 Okay, welcome to the now Thursday, November 21st meeting of the Monpelier Design Review Committee. I will let staff and members introduce themselves. Martha Smirsky, member. Meredith Crandall, staff. Stephen Everett. Eric Yolverson. And unless anybody has anything else to offer ahead of time, do I hear a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Second. Second. And we'll go ahead with the first application, L.A.R. 7779. Come up and have a seat. Thank you. I'm Bob Hanham. I'm on the commission. I appeal your public arts commission. And I want to thank you for encouraging our project, our first project. First and many at home. Probably be nice to have all the light in the alley. That's, yeah. Especially in the sunset at 3.30. And even during the middle of the day, it can just be one hour. It was the original intent, so we're very happy, 20 years later, to finally finish it. And describe the lighting you're proposing. My colleague, Rob Hitzig, was here in your last meeting. And what he described was, we're going to start with very simple design. White string of LED lights, following the pattern of the swirl, as you might remember if you've been in there lately. It's a large cast iron sculpture, 20 years old, about 10 feet above ground level. And we're going to follow this swirl with a nice string of very small, they call them, but very small LEDs. And we'll have blue bursts, they call them, about 10 or 12 of them along the 200 foot length. And this is going to be just a start. We're going to do this by the end of the year with your approval. And the owners of the, the owner of the buildings on both sides have approved this. In fact, he has donated the electricity for the usage. We're going to put it on a timer at your suggestion. We're going to follow your guidance with the timing that you suggested. So this is just the beginning. We hope in the future to actually get our public school and private school art classes involved in designing further lights in there as well. Maybe motion sensitivity, maybe more movement, more color. So we're starting. You can make it look like the Chicago airport. We're going to make it very, we're going to make it very welcoming. How are you fasting? Are you just going to go along or are you going to wrap the wire? Yeah, there's a, if you recall, there's a swirl of iron, the whole 200 foot length. And we're going to follow that swirl with the white LEDs. You're just going to wrap a robin. Yep, exactly. Rob and I are going to do it ourselves, keep the project cheap. Now I see there are three colors here, green, white, brown. No, we're selling on two colors of lights, the white with the blue, but we're doing very dark wiring. And I think you suggested, I know you suggested last time, make sure the wiring is dark. And that's what we've done. We're going to have dark, I think the white lights will be a black wire and the blue lights we can get a dark brown or dark green wire, but they'll be dark. That'll, I think, be nicer because they won't be tracked from the iron wire. Exactly, exactly. I can't see anything in there anyway. Well, when it's lit, maybe it'll... Yeah, no, I agree. And you indicated that you're going to have a plaque later on? Yes. Yes, we have three phases to this project. This is the beginning, by the end of the year, we'll have something simple as I just described. By hopefully six months into next year, we'll have a nice little effort with the school systems to increase the lighting. And then by the end of the year, we need to do some maintenance on the piece. There's some flaking of the iron, which is natural over 20 years. So we want to clean that up with sandblasting coated so it lasts a lot longer than 20 years that we've had before and put a plaque on. The artist is still very much alive and kicking and very, very supportive of this. And we feel that all the public art in our town should have, should recognize the artist. Where do you expect to put the plaque? Good question. I have no idea, no idea at this point, but any recommendations from yourselves or from the building owner would be totally... I think it should go closer to Main Street. I think it will be really nice. In general, so when you walk by, you can see it. You'll notice, if you walk by, there's already a bronze plaque on the Main Street right near that alleyway that recognizes the historic significance of one of those buildings. So I was thinking something around that area. Is there a specific design for the plaque or is it proposed in this application? No, no, we haven't presented that yet. We'll do that in the future. Do you expect to come back at that point? If you think that's a good idea, we'd be happy to do that. What size is the plaque that's on there now? It's about 10 inches square, I'd say. And again, it recognizes the history of the building. The plaques we're looking for, we're thinking about for all of our public art, excuse me. There's about 20 pieces in our town, by the way, is something museum-sized. Five inches by three inches, something like that. That would be metal. It's got to go in the alleyway, actually. We're just mounted somewhere at the entrance. Yeah, I would love it right on the Main Street side of things. Either on the frame, because that building has a bay window that wraps. And I'm not sure that the width of the frame. It may be possible to put it on a frame, which you would see it when you're walking down the sidewalk. Or just at the edge of the brick. I'd be perfectly happy to put that in this. Well, that's what I was thinking. I figured you might be. What size, maximum, what, like 10 by 10? 10 by 12? 