 Let's call it to order. Uh, special hearing of the modular planning commission, uh, for November 29th, um, we first have to have the planning commission approve the agenda. So, um, if, if someone from the planning commission could, uh, move to approve the agenda, this is gay by motion to approve the agenda. Okay. Give me a second. I'll second it. Second from Ariane. Those in favor of approving the agenda say aye. Aye. Bye. Bye. Any opposed? Okay. That brings us to comments from the chair and I'm sorry that, uh, we're getting off to a bad slow start here. So I'm going to try to, uh, make these comments quick. First, welcome everyone. Uh, welcome to the meeting. This meeting is really about hearing feedback and public comment. Um, so really appreciate it. Looks like we have a lot of people in attendance. Uh, the process for night for tonight's basically is going to be that the planning director, Mike is going to summarize some proposed changes to the river hazard area and the, uh, zoning bylaws. Um, these are, these are things that are feedback from the public, things to consider. Some of them are feedback also from the commission from, and from Mike, um, after he summarizes these proposed changes or possible changes, uh, the planning commission will have an opportunity to ask for some clarifications just for some details, but the meeting's really not here for, uh, it's not, it's not happening for the planning commission to deliberate. It's not happening for the planning commission to ask a lot of questions for information gathering. Uh, the deliberations are going to happen later. Uh, the planning commission will be deliberating over, over these proposals in December or January. It's, it's not going to happen tonight. Um, as I said before, that tonight's going to be about public comment. So, uh, before I, before I move on, I will say that when the planning commission does deliberate, just so that everyone has an idea of the process that we go through, uh, we're going to be considering any proposed changes through the lens of what our city plan says, what the regional plan says, uh, the vision that we've had all along for the zoning bylaws, because, you know, they're a living document and, and as the planning commission works on this, we, we anticipate making changes. So we'll be looking at it like that. It's, uh, it's, it's a big picture thing is what we're going to be looking at just so you know. Um, but anyway, tonight's about comments. It's about hearing from you. We're not going to talk too much, uh, because there's a lot of people and because we want to make sure everyone gets heard, we're going to try to set a limit of two minutes per comment. And I'm really sorry that we got off to a slow start. And I, I, I hope that doesn't come back to bite us. Um, if we, if we have two minute long comments, uh, and we're making good time, there might be a possibility for, for further comments from the same people, but at first we're going to try to give everyone two minutes. So with that, uh, I don't have any more comments. Um, uh, so next on the agenda, we have to move on to, to general business, uh, because it's a planning commission meeting, uh, general business would be something other than the bylaws. So, uh, I'm going to go ahead and move on to that and ask if anyone's here, if anyone's here and wants to, to discuss something or mention something to us, it's not related to the proposed changes for tonight. Anyone here for something else? Okay. Uh, with that, I'm going to move on and turn it over to Mike to, uh, give us the summary of the proposed changes to the river hazard area regulations and the unified development regulations. Thanks Mike. All right. So, uh, I'm coming through. Okay. Yep. We can hear you. Okay. Um, so I'm going to assume everybody has received the memo because I can shorten up this, this presentation portion considerably, uh, and just kind of summarize where, uh, and what a lot of these are. And let me just make sure everybody's on mute. So yeah, Mike, why don't you, um, make sure you share in case people want to pull it up right now, tell them where they can do that. I meant to say that before. Okay. Uh, I would have to, and that's the tricky part because I'm now on this computer, not on my computer. So I can't, it's okay. One of us planning commissioners will share it in the comments if people can, if people need a link, we can. Oh, if people need a link. Yes. Um, if you don't have a copy. Um, so what we had, uh, as staff and as a city is we periodically get zoning permits, uh, that, that come in or requests or information come in from time to time. And we just start to compile these up and eventually, uh, put them together when we get enough of them and both, through and try to do a zoning amendment to make a number of changes. So over the past nine months, since the last time we've had this, we received what you had received in the mail or, um, by downloading it on the website, um, which was a list of 10 groups of changes. And so the changes, I'll summarize here for anyone who hasn't read through them or gone through them, um, but, uh, we'll, I'll try not to go into too many details cause I think everybody has this and everyone has looked at it. Um, so the changes, let me take a half step back just to go through and say, this is the first of two hearings. So there'll be a second hearing on this on December 13th. We wanted to give as much time as possible for people. Uh, you can always send in, if you're viewing this on Orca at a later date, you can always email written comments, uh, to, to me, Mike Miller, I'm the planning director here for the city of Montpelier. Um, or you can provide comments at either one of these two hearings. So that's kind of the summary of the hearings, uh, of what we're going to be doing. Uh, so the first big change that we received necessarily big change, but first significant change is a map change in the Harrison Ave, Whittier Ave area, um, which would shift this area is currently zoned residential 6,000. So that is, um, it's in the same neighborhood as college streets. So it's, it's kind of got grouped in with college street when the zoning was amended in 2018. So it's a residential 6,000, as opposed to say, uh, Loomis or lower Liberty street, which would be, um, residential 3,000. So what the 3,000 and the 6,000 stand for is the number of square feet that a lot has to be to be conforming. And it's also the density of development. So it's one unit for 6,000 with a 6,000 square foot lot, or one per 3,000 with 3,000 square foot lot. So that kind of gives a little bit of an outline. Uh, we had a project, um, a gentleman was, uh, his, his wife looking at a project to put in a tiny house. It would put a, uh, you'd already have a house in an accessory apartment. This would put another unit, um, but it's not allowed because they don't have enough density, even though they have a quarter acre lot, which is about a 10 or 11,000 square feet. So the idea of this change would be to make this have area of the same zoning designation as lumus and, uh, Liberty streets in those areas, uh, and that would be residential one, uh, residential 3,000. So that was a little bit of where that one came from. And we can answer questions about that one when this wraps up. The second one was, uh, up at Heaton Street. So Washington County mental health came in and was looking at a project to put in some workforce housing. Uh, they're, they want to put some housing next to their parking lot. And, uh, the zoning district, uh, residential 6,000 again. So they are again in that 6,000 college street neighborhood. And so, uh, we found these, uh, we looked at Heaton Woods longterm care facility and Washington County mental health is kind of being unique properties within that neighborhood and identified them as a possibility. One possibility would be that they could get rezoned to residential 3,000, which would make them more conforming. Still wouldn't make them conforming, but would make them more conforming and would give them the ability to add in that additional housing. So, um, the third proposal, uh, is on Northfield Street. Uh, and that was to shift two parcels on the East side from mixed use residential and rural to residential nine. This is a project, uh, so it was associated with, uh, Central Vermont Habitat for Humanity is looking at doing a project on that parcel. Um, in order to do that project, they would need to have residential 9,000. And they're going to be doing a project, uh, a planning project next year to look at the feasibility, but they really need to know whether or not they can have that zoning designation before they can spend the money before spending $60,000 or $100,000 planning for a project. They really have to know whether that zoning designation is going to be, um, made so that way they're, they can be very efficient with their money. The fourth proposal is to make an adjustment to the side setbacks in the residential 9,000 district. This is town wide. Um, it, because residential 9,000 is in a lot of places. It's one of our larger zoning districts. You can find it, um, ever from, you know, Northfield street to Elm street, to, um, to a couple other, uh, places up on Berlin street. So there are a number of places that have this. So occasionally, um, setbacks are currently 15 feet that in some of these neighborhoods that becomes, um, tight or makes a few non conforming. So we had a request to look at whether or not that should go to 10 feet. So a 10 foot setback would mean each house is at least 20 feet apart from each other. When it's 15 feet, that requires each house to be 30 feet apart because each one is has 15 feet. So that, that can really start to separate and spread out neighborhoods. Um, you really lose a lot of density when you start to have side setbacks that are, um, that, that wide. So that was that proposal. Fifth proposal has changed setbacks, um, for rail lines. This really affects one group of people, um, who are over in the Eastern Gateway Farm and Factory neighborhoods. So this is, um, over where the skating rink is, um, and, uh, the John Deere dealer. So those, those area, and so there are a number of these rails, rail lines that are abandoned over there. So they wanted to have the setback, which is currently actually quite large at 20 feet, uh, adjusted. So that way it would either be, um, five feet or zero feet. And so we'll talk about that a little bit more. We had recommended five feet and I know, uh, Alicia's here and they emailed written comments that I forwarded to the planning commission that said they reached out to, to the rail division and I have copies of those emails. And the rail division is okay with the zero setback that they had wanted. So we can talk more about that. Um, I did, there was a, um, an agreement with the