 This is the development review board for Burlington for May 17th. And I will note that we take up items as they are on the agenda. And when we call each item, people who applicants and other people who want to speak on the item will be allowed to participate in the meeting and to speak. And they will be sworn in as appropriate for each agenda item. Even if that at the moment, communications, everything is posted online at this point, I believe. As I know, yeah. And minutes. I don't remember if there are other minutes, are there? Joe, Joseph, are there minutes posted concentrating right now? You'll want to check with Scott. I did upload them to the art drive. OK, the draft minutes online are current, Brad. OK, good. I will say on the agenda that there are three items on the agenda that are requests to be changed or modified or not acted upon tonight. Yeah. I will just for the record right now, note that they are will get to them when they come up on the agenda. But 23 North Champlain Street, 69 Monroe Street and 228 Maple Street. Those three items will most likely not be heard tonight. So actually, the next item, our agenda is the consent agenda. And that is the first item is 90 University Road application to put a over part of the field at Centennial Field is the applicant here for that. And I see Derek Reed item and nobody in the public is speaking on this. Right. Go ahead. So can I have a motion on the board members on this application? I'll make a motion. And I hope others will help if the language isn't quite precise. But as for ZP 2196 for 98 University Road, I move that we that we provide consent and adopt staff's conditions for approval. Have a second Brooks and good job, Leo. I think basically we just say we approve it. We approve it discussion. All in favor, Jeff, are you there? I'm sorry, I'm having some technical difficulties with my video on in a minute. So are you voting for this one or are you abstaining at this point? I voted in favor. OK, great. Thank you all. Thank you very much. OK, go play ball. I guess that's the idea. Next item is 38 South Manuski Avenue. This is a two lot subdivision by the Congressional Church. But I'm accused on this. Who is? I am. I see Doug is here for the applicant. Is anybody else here to speak on this besides Doug? Christine is also the public here. Anyone wishes to speak for this subdivision? Raise your hand and I can let you speak as well. The applicant spread. OK, so Doug, this is on the consent agenda item. So it's recommended for approval. Are you OK with how it was approved or recommended for approval by the staff? Yes, we are on the board object to treating this as consent. But can we have a motion on this one? It'd be easy. Yeah, I think that's normal. If I stick to what I read, I'll move on 30 on ZP 22 dash 200 38 South Manuski that we approve the application and grand staff. And approve staff's findings and recommendations. Second, I'm all in favor. Good to see you. OK. And Brooks is accused on this item. Great. So, Doug, thank you, Brad. It's a fruit. Great. Thank you. No, it's not. Excellent. OK. Thank you. We get to our public hearing items. We have a few changes here. The first one is 23 North St. Plain Street and we have been asked because I guess he's the applicant can't make meetings tonight. So we need to move this to a date certain June 21st. So that's correct. That's correct. The applicant is currently in in flight somewhere on a business trip. So asked for deferral next open date is June 21st. They have Wi-Fi on planes now, you know. It's obnoxious. It's the one time we can get away. I move that we defer this till June 21st date. Second on that, Jeff, I second all in favor. One, two, three, four. Brooks, are you an analyst? Thank you. So now we have 69 Monroe Street. Now, this am I right? This application was considered incomplete. Is that it's true? That application remained incomplete until the time I wrote the staff report. So it has been withdrawn and we don't anticipate scheduling this now. So we don't need to take any action on this at this time? No action. OK. And the next item is 228 Maple Street. And they asked for deferral. Am I right? That's correct. Yeah, they were short on a few things that they wanted to update the application with. So yes, deferral, no date certain yet, but. Requested deferral from tonight. So can we defer it just to a date to be determined? Correct. Yeah. So moved. Does that Jeff or Brooks? Jeff, second on that. Let's make a name. OK. Four, five, six. OK. So this is next one will be slower. We have one Alwood Avenue. And Brad, I'm recused on this item. OK, so is the applicant here for this one? I assume the applicant's here. So I just promoted Samantha Dunn at CEDO. The panelists to be able to present and screen share. So this is a public hearing. So we need to figure out who was speaking on this one at this point. I don't see Samantha showing up yet. CEDO. OK. So is that Samantha? Samantha is separate. I just pressed the button for her as well. There's a number of folks in the public who wish to speak on this item as well. Brad. OK. Just for who the applicant is at this point. Yes, I'm going to ask that for everybody when you speak, if you can introduce yourselves, say who you are and who you're with, we'll deal with the applicant team first. But then there's members of the public also, right? Yeah. So how do you want to do this, Brad? I think let's start with the presentation by the applicant and I'll swear them in. And then that's the point. We'll switch and have the public who's participating in that and swear them in at that time. So I see four members of the applicant team here now. If you could all swear that you would tell the truth and hold truth on the pain and penalty or perjury. I do. OK. So I think I guess I'm going to say one other thing here, which may be as much for the benefit of the public as the board here. This is one of those things that this is. Limitations on municipal bylaws that are review of this is limited with respect to location, size, height, building, bulk, yards, courts, setbacks, density of