10 by 10. I was thinking about the size. If you think about a size of piece of paper. Yeah, 8 by 11. That's 8 by 11. It's got to be more than one letter, because otherwise you could see it for 300 feet away. I watched way too much TV the last two days. I realized yesterday that you could watch 14 hours of real-time political TV. If you watched the hearings, and then the Democratic debate. Which I did a lot as part of. And are you okay? No. It might be more exciting than watching designer view, but it might not be as important as the problem. Bob, where are you getting your funding from? We have three sources that we're looking at. We get a little bit from the town, hopefully on a yearly basis. That kind of depends each year. It's not guaranteed. We're also looking for public-private partnerships. And we're going to begin to seriously begin to talk to local business people in the next year. And then finally, a final reason. Thank you. How are you kids? Better. Thank you. So what I said was just a bronze color or dark color metal plaque up to a 10 by 12, a 10 by 12 size may be installed at the entry to the alley, which describes the art project. Any mountings on a brick face will be located in the mortar joints of the brick. And you'll get a copy of this. And again, it gives you enough leeway. I mean, you can make it smaller, certainly smaller than that, but you want to have it big enough so you can actually read the script that you're going to put in the plaque. Any other comments, questions, suggestions from anyone? Oh, the other thing I just up top, I said the wire color of the light strings would be a dark color green or brown. Great. Thank you. Any other comments, suggestions? We'll go through the set of criteria. Evaluation criteria. Preservation or reconstruction of the appropriate historic style if the proposed projects in the historic district are involved in the historic structure. The application is acceptable. Harmony of exterior design with other properties in the district, acceptable. Compatibility of proposed exterior materials, acceptable. Compatibility of proposed landscaping, none proposed in this application. Revention of the use of incompatible designs, buildings, color schemes, or exterior materials, acceptable. Location and appearance of all utilities, acceptable. Recognition of and respect for view quarters and significant vistas including gateway views of the city and state house, acceptable. All in favor of the application as proposed. Raise your hand. It is approved. Thank you very much. And this is an administrative. Thanks for coming in. Thank you for your consideration. And before you go, I need to get you to sign this. Sure. All the lower leftist above my name. Audra, they have your permit tomorrow. You can get the office a call. Thank you very much. Okay, good. Thank you. Thanks. I hope you get good enough weather to make it easy for the install. Thank you very much. We'll grab those few days you get. Thanks again. Okay. Thank you. Good night. Good night. Thank you. Come on up, Fred. Next application, 100 State Street, Capital Plaza. How are you all tonight? Less icy than we would have been. It's going to be after tonight. It's going to get real cold and icy again. Tomorrow is supposed to be icy. Great. So describe your gates. Their entry and exit gates. We're putting them at the Taylor Street entrance. Just inside the State Street entrance at the edge of the building so that the drive-through can get in and out. The 24-hour parking, paying. We've been shuttling all for a whole year. Worse than ever. Three, four times a week and we have no parking. We can't control it. So this is going to have to help us control them. People can still come in the other way. They can come any way they want, but they're going to have to pay when they come in. The first, I think there's eight spots, seven spots on the bank side and six on the other will be 13. The bank won't. It'll be open for the bank. Once they go through the gates, they'll have to get a ticket just like you do any other parking area. We don't have cash. What if they just come off State Street? That's fine. If they go through the gate, they're going to get a ticket. But we're giving 15 minutes free. Anybody going in will have a 15 minute grace period. Okay. The bank is going to have a 15 minute anyways or they can go to their drive up or they can go in their side and not pay at all. Their side will be open all the time. They can do whatever they want with it. Our side is going to be monitored. We have people staying there overnight. Snowstorms, we can't plow. What about the church? The church has passed through. We're going to have special courage for them. I'm not sure if they've got 12. Their plot plan shows 12. But when they tell me what they actually have, they'll have, the gates will be set up so that 12 people can enter and park. The 13th will lock them out. You're going to put some kind of barrier. I don't understand. They're dropping gates. Yeah. They're toll gates. Like if you go behind Court Street on the way back toward the State House, there's a gate there. I understand the gates, but you've got them on one entrance to what's a big free-for-all parking lot. It's on both entrances. Both entrances. Taylor Street and the other end. Yeah, open the hole. They should open it up. What I don't understand is how the bank people can access the bank area. That's a 15-minute free pass. So they have to get a ticket. People who are using the Northfield Bank have to get a ticket. Everybody entering the gates will get a ticket. But if they're using the bank, they won't. And the bank, we're thinking of