rail. And so I've sent, I forwarded that information along. Uh, number six is new planned unit development rules. This actually dates back to when the old, when we replaced the zoning in 2018, one thing that was pointed out that was missing was that we really didn't have any general planned unit development regulations. We have the specialty ones, you know, cottage cluster and new, new neighborhood. Um, but we really didn't have any general PUDs and a lot of times that comes up, um, by developers, you don't get any density bonuses. You don't get anything you just go through and say, you know, uh, I've got a certain amount of land that portion is not developable. I'd like to cluster the development up here. And when you cluster it up here, it conserves the back area that can't be developed anymore. So that's how these PUDs work. And so usually there's two types, a general PUD and what's called a footprint PUD and, uh, not to get into too much of the details, uh, a footprint PUD happens a lot with condominiums where you will own, you might own the townhouse and two feet around the townhouse, but you don't actually, you know, you share the land. So everybody might have a piece with a little bit of land. Some condos, you don't own any land. And if you don't own under any land, you don't need a PUD, but they're, so basically you can find some condos that are just, um, you own the walls, but you don't own the land. Those don't need a subdivision. Those don't need a PUD. This is a secondary type that you'll sometimes see, um, where there is some subdivision of the land. Um, and that's what the footprint PUDs look at. Um, so number seven is to remove the required PUD language in new neighborhood and conservation PUDs. This is cup, came up a couple of times, uh, that, uh, there are some problems with those, uh, and sometimes people get forced into them, even though they don't, you know, they don't need the density bonuses. They don't want the density bonuses, but because they're doing a project in a certain neighborhood, they're forced into the PUD. And it makes more problems, um, in my opinion. So my recommendation is leave it as an option. If you want to use it and you want to get a density bonuses by all means, you can use it, but you're not going to be forced into using it. Um, number eight was the removal of, uh, residential density requirements from riverfront and residential 1500 districts. This would make the next two highest density districts to be regulated by bulk and massing. So, uh, you'll sometimes hear planners talk about form-based codes, uh, where really what we want to do in some of these neighborhoods is regulate the size of the buildings. Um, and so whether you put four apartments in that building or six apartments in that building or, or, you know, um, is less important than what the building shape and everything looks like. And so that is true of our urban centers, one, two and three. We have no residential density requirements in urban center, one, two and three. And the planning commission has requested that we consider this same concept for riverfront and for 1500, um, those two zoning districts. So that's what number eight would be looking at. Number nine looks at a number of minor, what I call minor technical fixes. So these are a lot of things the zoning administrator picks up on. Um, uh, some of the definition of nature, recreational parks, splitting that into two pieces, um, some clarifications to accessory setbacks to clarify, um, when an accessory structure is attached to a principal structure, I mean, some of these things you just wouldn't think of until you get a permit and try to figure out a garage is an accessory structure that has this setback. What happens if the garage touches or is part of the house? Does the garage meet the garage setback? Or is the garage now, because it's touching the primary structure, have to meet the primary setback? It's those types of questions that, that the zoning administrator just needs to have to understand how this works. So that, um, clarification, uh, of when the development received the state wetland permit that it doesn't need a hearing, um, a couple of things dealing with signs, um, signs are routinely always need to get those tweaked, um, some clarification on fences, especially front yard fences, um, a typo, uh, some clarification on land use, uh, or landscaping requirements for when they trigger a full review, uh, some discussion of, uh, shading requirements. So certain projects, uh, you have to check to see if you're going to be shading another property. And, uh, so there's an amendment that's been recommended there to not do walls, yards and roofs, but instead, but instead just require that we protect permitted or existing solar devices. So that's kind of a recommended change there. And the last is, uh, some subdivision changes. It's a strike because it's redundant. We don't need it in two places. And then the last thing, number 10 is just the river hazard, which were interim rule that were adopted in 2020 that, uh, we have to make permanent, um, and then in addition of a reference to why are those changes were made? So that's really quick to 10 changes. So I'll ask Kirby here. Just go through these one at a time. Just go and try to get everybody's comments who want to comment on number one. Yeah, thanks, Mike. Yeah, or would you like to just start getting comments? Yeah, I think that's, I think that's great. We're gonna, we're gonna go through, uh, according to Mike's memo. I just put a link, uh, directly to that document in the chat. If anyone, um, if that helps anyone follow along, uh, we're going to open things up. Uh, well, first we have to ask, do any of the planning commissioners have any questions before we proceed before we open it up for comment? Anyone need any clarifications on any of those 10 items? Okay, that's great. Uh, so before we, uh, before we then move on to open things up, just want to let people know that, uh, like I said before, we're going to keep things to two minutes. You can follow along by the issues. Uh, we'll be following, uh, Mike's memo. That's the links there. And, uh, I'm going to ask that people use the, um, use the raise hand function on zoom, uh, to let me know that you, uh, would like to make a comment on the particular, uh, issue as we bring them up one at a time. And, uh, for the, so the people who've used the raise hand function, I'll, I'll call on, on them and I'll let you know, uh, so we see, we have a, we have a person who used the raise hand function. So does anyone need a, is any, uh, starting with number one? I'm really busy right now. Okay. Hi guys. Uh, so with that, I'm going to open it up to, uh, to comments and we're going to start on the first issue. Um, the first issue is the map change and Harrison Avenue with your avenue, uh, area. So we have, we have some hands here. I, I think I saw Joanne before. So Joanne, would you like to, to give it or Joan, I'm sorry. I, um, yeah, I will, so I move on Harrison Avenue. Um, my husband and I are the ones who actually brought up this issue. And so we would be in favor of having that zoning change. And we've also talked with quite a few of our neighbors about it, um, to, and most folks have been, uh, overall supportive of the idea. I haven't heard anybody say that they thought it was a terrible idea and lots of people felt like it would have a positive impact on them as well. If they ever wanted to, um, change something about their home, um, in a similar way to what we've been talking about. Thanks. Thanks. Is there anything more? Um, no, I think that's it. Thank you. Okay. Uh, I think I noticed, uh, Peter next. Uh, I'm Peter Kalman. I actually live on the other side of town, but I used to live in college street and Mike, I just have a question for you. I was looking at the map and I just wondered why you didn't make the same proposal for, uh, the, uh, upper end of Liberty street, right at the bottom of, um, uh, where, uh, Heaton, uh, because you're also recommending Heaton. And I remember when I lived over there, I looked at a house, um, on Liberty, 56 Liberty, which I assumed was a res 3000 and it would have made a great, uh, the upper part of it would have made a great, uh, subdivided road that would, uh, a house that could be on the upper road, but, but it turned out to be 6000. Why, if you look at the map and see this, this wash of yellow all around it, why not extend that wash of yellow that is res 3000 further? Thanks. So the question is why wouldn't we run more up, uh, Liberty street, um, for res 3000. I mean, it really just hasn't been, we haven't taken a look at it. It's certainly one we could take a look at. Um, I'm trying to think back now to the original, we had many, many hearings over the, uh, 2016, 17, 18 to, to get the adoption done. And I'm not sure there was a reason that it was kind of broken off where it was, um, you know, because certainly Liberty, we could go up farther on Liberty. Um, I don't think Marvin street would make any sense though, but, um, again, we just looked in, at this particular proposal, just at that one area, just an app, because it did, once it was pointed out to us, it kind of made sense. It did bring up the question of, especially those three properties, you know, you look at Luma street and you have everyone, but three properties that are either res 1500 or res 3000. And then you've got these three properties that are res 6000, it kind of is out of place. So we were very narrow. We tried to be very narrow in our recommendation. Um, it's certainly one, uh, we could, I would leave it as a policy question. It would be up to the planning commission at this point. That's, that's why we aren't, we weren't looking to open up and look at the entire map. We were looking exclusively at, uh, what makes sense for their requests that were brought in. Yeah. Um, I think we will be considering changes like that though, Peter, when we, when we deliberate later. So thanks for pointing that out. Um, do we have any more hands for the first change from the memo for Harrison and Whittier? Okay, I'm not, I'm not seeing any. Uh, so we can move on to the second change, uh, from, from Mike's list anyway, uh, which is for Heaton Woods and the WCMH, uh, area. And it looks like we have some hands now. Um, I'm just going to name them as I, as I see them. Um, I think I saw Polly first. And thank you. Um, so I actually wanted to speak about all three of the map changes, Harrison, Northfield Street and Heaton Street, but for efficiency, I'll do it now. Um, and I wanted to speak in support of these changes because I think that the increased density will facilitate more house, the creation of more housing in Montpelier. And I mean, this isn't the time to go through, um, a description of, of Montpelier's housing shortage. Certainly it's