buildings, off street parking, loading facilities, traffic, noise, lighting, landscaping, screening requirements. And only to the extent that regulations do not have the effect of interfering with the intended functional use. It's sort of a mouthful. I'm not sure everybody knows exactly what that means, but generally our review of these municipal projects, usually it's schools, the university that this comes into play, but it's in play here too. So I'll just throw that out there just for the board and for the applicant and for the public to keep that in mind. Saying that whoever wants to start from the applicant team. I mean, as Samantha Dunn, the assistant director for community works in the CEDO office at the city of Bloomington. I have been leading the element of emergency shelter community initiative. Can I interrupt for a second? Is there any way that you can do this without so much of an echo? It's very, very hard to hear you in that echo chamber there. It all counts. I can try and mute. Well, Brad, you've succeeded. There's no echo. And it just was I found it very hard to hear. Now we can't hear it at all. Right. How about this? We're good. I guess we'll just have to do the best we can with it then. Oh, no, go back to the way it was. That's sorry about that. Just go to how it was. I think that's just the following of our space. So again, my name is Samantha Dunn, assistant director for community works at CEDO, leading the Unvoied Emergency Shelter Community Project for the city. I've been joined here by CEDO director Brian Pine and architect Sam Beal. We're all going to do a little speaking. I'm just going to give a high level overview of the project for Brian and I are and then pass it to Sam to walk through some of the architectural things on the site. I think I wanted to start just by saying this shelter emergency shelter community is one is the project we're talking about tonight, but it's just one component of a 10 point plan that came out of the mayor's office in December to ensure housing as a human right in Burlington. And I think Brian wanted to just speak a little bit to the other components of that plan is it's important to understand this emergency shelter community in the context of the larger plan for addressing housing in the city of Burlington. Thank you. And Brian Pine, the director of the Community and Economic Development Office, the action plan that the mayor laid out in December mid December twenty twenty one really seeks to fulfill our promise as a community to ensuring that housing is a human right. And there's a number of initiatives embedded in that commitment. The overarching goal is quite ambitious. It's to double the rate of housing production over the next five years. When we say double, we mean double what it was the previous five years and chronic homelessness in Burlington by twenty twenty five. Both very ambitious. However, attainable, we believe if we focus on these initiatives and others. The action plan is intended to achieve these goals or we aim to achieve these goals by implementing the following initiatives to invest at least five million dollars of the ARPA funds that come from the federal government to Burlington, the American Rescue Plan Act, is what Marcos stands for, with at least three million designated for initiatives to better serve the chronically homeless and an additional two million to build new permanently affordable housing. Another aim here is and has been achieved is to create a new position within our office called the Specialist System then homelessness. This person is providing a single point of accountability and focus for expanded community efforts to drive this agenda to ending homelessness, strengthen through new investment in Chittenden County's coordinated entry command center team that drives weekly progress towards functional zero with a comprehensive real time, by name, database effort. This is an effort that has been used in other jurisdictions and is how you actually can get to functional zero in terms of homelessness, something we've never actually done in Burlington. So this is a completely new approach for Burlington. So for the creation of 70 new homes for formerly homeless residents. This is a share of the regional goal by partnering with our affordable housing developers that you as a DRB are familiar with because they bring projects to you to invest in up to 30 shelter pods and related infrastructure to create a new low barrier facility in 2022. Which this allocation for this purpose was approved unanimously by the city council, I would add the second goal to support the creation of 1,250 total homes in our city, including 312 permanently affordable homes by the end of 2026. This is part of a regional effort that's known as building homes together 2.0. Fully funding the housing trust fund for the first time in quite a few years to the voter approved level. It was approved by the voters in 2020, but was not enacted because COVID arrived within days, a couple of weeks after that vote occurred. So fiscal year 2023, the housing trust fund will double its funding from 250,000 a year to 500,000 of local funding, which doesn't sound like much. But when you look at the level of project leverage that we get, dollar leverage, it's quite remarkable what we've accomplished with the housing trust fund. These next three items are really more policy level and they are to expand open new housing opportunities through the creation of a new mixed use enterprise innovation district in a portion of the south end, not the entire south end, but a discreet defined portion opening new on campus university student housing opportunities by rezoning the former Trinity campus to reduce UVM pressure on the housing market. And lastly, to open new housing opportunities citywide through what we refer to as the missing middle zoning reforms, which will expand opportunities for new homes to be created in every neighborhood in our city in ways to reflect the character of these parts of our city. So I would just close in my remarks here by saying that the shelter project