of the scoring criteria on the 9% application is readiness to proceed, which all local permits in hand gets you extra points on the 9% application, which is highly competitive. Every point counts. Okay, so now I understand your hesitancy. No, that's very much an up in the air source of financing because that's tough money to get. Yeah, given out once a year. So if we missed this round, we got to reapply in 12 months. Okay, any other questions from the board? Would someone like to make a motion to close the hearing? So move. Thanks, Frank. Do I hear a second? Second. Thanks, Tan. Any discussion before we take a vote? Okay, all those in favor of closing the hearing? Signified by saying aye. Any opposed? Okay. Great. Well, thank you for your patience, Jim and, Jim, Tom and Evan and Andrew. This was a complicated discussion, but you hung in there with us, so. Well, we appreciate your patience as well. Thank you all. Get it all around. All right. We recognize that we continue to come before you with complicated projects and questions. And we're not done yet, so we'll see you soon. No, I know, I know. We'll see you in a couple again and again. Okay, all right, good night, guys. And we appreciate staff efforts as well. All right, good night. Thank you. Okay, board. We have some minutes to approve the minutes of the December 21st meeting. There should have been two sets in there. Which I think were the only minutes we had, weren't they, Marla? I might have missed them, but I only saw the 21st. Break them out. Oh, did the other ones not make it? No, they're both in there. Yeah, page 10 starts the fourth. Is it more convenient if I break them out into two separate pieces on the website so that you see them both? No, Mark's shaking his head, no. No, I just scroll through it. I just somehow missed the second one. Are there three, two or three, I didn't even read because I wasn't there. Okay, so should we take them together, board, or separately? I mean, do them separately just because I wasn't at the January point. Okay, all right, and I haven't read that one. So, okay, would someone like to- Make a motion to approve the minutes of December 21st. Thank you, do I hear a second? Can I just add, I have a question about that one. Yes, go ahead. So it says that I was recused from item number seven. It doesn't say that I rejoined the board, but I was also recused from item number eight. So is that just assumed, or does that need to get added in there? Okay, does that change the meaning? Marla, do you want typos or just substantive? No, okay. I mean, you can find it. Okay, darn it, I thought I found something. Wait, no. Wait, we only, Dan, there's your approval. And that's what we got. Would someone like to- Wait, do we pass the motion? Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, all in favor of approving the minutes of December 21st, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Oppose? No. Okay, January 4th. I did not read these. So does anyone have anything to offer? And would someone make a motion to approve? I'll make a motion that we approve the minutes of January 4th. I will second that, but I won't vote on it because I haven't read them. I have a question. Frank, you gotta come over. Frank, we can't hear you. Right, okay. Yes. I wasn't at this meeting, but I watched it. Do I vote on the minutes? So, Marla, correct me if I'm wrong, but when it comes to minutes, anyone can vote on them. They don't have to have attended the meeting. So it's not like you have to abstain just because you didn't attend a meeting. Okay. All right. So Mark moved to approve from Don, seconded. Did we have a motion? Okay. Okay. All right. All in favor of approving the minutes from January 4th, signified by saying aye. Don, did you have a motion? Opposed? Motion's carried. I'm gonna abstain because I haven't read them. So we haven't had a clerk in a bit. I was kind of waiting till everybody got their feet under them and I've decided your feet are adequately under you. We should elect a clerk. It's very easy. You have to sign things when Don and Dan aren't available. Who would like to be clerked? And then I guess if Don and Dan were not at the meeting, you would be responsible for selecting who was chair, but you would not be responsible for being chair unless you so chose. I think Frank's laughing. That's like a lot of responsibility. I was clerked once and it was an easy job. All appeals are addressed to the clerk, but really it comes to my office and you never see it. Okay, so who is willing to be clerked? Thank you, Mark. I'll be clerked. Okay, Mark, thank you. I'll throw my hat in the ring really enthusiastically. Yeah, okay, good, good. Wait a minute, don't we have to vote on it? Yes, there has to be at least two other applicants for the position. No, no. All right, all in favor of Mark being clerked, say aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Don't oppose it because you'll end up being clerked. And if anyone wants it in the meantime, I'm happy to abdicate my throne. All right, are we ready to call it a night? No, but if you'd like to issue on-logic. Yeah, we're not going to deliberate on O'Brien. So we can conclude the public portion of the meeting. I think we can lock the meeting, Travis. Do you know how to do that? We can stop recording, and then Delilah can lock the meeting. And then we can ask, all right, so the meeting's concluded. So we can lock the meeting now. I have locked the meeting. Great. Not public, sue left and...