been going on for years, but it's, it's definitely as bad, um, if not worse than it's ever been. There's, there's no vacancies, rents are high when things come up for sale. There are bidding wars and, and properties tend to go under contract within a couple of days. Um, and these proposed changes, um, are precipitated by individuals and organizations who actually want to create more housing in Montpelier, which will help believe, um, our very, very constrained market. I also think that they are logical because they extend the densities and the permit requirements on a budding parcels and neighborhoods. It's not like they're plopped in the middle of nowhere. Um, and I guess just one final comment about Heaton Street, um, you know, since I've been, um, involved in housing and, and Montpelier, there's been a lot of talk from employers and economic development folks about the lack of housing for employees and people who, who work here. And, um, it sounds like Washington County Mental Health is trying to provide some housing for their employees, but they need a change of density to make it work. So I hope that, um, the planning commission will say yes to these three changes. Harrison, Northwood Street and Heaton Street. Thank you. Thanks a lot, Paulie. Uh, I think I saw Abby next. Yes. Hi, um, um, can you hear me? Yeah. Yeah. Um, I guess I wanted some clarification. Um, you presented Mike that Washington County Mental Health wanted to put in workforce housing. Um, however, there's been a recent article in the bridge when Michael Curtis, who is a consultant for Washington County, um, was interviewed and he said that the housing that they would be interested in wouldn't be for the workforce. It would be for their clients and there might possibly be, you know, a small workforce part of it, but the main thrust would be for their clients. And so I'm just wondering if this is, uh, I just want this up on the table because it seems like the motivation for housing is great, but that's not what the main intent of the Washington County housing might be. It's, I think Keith can maybe answer that question. Sure. Hi folks. My name is Keith Greer. I'm the director of the community support program here at Washington County Mental Health Services and actually one of my offices is out of Heaton Street. Thanks everybody. So yeah, I'm not sure exactly where that narrative came from in terms of specifically for, um, for our employees, although I will say in recent months we've run into more and more, I think that many of you are aware of our extreme staffing crises that we have, not only in Washington County, but all across our social service organizations. So it has come up on more than one occasion in terms of staff interest to become work for us and couldn't find housing, but that's not what that was not our primary intention. We've actually engaged in a feasibility study for housing on our property there at Heaton Street and I think most relevant to this conversation, that little plot of land that's the woods next to the parking lot there. And I think that's why I'm changing from, you know, I don't understand all the details either, Mike. So I might need to get educated, but moving it from res six to res three would allow us to put in family housing and that has to be a focus for us right now is that we can look at apartment housing for folks. But what really families need right now is family housing and we were looking at developing some so houses there, keeping in accordance with sort of like the face of the five of the neighborhood, if you will. But that's what we were looking at and that where the woods are there. Does that make sense to you guys? That's that's so it wasn't originally all just for staff housing. It really is for people, sir, and families specifically that kind of housing. Right. So that's my my apologies. God was I met once there was a TRC meeting, a technical review committee where they were coming in and talking and that was how it was presented to me was that it was going to be for employees. So it may not have been a fixed apparently a fixed idea and they there must have been some change or some miscommunication at that point because I only met once with them. So you'll have to take that into consideration now from a from a regulatory standpoint. As zoning is written, it's not if it's not treatment, if it's just housing, then it is it's there's no discrimination in the zoning between housing for somebody who is say a Washington County Mental Health client or somebody who is just you know, somebody who's just living there because it's it's an apartment. So the zoning doesn't differentiate between those two. It's it's both of them are just living arrangements unless you reach a another level where there's a state licensing. So if it's a state licensed facility, then it falls into a separate category. But as long as it's just housing, it wouldn't be discriminated against in that way. So I hope that I apologize for the lack of for not being correct in the memo. As I said, that was had I kind of heard about that earlier, I would have sent out a clarifying note on that. But so thank you for clearing that up, Keith. My pleasure. And it is our intention, again, to this feasibility study for housing. We know that individuals in our community to I believe was Paulie's point, it's just not a lot of housing guys. We need to create some housing. So we are we are looking for opportunities to do so. Thanks for letting me share. Yeah, Keith, did you have anything else you had your hand up? I just want to make sure that you just can't figure out how to get it down now, Kirby. I can ignore it. That's fine. I believe that Eve was was next. OK, actually, it might be one question for Keith again. Just curious on the process, was there actually a request for the change in the zone or was this just a discussion? I guess our concern, please. Yeah, answer. So early on in this process, we heard that this group was considering some zoning changes and we wanted to understand those as part of our feasibility study for whether or not we could actually do this. So I'm wondering, Mike, if that's what happened, we were reaching out to try to figure out, OK, we're going to go forward. Are there going to be any zoning challenges in terms of us moving forward? So the process as far as as far as I know was that so just so everybody understands the the way the planning department is kind of laid out, we have two folks, Audra and Meredith, who are handle all the zoning and all the permitting and all that that those pieces. We have Kevin Casey, who who does the housing programs and I'm the planner planning director. You may know Chris, who does inspect. And they can't see us either. So that's kind of the way that the things are laid out now. Washington County Mental Health had been working with Meredith on some ideas for the Heaton Street property. I was not involved, that all didn't even know it was going on. But she had a meeting, a sit down meeting where they came in and started to talk about their proposals. And she pretty much, my understanding is informed them that you can't do the proposal because you don't have the density. There's just not enough density there in order for you to do the project that you want. You would need to be at least a residential 3000, which is one one zoning designation higher. So at that time, she was like, but you know, the Planning Commission is getting ready to hold some hearings. If you want to include that that request to make that zoning change, we could look at that at the same time as we look at all the other pieces. So that was the first I heard about it. I came into the room, they said, can you do this? And I said, I'll review what we see on the map because we can't just change the zoning for one property. So Meredith and I looked at the maps and we examined and kind of said, well, Washington County Mental Health and the Heaton Woods Long Term Care Facility are both unique properties. We both, we could, if we can't just rezone the one, but we could rezone both to kind of make those two residential 3000, not that Heaton Woods has any interest in doing anything, but these are significantly larger structures. They exceed most of their non-conforming, very much non-conforming to many of the requirements of residential 6000. Remember, this is a neighborhood that really is composed of a single family, two family, maybe some three family housing and these are significantly larger. So we put the proposal together. That's the only communication I've had until tonight with anyone from Washington County Mental Health. Okay, so then my only other comment would be about Heaton Woods backing up, I'm on Fuller Street. So I do know Heaton Woods well. And we know that now that there's a 3.2 acre easement, conservation easement and city park and a lot of steep slopes around it. So, so basically it's sort of the parking area and that's 14,000 foot square, it's the first part of the parking lot, but it has a fair amount of parking space. So it's not really, clearly, I mean, that's not true of Heaton Woods but it's being reclaimed into the community as a way to make the other one work, which would be fine. But if it does become a place where height building is going to be put in, I think it wouldn't exactly meet the red six nature of the neighborhood, as a lot of the documents say, you're trying to each distinct character, everything in those parking areas might not be quite meeting that particular feature of the planning document. Okay, you broke up a little bit but I think I've got the gist, you're referring then across the street to the facility across the street that with the steep slopes and the conservation easement, there's not much on that side. And I agree, I mean, there hasn't been a proposal so I can't even say that there is a potential but looking at the facilities, if somebody ever wanted to add some additional units in there, whether it's a second story on a part of a building or something, then they would have some additional density to use at the long-term care facility but nobody's proposing anything at this time. I certainly, it should be obvious, I hope it's obvious to everyone that you, regardless of the zoning change, the conservation easement doesn't change, nobody can build in the conserved land. The steep slopes since 2018, then in 2018, we added new zoning that strictly regulates development on steep slopes. So before 2018, we didn't have any rules on building on steep slopes. 