that's proposed before you today needs to be viewed in the context of this overall plan, not as a standalone project, even though the DRP will be looking at it from the perspective as a standalone, but it ought not to be viewed as a a substitute for a more comprehensive housing action plan that I just laid out. It really ought to be viewed in the context of that more comprehensive approach. And we just wanted to provide that background to help frame this project. Great. Thanks, Brian. So, yeah, I think this is also an overview of what's in the application. This project is proposed for the existing Onwood Avenue parking lot, the Public Works Commission approves the use of the parking lot for this use for up to 36 months. And the City Council followed up and did the same things. We've got approval from both Public Works, Commission and City Council to operate really so it's a temporary emergency community shelter on the site. And it's being designed in that way because it's just a piece of the overall context. We're not building housing and what we're trying to achieve as a city is housing for everybody. So this is really an interim range solution while we ramp up the production of the units that are needed and the other services and staffing that's required to get everybody into permanent housing. So this is meant to be a temporary emergency community. It includes a one community building that will serve as a community resource center that was recently operating out of the FW that at least expired on April 30th, partially because that site is hopefully moving forward to be redeveloped into an early affordable housing. So the community resource center is operating sort of globally until it lands in this home and that will provide all of the services also required for folks living on the site, staying on the site. The other large structure is a bathhouse that includes six full bathrooms with a shower, a sink and a toilet. Two of them fully accessible. And then up to 30 actual shelters that are just 64 square feet, primarily designed to serve a single person up to five of them have the ability to add a bed because we know that some people there are couples that really prefer to be in one shelter together. In addition to that, so again, pretty minimal infrastructure on the site, we do need to make a water sewer connection to be able to serve both the community resource center and the bathhouse. So that's the main infrastructure on the site. Site already has a fence on three sides and we'll be adding a fence, not great on the sidewalk, as you'll see, but set back a little bit on the east side along Elmwood Ave to create a secure community. And one thing I want to, two things I want to touch on before I pass it on to Sam. One is that we have been working closely with communities all across the country who have been taking a similar approach who are also facing this crisis where the number of people experiencing homelessness has tripled since the start of the pandemic and really this is an emergency response. It's not a long term response, it's an emergency in our community and many communities across the country. And we've been connected with and working closely with a number of those communities who are six or 12 months ahead of us and learning from them both on the design of the site and how to best operate the site so that it can be successful. I think the last thing I wanted to touch on was there were three conditions or there were a bunch of conditions proposed in the staff comments. And I think the first one that I wanted to touch on is we do have a wastewater capacity letter from Public Works in hand that was created or as part of the water wastewater permit application that went into the state a couple of weeks ago. We have recalculated the front yard set back as requested that is actually used to be 5.5 inches. We can move everything back six inches from where we have it. And I just wanted to mention the lack of bay facilities on the site plan was actually just an oversight what we heard from folks at what we met with them that were potentially using the site as a preference to be able to have their bicycle at their shelter. So each shelter will have the ability to have the bike lock to it. And then they'll be definitely community bike rack at the community source. So I just wanted to make sure to talk about those three conditions. And then Scott, am I able to share my screen? Samantha, just use the share screen button on the bottom. OK. Let me just get to a few more. I have too many windows open. Sam, I wanted to, this is in the application, but just wanted to mention that CEDO does have a website up and any consciousness website that we may be able to do at the end that has where we're updating our FAQs. So when we receive questions from the community and outlines our community plan and site operation, so I just wanted to make sure everyone knew that was available. But I think, Sam, I'm going to pass it to you. Full screen. We're seeing you right now. Do you know that, Samantha? We're seeing your screen, which is. Yes. Yes. So we had to see the slides. My name is Sam Biel. I'm a principal at Dunkinville, the architecture, our firm has a long history led by Bob Duncan and Michael Dushnetsky, a history of design for vulnerable populations, whether that's folks experiencing houselessness or seniors or mental health. And you can see that in our work with Scott cost spectrum, the Howard side. Most recently, I have been working on the cost day station as well as an emergency shelter with the groundwork collaborative in Bravo girl. And I'm really excited to be here today to present this site design with a working really hard on this for the past couple of months. It's been a quick project in a lot of ways, but I think it's come together in an exciting way. And so while I'm the one presenting to you today, the work I'm showing is representative of a lot of work from other partners that are not here. Naomi David Pill from Shelburne is an architect who and he along with Peter Schneider of an instrumental and putting together drawings