doing things even with the city for about a month, giving them parking so much at speed of it usually. I missed the gates off. If you see it right, Eric, where is this drive-through right here? Yeah. I see them. But my concern is, how are people going to get through to use the drive-through? They'll get a free ticket, and they'll go through here, and they'll go around here, or they're coming in this way. It's what they have to do now. They can't come in the gates here. They have to come in now, go all the way around and come in this way. Or they can come in Taylor Street and come in this way. Yeah, I understand that. The first 15 minutes are free. When you go back out, you put your ticket. If you're parking out here, the first 15 minutes will be free. I understand that. I understand that. So the people who are using the drive-through then are going to have to go through the ticket. Correct. So you get a ticket going through, and then you pay going out. Right. No cash. Credit card. We'll have pay. They call it a P-O-F, pay-on-foot units in the hotel. One by the back entrance inside. And one by the ballroom entrance. And we'll also have a validation thing at the front desk. Some of you doesn't have credit cards. Yeah. Or it doesn't work. They can pay that way. So if the public wants to park there like they do now. Yeah, they've got to pay. They're paying now. But where do you pay that? Where do you pay? There's a box for the city. Okay. The city has so many that they can park in. And so people go up and they put their money or credit card in a little box. And they'll take it on their dashboard. And then they have to pay in advance. And they put that on their dashboard. And they'll say until two o'clock, and the police come by at 2.10 to give them a ticket. And then you can use that ticket to get out. You know, you take a ticket. They'll tell you what your time. And you insert it when you leave. And they'll tell you how much you owe them. Just like you're going in a parking garage in Burlington. Yeah. Actually, the new garage will be with the same type of system. It'll tell you if it's full, if it's closed for the afternoon, if we have a big function, we'll close that off. Otherwise it'll be open for public parking, just like always. Hotel guests park there free? Yeah. Or there may be a charge. We haven't settled on anything yet. Our tenants will have the same type of card as the church. They will be able to access it and just we're doing it so they can either do it with a phone, RFD, or tap it with a card and go with it that way. What's the rate? I don't know. Don't know yet. Okay. It won't be a dollar an hour like the city. We're subsidizing that. Nobody's subsidizing me. Yeah. It won't be that bad. But it may be progressive. Here there were seven hours or something like that. It may start going up. That's what they're doing in a lot of the places now. They stopped this overnight parking. I mean, notice parking costs half and very what it does in Montpellier. Yeah. There's no business in there either, so come on. I keep thinking, I am part of the Union River Chorus and we practice at the church right there and everybody comes in through that back door and parks in that back area. So now they're going to be paying for parking in there. Well, the church will give you so many tickets to come in with. They'll maybe have 50 or 100 tickets. We don't care how many they have. But after 12 people, right now there's no place to park. Right. Yeah. Because it's the best of... There's not a whole bunch of other... Yeah. If you've used your 12 spots up or 13 spots up, the 14th spot, if he wants to park in a lot, they'll have to pay when they leave. But if the 13th person leaves and the next person coming in, he can take that spot. He'll be allowed in. It just locks him in an hour. It seems to be more than a design review thing. Oh, yeah. No, it's going through more than just design review. But it also has to go through design review because it's in design review and we're adding a structure if we're adding the gates. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Don't worry. It's not a... I just... Yeah. Oh, it's... Parking is sitting beyond our... Well, and that's... ...perview of the design. Yeah. Nope. That's your... All you need to worry about is the gates and the design aspects of the gates. Parking is... Parking is, we've got the problem. Yeah. It's on private land. We just can't control it. So we're trying to control it now. If you go down there tonight, you can't find a spot. We have a big function tonight. Yeah. The, you know, rejiggering of how the traffic flow goes and all of that has already been dealt with through Department of Public Works and our office. The gates will open automatically for a siren. Police, fire, ambulance, just have to bring their siren and it will open up automatically for them. And these will remain in place... This is... We're hoping that up until the time the garage gets started, then you won't need them. Okay. Then... Then you're going to have to put your money in the garage. But... These are fairly permanent locations. Do you plan a long time before the garage gets built? Well, their city lawyer told us two weeks ago that don't look for anything until 2023. And don't think you're going to start before 2024. I can tell you if it's that long, you probably won't see me waiting. I can't keep dumping money into something because two people want to hold it up. You know, maybe you should paint those windows so we can't see out the window. The same thing about it is the basis is the trucks can't turn around down below and they don't anyway. They