2018, we did add in those new rules. So there's additional protections now. So Washington County, in a lot of cases, not everybody builds out to full development potential. Most properties in the city, you'll see are less than fully developed and I wouldn't be surprised to see Washington County Mental Health State with that in that same category or not Washington County, but the Eaton Woods. Thanks, Mike. Thanks Eve. Next we have Jay Castellano. That's Joe. Thanks, Kirby. Joe. Hey, I just have a question for Keith and or Mike. How many units, Keith, are you proposing, housing units are you proposing under this plan? Well, it's typical saying, we have an architect came in and sort of gave us like the dream, the vision of what that could be inclusive of renovating Eaton Street until like apartment buildings. Total though, like, so the total number like that we could possibly based upon those primes uppers like a little over 20 units, 22, I think, but the ones that would be in addition to that like the actual Eaton Street renovation, if you will, we're looking at four, possibly five and five, I think might be stretching it just given the land that I saw there, four, so probably four like family houses and that's really a big gap that we have in our housing stock right now is a family housing. So that's that part. I don't know, Joe, if you live up there, but you know where like, you know where Eaton Street is? Yeah, it's fairly close to where I live. All right, so you know where the parking lot is, right? Where currently the staff do that little wood thing there along there would be where those would be and then probably using some of the parking lot too. That's from our house. Wow. Okay. Houses though, like we're talking about like actual houses. Lots of change for our vision. So you're talking like almost townhouse style, is that the concept at this point? Yeah, yeah, we talked a lot about that, sort of keeping in with, again, the vibe of the neighborhood, that sort of thing. The vibe of the neighborhood like that. I think someone's not muted and they're maybe not aware of it. Everyone check and make sure that you're muted if it's not your turn to talk. Thank you Keith for clarifying that. I appreciate that. Thanks, do we have any other comments for the second change, the Heaton Woods area? Hi, this is Dana Hoek and I, sorry, can't figure out how to raise my hand. It's okay, go ahead. Actually, I'm on here listening for colonial, but as you're talking about Heaton Woods development over there, I'm just, I have kids in elementary school and the limited, this popped into my head is that they're limited to green space at Union Elementary School and they use Harrison Field and that hillside behind Harrison Field that leads up to Heaton Woods for a lot of their eco instructions. And I wonder, I guess that's concerning to me if that would be developed where then the kids are going to go with the limited green space already at the elementary school. Yeah, like what we were just talking about was there's a conservation easement in that area and it's very unlikely, if not impossible for that to be developed. That's our understanding. Do we have anyone else on this topic? Okay. Yes, please hold on. Yes, I apologize, I missed the raise hand button. Just wanna make sure we, oh, I'm sorry, jumped in too soon, nevermind, I apologize. Sure, sounds like you have a different topic you wanna talk about. Oh. So yeah, we're going down a list. Yeah, I wanna see. Which one on this one? I know, in general, so I'll wait for one. Oh. Thank you. Okay. Thanks for checking on that mic. Yeah, we're going through five numbers at this point. So we're just on number two. Okay. Okay, so anyone else on Eton Woods? Okay. So we're gonna move on. So the third change is a map change for Northfield Street to shift on parcels from MUR to rural and rural that is to Res 9, so to the Northfield Street. So I might jump in first. Do you wanna pick this off? I can. Yeah, so Zach Watson is here from Central Vermont, Habitat for Community. So we have three people here in person. So I'll let him, I guess, introduce the project and at least he'll be available to answer questions as it goes along. Thanks a lot, Mike, that's helpful. And welcome, Zach. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Kirby. I'm Zachariah Watson. I'm the executive director for Central Vermont Habitat for Humanity and just recovering from surgery. I got a big hole in my cheek, so excuse me if folks have a hard time hearing me, especially through the mask. So, you know, first of all, just wanna say that we, this zoning change came out of basically two requests. The first was we were looking at developing one of the mixed use parcels along Northfield Street for an affordable housing project. And it was pretty clear that the zoning wasn't right for the project because it would have required us to build a three-story building. And so it was, it made sense for us to look at rezoning to res nine. And in the process of that, we knew that a larger development we were looking at, looking at outlined in the memo that Mike sent. I am out of here. We needed to also change that to residential 9,000 as part of our project. And so it just made sense for us to do them all at the same time. So basically, you know, the site that we're looking at at the rural portion at Northfield Street is a perfect site for affordable housing and just housing in general. Polly talked about this earlier and I don't wanna get into all the details about the housing shortages that we have in central Vermont and Vermont in general in the city, but just to say that we have received letters of support from the city and the Regional Planning Commission as well as Sustainable Montpelier, as well as a number of other organizations that say that there is an absolute need for more housing and the housing of this type. Furthermore, you know, Habitat for Humanity has been building houses in central Vermont for 30 some odd years. And we know that this is the ideal location for affordable housing because it's walkable within our community because it's close to services. And very importantly, it's out of the floodplain. So the reason we've requested the rezoning for this parcel, it's a challenging parcel to begin with, but basically the zoning is absolutely necessary because it'll allow for higher density. It'll allow for us to run sewage and water, town sewage and city water and sewage up to the parcel, which again is really helpful for affordable housing. It'll also allow for us to have access to more planned unit developments, which will make this project more feasible. If we were able to rezone this, there is potential we could request that the parcel be expanded into a growth district, which would enable us for access to more grants and tax credits. So I've talked to a lot of the neighbors about this and I recognize early on that this is a parcel that is used for hiking and biking. By many of the neighbors it is currently a private lot and the land, the homeowner is very open to letting folks use this lot. And because of that use, and also just from our own experience in wanting to create more green and open space for our homeowners as part of this development, over 50%, if not more of the parcel would be put into a forever wild easement, essentially meaning that this parcel would become an old growth forest. By having an easement it would protect the land which it is currently not protected. It would also enable us to put trails and bike paths, which would be publicly accessible to not only the butters that currently use it, but also for the entire city and folks on this side of the river so that everybody can use this parcel because it is a great parcel. So basically, I know folks have had a lot of questions about why do we need this in place. The reality is this is a 60 to $100,000 feasibility study just to look at whether we can actually build anything here. And we're not gonna spend that money if we don't have the zoning in place that we know that we need. So simply put, if the zoning doesn't happen we're not gonna do the feasibility study and this project doesn't move forward. So that's kind of the nuts and bolts of it. I probably went over my two minutes, I apologize, Kirby. It's okay, it's okay. It was informational, I think a lot of people wanted to hear the detailed description. And I meant to say this before and I think I feel like I'll be saying it a few times probably throughout this entire process. When the planning commission and when the city considers things like proposed changes we do it based on feedback, but what we don't do is make our decisions based solely off of one parcel or one property owner or something like that. We make the decisions based on what vision we hope to have for the future. So your comment about this project may or may not happen. I mean, that's fine by my perspective because we're not doing this for a one-person or one-parcel loopy. This is an opportunity for us to consider making the zoning better in general for the whole plan, for the whole town too. Okay, I think I saw Dan Jones first. I'm calling on people randomly if you haven't noticed by the way, basically. Hi, Kirby, thank you for calling me. I'm one of the far end of butters of that property and do use it for hiking, et cetera, a lot. Have often thought that the flat part of it up the hill could have a higher and better use. One of the things that we forget in Montpelier is that we live in a flood plain downtown and we have a massive need for housing right now. We have no place for working people to live. We have a no place for the people who are going to keep things going in the future. And so we have to start looking at places proximate to our downtown because we live in this valley that can be developed. And we have a problem with the stuff downtown. One, a lot of it's controlled by the state and parking lots and stuff. And two, it's in a flood plain. I was having dinner with my buddy, Roger Hill a couple of nights ago and Roger was talking about the probability of floods, massive floods being more common in the future because of climate change. And so we have to now start thinking about how can we keep our city going around our center and move stuff up out of the flood plain? So the planning for doing something residential up in that area would be crucial for being able to see how could we then imagine a future that was no longer just sitting down in the flood plain like the downtown is. I can't urge enough for people to understand that this climate change thing is going to impact our future and that we do have to make some choices around it and we need the housing. And so the idea of having something that would be that proximate to downtown is absolutely needed. And so I'm just jumping in here to say, please consider the zoning change to the residential because I think it's absolutely needed. Thank you. Thanks, Dan. I think I noticed Noah next. Hello. So I'm Hillary Goldblatt actually and my kids and I, we love walking in those woods on a daily basis. And so I was glad to hear Zach that you had incorporated a proposal to keep