for the community resource set and bathroom facility. And then on the city side, Samantha Don and Marcella range is super helpful as we've been assembling this work. And so the slide you first see here, you know, clearly is something being woven together. And that's really the buttress of what we've been thinking about with this site plan. We're trying to take our neighbors who are experiencing house success who are not currently supported within our community and try to weave together an infrastructure and an operational capacity to help support them on that path towards having a permanent home. And so that metaphor of leaving is both an intentional image for you to hold in your head, but also something that will play out on the site. And so what you see here is our existing site conditions. We have a parking lot that's in poor repair. That's no slay on the city. It just is in need of some some power repair. And so it's a parking lot. It's not a suitable place for human habitation yet. And so our first step is really to address these current problems. So you can see in that image on the left that we have some potholes, some crack in the paving. And on the right is a product from MasterSeal called ColorPave. And it's intended to seal dry place. But what's really interesting about it is it comes in different tints of color. And so we're proposing this sandstone color in part to seal the parking lot and make it a suitable place for human habitation, but also to take away from feeling like asphalt and so create that clean canvas for the project. And so as we prepare the candidates, our first pass of the shoveling loom, forgive me this metaphor, I'll be done with it soon, but our first pass is creating this entrance into the site. And so fire, ambulance services want to have access to the NOLA site. Understandably so. We also need access to the site to create the opportunity to bring the buildings in. Both the main buildings as well as shelters are demountable and we'll be sitting on temporary footings. And so we need that access into the site. You can see here, this is images from the packet, elevations, both with the Community Resource Center and the bathroom facility. Those are incredibly important parts of the infrastructure of the overall site plan. So as Samantha alluded to, the CRC and the bathroom pavilion are both oriented towards the east side of the site. That's for obvious reasons. We want to be as close to the infrastructure on the road as we can to create efficient connections for water and wastewater. On the southeast portion of the site, you can see some limited parking for staff as well as a designated area for trash and recycling. Both the CRC and the bathroom pavilion will be slightly elevated. That's where the decks are intended to mediate between the ground plane and elevated first floor. So once we've created that infrastructure on the east side, the next step is really to weave together some pedestrian circulation on the back half of the site. And so this is where my metaphor starts to become a little bit more real. We're weaving these streets in with the yellow, designating the emergency access and we create some visual interest on the site and help orient and wave find people who are entering the village. We're also proposing that we extend this paint into the public right away along the sidewalk because we don't view this as a disconnected piece of Burlington or rather a part of the city. And so that's a deliberate and intentional extension of that paint into the city. So forgive me again, but we have this canvas and we have a heart and we are working with local artists. But I was inspired both by Pete Montrion, who used to have a left, probably a bookie lookie, as well as paintings on the right by Agnes Martin, who was an incredibly important minimalist artist from the 20th century and really being interested in how we weave these different colors together, creating that grid, but also allowing for place for the human hand. And so part of that is creating these neighborhoods. And so I'm calling a neighborhood is really a cluster for individual shelters that face one another, but each one of the circles represents a cluster of four. And so now I was going to talk a little bit about some of the outreach we did. We visited the Community Resource Center to meet with potential users of the site, which was a really moving experience. I think it's me if I both were had some trepidation about how it would go. But we were almost universally accepted in terms of that process. And people were excited about both the projects we were asking about signing up. And so there's a lot of excitement within the community and think about our designs. But we went to that meeting without having any firm site plans. And so we talked with many individuals about the layout of the shelter, the layout of the site, got a lot of input. One thing in particular that we incorporated, one individual pulled me aside and took me over to the flat. Again, we were at the VFW and he said, you know, we should do a grid, but it should be like a start, should be offset, you know. And he was trying to explain to you before that it was really important to him that I had to hear him. So we looked at the flag together and sure enough, we thought that was a great idea. And so you can see each cluster of four is slightly offset. So the front doors don't face one another exactly. They do create a sense of space, but that slight offset, we believe creates a little bit more sense of privacy. So it's a subtle move, but it's something that we felt like was important. Most to honor the individual who has had that brilliant idea, but also share with you some of that community outreach that we've that we've undertaken. So the other thing we are interested in is what to be shelters look like. And so we have 25 shelters from the palette, which is the one you see on the bottom left here. These are prefabricated and panelized and come flat packed. And what's interesting about them is that in three years' time when this site plan expires, the city will be