can't now. They never did? They do have a new design for the garage, by the way. And much, much smaller, much narrower, pushed more onto our property. I think they're down just to last about ten spots. From what I just saw, it sends a preliminary. Well, in terms of the design of the gates, I don't have any problem with the design of the gates. No. They're gates. They're gates. Although they will be the first... Well, I was going to say they'll be the first gates in Montpelier, but that's not true. They used to be gates on that property in 1980 when Anders and Kilmury bought it. They had them on both ends and twice the same woman drove through and broke them. And the guys refused to put them back up again. They even had a box at the front entrance where they were collecting money with people going through. And that didn't last long either. Are they lit at night or just they're reflective? So the headlights? They'll be... The box will be lit up so you can read and everything else. No, I'm in the gate itself, so... No, they're not a lit gate. They're just reflective. Just reflective. Yeah. I may put a small light on the exit with a camera so that I can monitor. People drive everything, you know. No, you're right. Gotta protect, unfortunately. I need to... Questions, comments, suggestions. I'm fine with that. There's no landscaping because we're just going to block it for now. Yes. Landscape will come with the garage in the hotel. Nobody has anything to add at this point where we can go through the criteria. The evaluation criteria. Number one, preservation or reconstruction of the appropriate historic style. If the proposed projects in the historic district involves an historic structure, acceptable, harmony of exterior design with other properties in the district, acceptable, compatibility for post-exterior materials, acceptable, compatibility of proposed landscaping, non-proposed in this application, prevention of the use of incompatible designs, buildings, color schemes, or exterior materials, acceptable, location and appearance of all utilities, acceptable, recognition of and respect for view quarters and significant vistas, including a review of the city and state house, acceptable. All in favor of the application is proposed. Raise your hand. Eric. I saw the historic sites did a dig, three or four spots on our property for getting ready, and then they sent back a historic description that they've gotten from times, I guess, wherever they got it from. Starting back from the 1700s, it was like 30 pages, and I read it the other day. Most guys are really good at what they are. I mean, it was really amazing, and when it got to around the 1900s, my father-in-law used to tell me about some of these people, and I remember their names. Even J. Leo Johnson owned a couple of properties there. Well, the last two sentences said they unearthed a 1911 Vermont license plate. So I wrote to them. I said, is there any possibility we can get that plate for our hotel? And I'll send it to you. Oh, wow. They tried looking it up, but the records don't go back that far to see who the registration was. Oh, that's all right. That's great. That's great. You remember J. Leo Johnson? You remember him, don't you? The Chrysler Garage? Oh, yeah. It was a Chrysler Garage in the back along the river. It used to be, it was a Capitol Garage there. Well, that was over in a corner, and that was Malone's first garage, the father's first garage. And then this boy, Malone, took over, and then he opened up Woodbury Auto. J. Leo Johnson had a Chrysler Garage at the back of the building on the side of the tracks, and our family bought the Chrysler Garage in the late 70s, and that's when they moved it up to Perry and my player road in the midtown. Yeah. And they used to have a dry cleaning plant right next to it, and I forget who the guy Adams, and then how dry cleaners bought it next. Remember, they owned the one up across the Mar-a-London at Main Street, how cleaners before he sold it. But everybody did. They took their filters and their tripe, and they put them outside on the ground, and that's why you have somebody, oh, I've got 11 wells on my crown. I'm amazed that a number of garages used to be downtown where the place where Neckie is, right down the river, that was the garage. The garage, where the laundromat is on Berry Street. Yeah, that was a Chevrolet garage. Yeah. Do you know where the showroom was? The showroom for the garage? In that building where the tattoo part is. Yeah. In my laundromat, those windows were the overhead garage doors, number three in the back. Oh, wow. And then they would drive the car in, and in the front of the building where my change machine was, there was a huge steel door that would slide like a barn door, and they would drive the car into the front window of the tattoo parlor. That was the showroom. Oh, wow. And that was Downey Chevrolet. Yeah. And then they bought the other one in Berry and they combined it in the Berry around Pilly Road. Up in Morrisville, there was a garage there. A guy about 90 ran it and he had one car on the floor. And he'd drive that car and he'd order whatever he wanted, I guess. But it still had Model A and Model T tool wards up. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. Now the Keen family owns it. What? Now the Keen family owns it. Yeah. And the I'm gonna tell you you're done. Thank you. You're all set. So I think- I don't know if Audra got the additional information she needed- I sent her a whole bunch to you. There's really no flood proving to do these things because there's six inches above and then all the controls are six inches and it's bolted. It's nothing but a steel cabinet. It's- Yeah, they're GFI protected and then put them in the building. So, yeah, you'll need to- My thing is trying to figure out a way to get Kat Sixwire out there from our building. So we'll just have to tunnel underneath the sidewalks. It's okay, right? Talk to Audra. Thank you. See you later. Thank you, Fred. Go home early. Thank you, Fred. Go home early. You might get some more of the debate still on the TV. Yeah, just lovely. Thank you. Thank you. And the minutes. We can't do the 21st, but there are three of us here for the 4th. Yes. So does anybody have any questions, comments, or changes to the November... Yes. Yes. Okay. If you take a look at the adjournment thing, it says Eric made a motion to approve. Whoops. I think that means adjourned. To adjourn. Thank you. Yeah. It's my favorite motion. To approve or adjourned. I noticed in the congressional hearings that the chairman just, he closes it. He closes it. And I think you ought to have that authority. I don't have a hammer. You could also time us. You could time us when we have comments. With that change, do I hear a motion to approve or approve minutes? Seconded. All in favor of the November the 4th minutes, raise your hand. Those are approved. Awesome. And giving us an update on the... Yeah. So the planning commission made some final adjustments. I don't have the revised draft, but the historic preservation commission and planning commission went back and forth a bit on changes to the design, the definition for historic building and pretty much stuck with the current definition of historic building. There were some expansions on the overlay district, including some tweaks that were just bringing in, you know, a couple of parcels to make sure that all of the neighborhood was part of the district. Part of the neighborhood was part of it, bringing in the rest of it. I think probably one of the biggest changes was actually adding in all of your neighborhood up behind the state house. That was very confusing. And getting added into... We ended up with that all added into the district, right? Yeah. I should have gone around the boundaries on there because they're sort of nothing. They don't match the national register boundaries or anything else. And I didn't look at it, I guess. Well, then the neighborhood boundaries were designed to try and make sure neighborhoods were consistent, not just historically, but also when you came to, okay, this is a residential neighborhood. 80% of the houses in this neighborhood have similar setbacks or similar lot sizes and a similar overall characteristics. So the neighborhoods for zoning purposes aren't necessarily going to match with the historic districts. But I think that having that as a basis for saying this is why this is all being pulled into design overlay, whether it's for historic purposes or not. I thought the Historic Preservation Commission and the Planning Commission were going to sit down and do this together. But that didn't happen. I'm still a bit annoyed about that because I think we picked up most of the changes, but that was the only one that showed up to me. Yeah. Right? Yeah, it was, I think, you know, I think it's going to be better. That doesn't mean that there can't be no work to tweak things and make things better later. We've got to look at those boundaries. I just haven't had... I can... We can do more of that in Historic Preservation for sure. Yeah. And try and pull design review committee members in as well as anybody wants to come to a... The boundaries look like a Southern gerrymander. And they're just tickled. Zigzag all over. They're all over. I mean, it's not, you know... So there, the plan is that the new design review regulations will have their first public hearing in front of Planning Commission in January. So they've got to have two public hearings, I think, for Planning Commission. And then hopefully move forward to City Council. Hopefully there won't be a lot of public pushback and have them decide to rework it. But we'll see what happens. You never know. It's not like anybody showed up at the Planning Commission discussions that we just had. No, nobody. Either time. No, no outside voices. I was reading the article in the newspaper about the, you know, they have a proposal for the Old Armory wreck department. And I think that's an historic building. I think the helpful is the preservation information we're involved in that. Who should I talk to about that, Mike? Maybe. I mean, it hasn't really come through our door at all yet. I don't know how much Mike knows about it. I mean, it mostly did. You can't. And they missed it. It was a newspaper or a Red Wolf Mist. There's a major settlement problem. It's a rear of the building that they didn't talk about fixing. You can see there's two big cracks. I mean, I looked at it 15 years ago. I don't think it's moved a lot. But it should be addressed structurally. Oh, yeah. But I don't know where they are or aren't. What's interesting is there's a shooting range in that building. Well, it was an Armory, so. Yeah. In the basement, they had a shooting range in the basement. My high school had a shooting range and a bowling alley. Your high school did? Yeah. Big high school. They had 5,500 people. Oh, my God. Wow. Where? Evanson, Illinois, just north of Chicago. It's a slightly different world. Somebody had to set pins. They just had a mechanical pin setter. I would prefer to do that than roll. Speaking of. Was that a motion to adjourn? It is. Do I hear a second? I second it. All in favor of adjournment, raise your hand. Meeting is adjourned.