some access to the woods there. We have dogs, a lot of the neighbors names I see here we all have dogs and we know each other because of that common woods. And so there's normally anywhere else we can walk to on our side of the river where we can get out of the city into the woods. But I understand all the housing crunch issues but I just wanted to speak up for value of that undeveloped spot. Thank you. Thanks, Hillary. All right, Dayton. Hi there everybody, Dayton Christ. I'm in a butter on Pleasant Street. And I just wanted to speak up and say, you know, whole heart of support behind the type of development and habitat of humanity is proposing full hearted support for the type of housing they reference that we'll be able to fit in a compact cluster development and provide this much needed equity to open space green space as has been documented in the Montpelier green print and elsewhere. So I'm very supportive of this type of development on this parcel that my land but, but I'm very much against what I perceive to be a cart before the horse approach here in rezoning first and then wait and then doing a feasibility study. And I really apologize if it's because I'm dense and lost in my career but I do not understand how a feasibility study which it sounds like our Mr. Greer is doing a feasibility study ahead of the reason, which is a study to study the feasibility of doing it in Res9 or any other potential development or like planned unit development that can move forward regardless of what the zoning on any piece of land is because it's simply a study. So I'm encouraging very much that we got feasibility study move ahead and present findings that show feasibility in Res9 or anything else. And we can have an incredible development back there this housing that satisfies the need to preserve open space and access on the south side of town and doesn't take away what I believe is one of the city's biggest part. If this rezones as Res9 and then habitat for humanities proposal is not feasible for complete what's to keep a completely different development from going through there that does not adhere to any of these high principles that we hope to see with Habitat for Humanities project but instead sold off and built to any standard that Res9 meets driver elsewhere that doesn't quite preserve open space at the same extent. So thank you. That's really my main point. I hope we can not put the cart before the horse feasibility study and make decisions based on that rather than do a rezone first. Thanks, Dayton. And I can assure you that we will be sure to think of that. We're not thinking of just one project. We'll be thinking about, yeah, about what it means to have this zoning that way. Joe, you're muted. Sorry about that. I had a question for Zachariah and I just wanna find out how many units are you proposing for this development? And I assume this is all gonna be the flat part of the land? That's correct, Joe. Yeah, the feasibility study will ultimately determine how many units can actually be built up there but we are hoping to build as many as possible. 50 would be a great starting place. Okay, and then have you actually done a soils test yet? I'm just kind of curious. We have not done a soils test. Okay, that's just one of the recommendations. I'm gonna praise her by background and that's one of the things we always look at first is like, okay, can't we even do anything on this slide? So that was not in when we initiated, so we applied for a community development block grant for planning as a federal grant. So it holds us to a very high standard of basically exploring the feasibility of this project. And I believe that would probably be a part of the environmental review and that was not one of the pieces that was suggested as part of the environmental review. Right now it's just an archeological resource assessment which we've already started to do. Gotcha, thank you. And we started to do that because it needs to happen before the snow comes. So that was, that had to start early. Exactly, thank you. Thanks, Joe. Yeah, thanks, Joe. I think I noticed the person's name is DCH-011. Yes, Dana. And I also bought on Colonial Drive on the other side of Dayton and Hillary. And we also use the roads frequently for walking. And so I was also happy to hear or echo a lot of the positivity about 50% of the land being set aside and just would like to, regardless of who ends up developing that piece of land, it would be nice if that easement was still considered if it was sold. So I guess that's, and I hear the need for housing and support that, but having that green space is also important to us. Thanks, Dana. Tyler. Great, thank you. And I apologize for jumping in prematurely earlier. To speak to sort of the individual project circumstances, I work in construction professionally and I would urge the framing of this question, not as cart and horse, but as chicken and egg, feasibility of a project and the zoning go hand in hand. And as it pertains to the habitat project, I think knowing that the zoning will allow us or allow the project to move forward is a huge part of whether or not it's feasible. So if the organization can save tens of thousands of dollars in feasibility study costs by knowing the zoning decision ahead of time, that's a huge decision that can get made early on. In terms of the larger sort of beyond a single project zoning, I would just urge folks to think carefully about the amount of developable land there is near the downtown center in Montpelier. It's not easy to find that. And this parcel offers a very good long-term opportunity with some careful planning and careful consideration about everybody's uses. Thank you. Thanks, Tyler. Montminy, is that right? Yes, hi, Mark and Tracy Montminy, we're land of butters to the piece of land in question that habitat for humanity is looking at. And we just wanted to echo Dayton's comments. I think whether it's horse and cart or chicken and egg, it seems to us that a final decision on the zoning could be postponed until the feasibility study has returned. I understand they might need to know what the answer would be, but it seems to us a little bit backwards to give them an answer and to go ahead and rezone it before the feasibility study comes back. If for some reason it does fall through, pardon the expression, open Pandora's box for the next developer that comes along with deeper pockets that can develop it. So we're not opposed to the development. Certainly we lived in Montpere long enough to know about the housing shortages, but it just seems to us that the final decision on making the zoning change could wait until the feasibility study has returned, not unlike the conversation that took place earlier with Mr. Greer. Thank you. We've had a request for people to state their full names for purposes of the newspaper. Just throw that out there for people. It's not something that I'm hugely concerned about, but Brian Evans. Good evening, everyone. I'm Brian Evans. I'm on the Montpere Housing Task Force. I do not live close to this plot, but I am an advocate for more housing. I do want to just add my name to the support of changes to the zoning that allow more housing because we are definitely in that crunch. I do want to point out to those that like to use private land that they have access to, just keep in mind that if zoning doesn't change in this cell or cells is somebody that decides that they do not want to allow that access anymore, you lose that access. So it's nice that Habitat for Humanity is saying that they would like to keep that open if they back out of the project and this goes to a private landowner that decides that they don't want to allow that access. There's nothing the city or we could do about that. So just keep that in mind. It should be not a forefront question in my opinion. So thank you. Thanks, Brian. Do we have, okay, it looks like we have Glenn. Yeah, hi. I am not an abutter, but I am an abutter to a butter. And I use the land as described for daily walks. I would really hate to lose that access, but the project as described by Zachariah sounds like almost the best case long-term scenario to me. And I think that there are a few different ways that we could get to worst case scenarios for me, which would be, for example, what was just described losing access because the private landowner chooses to post the land and say, you can't go there. All that said, I think I am landing overall in support of the zoning change, despite my confusion with the project. I think that it's a project worth pursuing and I understand the rationale for it. Thank you for holding the hearing. I expect I'll be at the next one too. Thanks, Glenn. Do we have anyone else? Anyone else for the Northfield? Yes, this is John Campbell. I'm trying to raise my hand. I can't raise my hand. I guess whenever the old guys sit there and try to use my team. It's all right, go ahead, John. Okay, John Campbell, I also live on Pleasant Street. And actually Glenn just said something which is interesting. So basically the confusion of the project. I think that everyone here that is viewing this is concerned about the housing crisis. No question about that. And yeah, being on a butter or using that park is nice. And yes, everyone's right. Or the individuals who said that the landowner can close it at any time. That's correct. But what we're really looking at is changing the zoning laws in this city and how you go about doing it. I have not seen any major, any plan really here tell to give you all guidance as to whether it's worthy to make that change, which is a very important decision on your part. Zach had met with the landowners or the butters. And one of the things that he had mentioned and told us is that this is gonna be a very, very expensive project and that they're probably gonna have to partner with people. Which does bring that concern is, okay, what exactly are we doing here? What happens if Habitat can't afford it and it does go to other developers? Have we gone ahead and made changes to the very important zoning laws under the thoughts that this was going to be a Habitat for Humanity project and then turn out to be something totally different. So again, I understand about the concern about feasibility that you wanna know if the zoning is going to be changed. I believe very strongly though that you need to know what is possible before you go ahead and make a huge major policy change. So I would just urge the board to consider that. Thanks, John. Yeah, you may not have been here before, but at the beginning I kind of introduced this as saying that we are going to consider this, not based on any project or any parcel. We're gonna be considering it based on the city plan. That's mostly what guides us. And also our own thoughts about how we'd like to adjust the bylaws to meet the kind of vision that the planning commission and the city council, of course, has for the city. So that's what's mostly on the forefront of our mind. Thinking very much about, not about what a particular project will do, but what we think is right for zoning in the city to address housing and where it's the most appropriate, et cetera, et cetera. And again, following the city plan. Great, thanks, Kurt. We appreciate it. Yeah, sure. It looks like Zach has something. Kirby, I just wanted to thank you for the opportunity to discuss this with folks. We've been very open and wanting to engage the public and our neighbors on this process. We know it's a big project and there are lots of complicated things about it. Wanted to invite folks to join us for a capillary neighborhood hosted meeting, virtual meeting next Monday, 5.30 to talk about the project so we can learn more about it. And of course, we are very much open to everybody's suggestions and working with you. We know everybody's not gonna be happy, but I think that's the nature of a compromise. So thanks again. Thanks, Zach. Does anyone else have anything on this one? Okay, I'm gonna move on to the next item, which is a proposal to reduce the side set backs in res nine for 15 feet to 10 feet. Anyone, okay. Joe, go ahead. I guess my concern is I believe that this was started by, was it the request of the planning commission? No, not this one. This one came up. It came up a couple of times. I don't have a specific property to point to, but since 2018, we'd had a couple of people who had res nine properties and wanted to do projects and we just kept seeing this side set back come up in certain ones, but as I said, res nine, for those of you who don't know, it's in most of the, if you go up Terrace Street, you're gonna hit res nine. If you go up Northfield Street, you're gonna hit res nine. If you go up Berlin Street, you're gonna hit res nine. If you go up Main Street, you're gonna hit res nine. So it's kind of, it's that lower density single family home neighborhoods. Okay, I just was curious on where that came from. Yeah, no, I don't have a specific one. It had come up two or three times though. You know, Clarendon Ave, I think was one where somebody just had a project that happened to highlight it and we noticed it a couple of times. It wasn't really prevalent. You know, I'm not jumping up and down saying this is one that really has to get changed, but it came up. So I thought it was worth entertaining having the comments. Okay, thank you. Thanks, Joe. Do we have anyone else on the setback? There's nine setback question. Okay. So number five is a change to setbacks on property lines that budding the rail line for properties in the Eastern gateway in the farm and factory neighborhood. I know Mike had some, Mike provided us with some emailed feedback on that and he said it's available publicly. He has copies there and. Alicia is here to probably give a quick summary from her perspective. Okay, great. Alicia, welcome. Thank you. Thank you very much. So I work for Mulum Properties who's a property owner in that area for several different parcels in the Eastern gateway zoning district. And a couple of things about it is one, a lot of the historic buildings there or the buildings that are currently there have about zero foot setback to the property line. Some of them, I'm not sure they're even fully on the property, but the zoning regulations now require 20 foot setbacks for front and side and 30 foot for the rear. And I understand kind of the area that that's coming from the industrial use you wanna have larger setbacks. Our concern is that it's kind of limiting our potential use for the rail lines. And we're not saying that all of the property lines do we want to have the zero or five foot setback but just the ones of budding that rail line. And then, so we did talk with the trans rail division. They're open for negotiations as far as every project you can discuss with them and they can review. So that's why in Mike's staff comments there was a five foot maximum waiver for property setback. And then we had asked that if a developer or a budding property to a rail line wanted to have a zero foot setback and could negotiate directly with the rail line division for maintenance of a building if it was put on a zero foot setback that that could be a possibility. We just the way the waivers are written now there is no front yard waiver setback. So all buildings have to be 20 foot setback from a rail line or any other line but this specifically rail line. And so we just wanted to make sure that we didn't we allowed for options in the regulations but we're not asking for any at this time. We're just trying to figure out that we have those possibilities in the future. We are looking at doing some changes in that area. And it's not really a feasibility study or not. It's just the way that they're written really limits the potential use for rails in the area. Thanks, Alicia. Does anyone have any comments or questions for Alicia or Mike? I'm gonna move on. The next question is about new plan unit development rules for the general PUD and footprint requests. Anyone have questions about the PUDs? Just so you know, I mean, we talk about PUDs a lot and the zoning that was just changed a few years ago added a lot about PUDs and we're re-looking at that as Mike said before in the summary. But this idea of using PUDs to have more development and at the same time have more open space is actually really great. So the people who were thinking of the Habitat Project I think, yeah, PUDs and doing a better job with PUDs. I think some we might all want so that we can have our open space and we can also have our higher density in areas where we need that too. But there's no questions, we can move on. The next one is the removal of required PUD language in new neighborhood and conservation PUDs. Any questions about that or comments? Okay, the next change is the removal of density, residential density requirements from the riverfront and res 1500 districts. This would make them similar to the urban center one, urban center two, urban center three. I'll say right now, this was a change that came from the planning commission. I see your hand Joe. Thank you. Yeah, I'm just kind of concerned on what the rationale was behind this. Is it just to mass more housing, more density? I'm just trying to figure out where the rationale coming from for this. Do you mean to answer that one Mike or you wanna go for it? It's up to you. I can give the general answer and then I'll let Kirby and the planning commission speak up in either kind of support or kind of defend the reasoning why. So what we find sometimes in these urban areas, more built out area is you'll have a building. And so you may get a market analysis that goes and says, and this is actually true, 30% of everyone who lives in Montpelier, they live alone, they're people living alone. So most people think, well, it's families living in houses, but a lot of people just live as a single person in the house or a single person in an apartment and 30% of our residents live by themselves. So sometimes a market analysis will come in and say, look, we've got a lot of two unit and three unit apartments. We've got a lot of homes, but we need our studio apartments and one bedroom apartments to fill that need for that group of people who want to live alone or who do live alone. But what happens is when they get to a structure, the structure in the zoning is set up there, I could put, I'll throw out a number, I could put 16 studios in there, but the zoning says, I can only get eight units. So because I've got this box, I'll just fill it with two bedroom units instead because I don't want to lose the amount of development potential. So the idea is if you can split these two away and just go through and say, we're gonna look at how big of a box, how big of a structure can you build? And then we will rather than necessarily count the number of units. So I guess that's, I hope that clarifies it a little bit. Just if you've got a certain size building, you can fit, you know, 16 studios or you can fit eight two bedrooms. And its impact on the neighborhood, it's an identical looking building. The impact on the neighborhood is less, is virtually the same between the two. So that I guess is the reason why a lot of communities or some communities in the country are shifting towards these form-based code. Yeah, and that's what I would say for the policy reasoning is we have some interest in moving away from using density as something in the toolkit. I think it's misunderstood a lot of the time and especially in these areas around downtown like what we're looking at with this proposal, we want density, we want people. So something like density is like needlessly gets in the way of what we're going for, what the city is going for. But I think there's a philosophical part too, where it's just like if we can start thinking about zoning in terms of how our community looks and what we want from the community and less about like putting a quantitative limits on the number of people and the number of units, we think that long-term that's better. And a lot of what this idea came out of is how planning as a profession is changing and evolving and there's materials put out by think tanks and even the state of Vermont recently that have suggested that cities move away from density. So I think it's just an exciting thing for us to do. We've done it with the urban centers and this is just expanding that out to the areas nearby that are like the urban center. But gotta say it's, I see this maybe the first steps of like actually in the very long-term moving the city away from thinking about density, thinking about what we really want the city to look like as opposed to using these proxy things. And I guess my comment here is, do we have any examples either in Vermont or you said that there's some studies throughout the United States? I don't know whether you're talking of San Francisco, New York, some other far more denser areas that you can cite as examples is something that's been done in this format. Well, it's our very own downtown is as an example. There's not density, the three urban center areas that make the downtown don't have density caps. And there's a state document that I could try to find I could try to find the link and I'll try to put it in the chat here. And I don't know the specifics, but I do know there are a number of communities that have moved towards foreign-based codes, but I don't know if they've fully gone there. I know Newport, Winooski, South Burlington, I know it's been looking at it. So there are other communities in the state that have moved towards it, but sometimes foreign-based codes are hybrid and I can't honestly tell you whether or not they have fully gone. I would suspect Winooski would probably be the most likely candidate for one that Winooski and Newport, having known the planner for both of those communities, he was the same gentleman for both and I would have suspected that it's probably pretty close to this same idea too. And I guess my concern is Mike, you certainly remember when there was a 23-unit department building proposed over on Sibley, I mean under these requirements, it looks like that would certainly have not had any sort of resistance under this new foreign-based code and I'm just wondering about the potential for abuses of stuff like this. What do you guys, what do you say to that? Well, the Sibley one certainly that was a, it met the zoning actually, it met all the density requirements. I can't remember if that was before or after the new zoning was passed. I think it was before. It may have been before, but it met the zoning that was in place at the time. Really what becomes very important then is to make sure that the bulk and massing because that what Sibley, depending on where you look on Sibley, because Sibley's kind of this, you get close down to the Barrie Street and the buildings are very big. You get up to the top of the hill on Sibley Street and you end up with single family ranches and smaller structures. So this one happened to be at kind of that transition point where it would have been a very large building, not compared to the ones downhill, but big compared to the ones uphill and the project ended up going away anyways. But that's, what's important is to make sure you have those bulk and massing rules correct. So you're building footprint requirements. And I believe we, under the old rules, we didn't have building footprint requirements, we now do. So we have a couple of additional things that can go in to help alleviate some of these. Again, if you've got the bulk and massing right, then you can't get a giant building because the bulk and massing won't let you. Okay, and then I guess the next question is, so would this be based on what Kirby replied? So is this sort of a starter district? Is this something that you've planned to roll out throughout the city at some point? I think it's possible. I mean, we're talking like a really slow incremental thing. So I have no idea. It's probably, I mean, if I don't, we're hoping to just look for ways to, for people to see that density is a bit of a red herring. And I think, so in my mind, yes, like making these changes, I don't, it's gonna be, it's only gonna be helpful. I think it's only going to stop, like potentially stop some development that we want from being stopped or obstructed, because these are areas that we certainly do want to see housing development in, and people will see that there's no harm that comes from looking at it differently and not relying on density so much. That's helpful. Yeah, that does help a little bit. It's kind of hard to conceptualize, cause we, I'm so used to looking at zoning from one standpoint, and this is like a whole new mindset. Yeah, that's the hope. That's the hope. I've noticed in my time on the planning commission that people often get upset over zoning is what people focus on when they're upset, when it's not normally like the actual thing they're worried about. They're worried about their community changing in some way or some undesirable development happening or something, but it's not that people focus on zoning or the density stuff a lot. I just think it'll help our conversations if we focus less on it, but I see it's kind of a paradigm difference. I get that. And I guess my question is, what's the goal of the planning commission at this point? How many additional units do you foresee? If this were to be enacted, have you guys thought about what the end game is on this? For those districts, I don't, we don't know. Yeah, I just thought it might be something to put into the conversation. Okay. Do we have any other comments about this? Yeah, we do have Sandy Vitsum who is here live and she wanted to give some comments. Mike, am I allowed to take off my mask if I'm boostered? Thank you. Hi there. I don't know a number of people on the planning commission now, so I'm just gonna briefly introduce myself and I'll say up ahead ahead of time that I will try to live myself to two minutes, but I don't think that will happen. But if I go over, please know I'm trying to end. I have lived in Vermont for a long time and I have been a practicing architect for about 40 years. I went to a total of six years of school, architecture and engineering and I had a concentration in urban planning and also in urban economics. I served on design review for many years and I actually participated in one of the last truly from scratch master plans. I think it was shortly before the year 2000. And I have worked with form-based codes in Saratoga, in Indiana, in Michigan and other states. So I've probably for 20 years where it's been around for a longer time. So I'm very familiar with form-based zoning. I'm gonna try to just say a couple of very brief process related points I wanna make and then focus in on eight, your item number eight. The first is the lack of notice that you have given or I should say so you have not given to residents. It sounds as if like this letter went out to both apartment residents and the landowners. Yeah, so in a lot of these districts, there are a lot of apartment and it says residents here, but it didn't go to residents. So I don't think that is a democratic way to do this. A lot of owners, multi-building owners, landlords in town don't even live in Montpelier. So this could have been sent to them and no one would know. So that's a major problem. The second thing is the letter that came to the residents was dated November 9th, but it didn't get into my mail until November 19th, which was Friday at five o'clock before the Thanksgiving week. And there's really no chance to talk to neighbors about this. The letter that came had no details, no graphics. And so someone could look at this and think, oh my gosh, I'm getting ready for Thanksgiving, not go through a lot of research to understand what the heck it means for them or their property or their family. It's just not acceptable to me to have that low level of process and to count this as one of just two meetings on the subject before some significant changes would be made to our zoning code ordinance and then have to be changed through a very laborious process. If in fact, mistakes are made and sore thumbs are built in the town. There really should have been examples. For item number four, setting back the setbacks, a lot of people don't even know what zone they were in when they would look at something like this. I don't know why you would try to change something when the majority is already conforming. Why wouldn't you use a variance rule for that? Then your items number six and seven, new planned unit development rules, that's huge. That's really huge. I personally, I've worked on two PUDs in Montpelier and I think that would be nice to change them, but to just like not even mention that and then people have no idea what you're doing. And then I'd have to tell you to try to find the details. Montpelier's website is very difficult, especially for someone who doesn't use the website professionally, very difficult. This is said not democratic. Now I'm gonna move on to eight, removal of residential density requirements. I understand the intention behind this, I think is a noble attention, but the abuse for massing form-based codes, the potential for abuse is huge. We've already seen some pretty serious sore thumbs built. And what happens in a town, you probably know this, is once it's abused, that abuse of transgression starts to become the norm. It only takes one or two other buildings on a street to significantly change what is considered the norm for the street. It plummets housing values. It's just poor thinking. I would, if you are gonna seriously think about this, you need to pay for a consultant, an architect, to build this out. When these started to be discussed in the last zoning update, which was about four years ago maybe, three, four years ago, a group of us actually paid to have in, I think it was in Revit, the build out that would be possible on some of the smaller streets. And it was horrendous what it would do to the street and what to do to the people who live there and what, the character of Montpelier and the resources, it's unbelievable to me that someone would even have a first discussion about this and then answer the question that they don't know how many residential units could be added. And I totally agree that units are not a great way to think about this, but you seem to me forgetting that 16 studio units use exponentially more resources than fewer large units. I'm gonna use my next door neighbor. I live on Loomis Street. So 10 Loomis was originally a single family house, big house, could let's say it had a family of seven because people used to have more children back then. Think about how much water and sewer that building uses. It is now 15 studio apartments, which is fine. It's part of the neighborhood, but there's only one building like that on that whole street. 15 studio units use as far more than linear equivalent of water and sewer. It's very important for you to understand that because we have not done a true master plan update. I think like 15 years, maybe 20, a true from scratch master plan update where there's a committee to that. Okay, that's 13 years, almost 14. And think about what has happened in the last 14 years. And I think that our new residents of Montpelier deserve to practice being on a committee and having a voice and looking at everything together. I don't think Montpelier has the first clue how much water and sewage capacity we have, including the new demands coming from Berlin Street. That's huge because Berlin, because they're using our water and sewer can go to town for their residential developments up there and they could put to shame any commercial uses for their water. So we have no clue as a municipality what the water use could look like. And you can't just sort of hope that it'll be just a few people that take advantage of this. I think 20 years ago before Vermont, New England in general became highly desirable as a place to live. You could just say statistically, oh, well, there only be one or two sore thumbs one or two high demands on our resources in this neighborhood, but that's not true now. And I know there's a huge amount of demand for tiny homes and tiny home communities. I wish that there could be more in Montpelier, but we have to think it through. Otherwise, what will happen to a lot of Vermont will happen to us, which is all of a sudden we don't have enough infrastructure that includes schools, that includes our budget for roads, that includes plowing and road maintenance crews, that includes water and sewer. And then you have... Andy, we're running out of time, so... I'm sorry, just wrap it up. Okay, I am going to wrap it up, but it seems unconscionable to me to just chat about this and start to go in this direction without a new master plan. The third thing I just wanna say super briefly is historic review districts exist to protect as an extra layer of protection about from undisciplined development. And if you are gonna even consider some of these changes, I mean, I don't know if you understand that you're affecting the historic lane shot neighborhood, which is relatively small workers' houses and a huge amount of completely residential area that I think you need to consider extending the historic district review district because really this is gonna put a huge pressure on development. So thank you for your time. And I'm sorry, I went over two minutes. I don't even know what I did. Thanks. Yeah, yeah, I'll let you go over a while there, but I was under the belief that you were maybe the last person. Does anyone else have anything to say for tonight? We will have another hearing in two weeks. Looks like we do have someone else. We have about seven minutes left. Yeah, we do have somebody else here who wanted to provide comments in the number nine section. And I think Kate, talk with number nine as well. Okay, great. So let's go ahead and we'll proceed to number nine. And Kate, why don't you go ahead and start us off? Hi there. I have two comments on number nine. One is particular to the proposal to split the zoning of parks and recreation. And I just wanted to put in my support for that. I'm part of a group of volunteers who's been trying to organize the creation of a dog park in Montpelier. We found a couple of potential sites that we've been looking at. And when we inquired to the planning commission or the planning department about the permits required, we were told that dog parks are not a permitted use anywhere in the city of Montpelier under our current zoning. And so this split to kind of create a separate definition for recreational fields is one way to potentially make that possible. And so I definitely support it. I would just put in a plug though. If you look at the youth table that Mike has in the write-up, include a number of zones where it would be a permitted use and then other zones where it'd be conditional use. I would suggest that the rural zone be a permitted use, but I don't know what the thinking was in terms of picking which zones would allow it and which weren't. So those are my comments in support of making it possible for us to have a dog park at some point in the future of Montpelier. And my second comment is about the shading and I'm curious to understand why the change in the solar shading is being proposed. It seems like kind of, well, so the proposed change is that shading would only be considered for existing photovoltaics or solar hot water installation. But obviously, if we wanna increase the amount of solar in the city of Montpelier, we want to allow future installations of solar and not be shaded. So I don't know, Mike or Kirby, if anyone has some background on why that change is being suggested. I'll just be, I don't know more. Yeah, so I can jump in to go and fill in. So the way the current rules are written you cannot shade any walls, yards or roofs. And so it was really getting to the point, especially in a lot of these close neighborhoods, we had a project in the res 3000 neighborhood. So it's a relatively compact neighborhood and somebody was gonna put a new structure into a vacant lot. And the question came up with the new structure. It was gonna cast a shadow. I mean, obviously with these 3000 square foot lots, it doesn't take much to cast a shadow onto the yard in the neighboring property. And even though it was gonna have a very minor in kind of infringement on the property, it was gonna add in December 23rd, it was gonna cast a shadow that would cross for a period of a couple of hours across the lowest part of the first story. And so the question was we're gonna, if we follow the strict, strict letters of things, then that would mean you really couldn't build any new housing in filled because you would at December cast a shadow, even if there are trees, which was the case in this property, even if there are trees, even if there's a hill behind you, even if there are a lot of conditions, it was really was kind of like what the policy question then was brought back to the planning commission because that project's already done, it was approved by the DRB. But the DRB did wanna have us look at the rule and look at the policy to make a decision. What specifically is the policy that we're trying to protect because not allowing anyone to shade your neighbor's lawn, really it's gonna stop just about everything. And so what's our policy interest first, and then what rules can we draft that make that a reasonable way of administering it because the way the rules are kind of set up now, it wasn't really making a great deal of sense. So our thought was with this, the proposal would be existing and proposed, existing and permitted PV or any solar facility, whether it's PV or hot water, you wouldn't be allowed to shade those, but certainly if there are recommendations as to other lines, I think the planning commission would be open to it, but that was where they kind of drew the line was like, look, we want housing, we wanna compact and we'll protect these, and that's the why. Okay, well, I agree that I wasn't totally clear on how the shading regulations are enforced or considered in the permit application process, but I guess I would just suggest that maybe there's a middle ground here that's like not shading, all or nothing. And maybe it's like just room or I don't know what the other paths might be, but we do wanna, in addition to be able to allow infill housing, we also wanna be able to allow people to have solar access if they want it. So those are my only two comments. Thanks, Kate. And I think there's one more person, is that right, Mike? Yes. Okay, so we're gonna, we'll make this the last one, then I'll look for a motion to adjourn and we will pick it back up December 13th. Go ahead, sir. Hello, my name is Thomas Weiss. I'm a resident of Montpelier, and I thank you for the opportunity to provide comments today. I'm also going to talk about section 3206, which is solar access. I ask you not to amend that section as proposed. So we'll restrict access to sunlight for both energy and for growing food. I explain, I've got some written notes which take me longer to read or go over than I have time for. Mike has a copy of them, which he will send out to the commissioners hopefully tomorrow or when he gets the chance. In those comments, I explain why I oppose the amendment and then I offer suggestions for a different amendment that will actually increase access to sunlight. I find that the amendment is contrary to decisions made by the planning commission when they developed the 2018 zoning regulations. It's contrary to the master plan and it's contrary to goals of sustainability and the Global Warming Solutions Act. The proposal to amend section 326A, well, that section creates a right of solar access and the proposed amendment no longer preserves that right. Section 326C applies the right of solar access to growing food, even though that is not explicit in the section and to active and passive solar energy systems. The proposed amendment removes the right of existing access from growing food and from passive solar systems now and in the future. And it removes the right of existing access from future active solar systems. The Planning Commission affirmed future access was important when they developed the 2018 regulations and I explain why and how in the written letter and they also used the phrase to reduce the ability to use solar which implies or requires that access be protected into the future even though it's not actually being used now. The proposed amendment is limited to solar energy devices. Passive solar does not use devices so therefore passive solar even if it's existing now will not be protected by the proposed amendments. It's contrary to the master plan, I list seven goals that are in the current master plan that are not supported by this proposed amendment. One of them, I'll go over now is to ensure that food sources are affordable and derived from secure and reliable suppliers. Putting more shade onto a property reduces the viability of the growing of food and the most secure and reliable supplier is an individual growing food affordably at home and this proposal will reduce that ability. I do have some alternative suggestions for amending it but growing food specific explicitly into the section right of solar access for walls and roofs should be expanded to at least 45 degrees and I explain why on that and solar access for yards should exist for a yard in any orientation, any location, any yard. In conclusion, I believe that the proposed amendment of section 3206 is short-sighted. Our goals, our need for sustainability require a longer range vision. We need to keep open our future options for homegrown food and for solar access. We need to preserve the access that now exists so that it can be used in the future. Please do not adopt the proposed amendment section 326. I ask that you consider and adopt my alternative suggestions for that section. Thank you very much for listening to these comments and as I said, I have written comments and I do have an extra comment on the interjected comment on trying to rezone the upper portions of Liberty Street back in when the 2018 regulations were being developed. There were reasons why it was left at the level it is now and it wasn't a more dense reason. I'd have to look at my notes from that time to find them and I ask that you not consider any other changes on Liberty Street in this package other than the one down at the lower end that's already been discussed. The changes to the upper portion were controversial then and would still be controversial now and I doubt that you have time enough to actually go into them in the time schedule that you've outlined. So again, thank you very much. Thanks a lot, thanks a lot and we'll make sure we check out your materials, Michael, for those I'm sure. Okay, thanks everyone for coming and we're a little over time so we'll go ahead and adjourn and we'll be here again, December 13th. Do we have a motion to adjourn? I move to adjourn. Okay, motion from Ariane. Do you have a second? Second. Do you have a second? Second from Gabe. All right, second from Gabe. Those in favor of adjourning, say aye. Aye. Aye. We oppose. Okay, we are adjourned. Thanks everyone.