able to flat back them again and, you know, redeploy them, send them somewhere else because we've achieved Brian's goal of zero and we don't need the shelters anymore. Nevertheless, we have that flexibility. The up end shelters are exciting in a different way. They're being fabricated by an individual who's got his start at the generator plant in the south end and they'll be fabricated locally to a higher environmental thermal barrier than the palette shelters, which are pretty minimally insulated. That said, Samantha is our homework and we know that they will work through the brunt of winter. Yeah, I would just add that we're honest, the up end of this shelters are also being designed and fabricated to have a useful life after these three years. It could be as a shelter or it could be as a key ask at the winter market or on the waterfront, just supporting with Michael Zyrowski up on this to be really rigorously about how these structures can continue to serve for long to lead to the future. And to your point about bikes earlier, you can see that it might have shown a bike here hanging off the end of the up end. You can also see bikes kind of hanging out in the palette. So we know there's going to be bikes on the site and we'll certainly be accommodating that. The other thing we are missing from this site plan as we sort of build up our layers is any element of biofilia. And so we know that people love nature, we know that it's important. And we heard that when we were at the CRC, people saying they want to grow things. They want to get their hands in the soil. We know there's bacteria in the soil that emit gases that make us feel better. So this is an important thing as part of the site. These are Vigo planters on the left side. They are one element. If we're looking for more opportunities to garden because of the asphalt nature, some soilless gardening like straw veils could potentially be another opportunity to increase stream space. And so we've used these planters strategically to create private spaces in between the shelters so that we, you know, in a gentle way direct folks to only use the quote unquote streets. We've also created a garden space in the south, south side of the site in the middle in part to create a buffer between the bathroom, facility and shelters. And then using planters in a variety of other places to increase the amount of green on the site. Lastly, as Samantha alluded to, we have three sides of a chain link fence. It's in perfectly good shape, but it's not a beautiful thing. And so we're proposing a variety of different ways to decorate that fence and create a little privacy. One of these bamboo slats that you see here, another are these cups that maybe you've seen before, but they can be inserted into the chain link fence and create interesting patterns using color. Also working with a local artist to create some art that would be mounted on the chain link fence. The last side of the of the site is going to be a privacy six foot cedar privacy fence and that will run from the south side across the bathroom building around the dumpster enclosure. There will be gates accessible for fire and another gate at the CRC controlled by staff within the CRC to sort of close off that east side of the site. And so it's important to us to create that sense of safety and security within the community. I think I know from talking to neighbors that there are people who are afraid of the house's community and do them as a source of crime. But the truth is that there are more often victims of crime. And so I think it's really important that we create this sense of privacy and control within the site to help try to mitigate that risk. So in closing, I'll say that we are trying to create this sense of community both through that sense of enclosure, but also creating this space within the middle of the site. And that's what this last piece of inter-world and creating is meant to elucidate is that there is this interior space for people to gather outside. We don't know exactly how we'll be used. And that's intentional. While I'm excited about this design, I think it's a good design. It's not complete. And we want to leave room for both the operators as well as the people who will be living here to leave their mark as well. And so while we have, I think, a great first step, this is not a complete design and look forward to seeing evolve as we proceed into construction. Thank you for your time. There's one thing you didn't, I don't think, unless I missed it, light, site lighting, can you go through that? Oh, yeah, sure. Of course. So there are two existing site lights on the site here and here. They live in a median and there will be lights, wallpacks on both the bath pavilion as well as the CRC. Furthermore, on the up end of this pod, they also have wallpacks that will light and will deliberately have one of those within each neighborhood to create a little bit of light out of each neighborhood. And so I would say the existing site lights have been designed to light the entire site. So we know that there is adequate light on the site, but, you know, and we'll probably be continuing to work like adding, you know, solar lights along the wallways and things like that. But the light, only additional lighting infrastructure is at each doorway of the bath house and the Community Source Center. And as Sam said, it's actually in an overhang, a downlight in the up end of this shelters. Are those, is the intention to leave those two lights on 24 hours a day or whatever, all night or? I think they'll operate in the way that they do now. And we'll, you know, work with, we'll figure out, make sure we understand what's working. I think that's gonna be, I think the way the site has been laid out would allow those to stay on without getting in people's eyes while they're trying to sleep. So that's your end of your presentation, just to. Yes, thank you. Okay. And so maybe we'll have some questions from the board. Can we get back to seeing the board members? It's helpful seeing the screen there, but yeah, okay. So I guess I'll start off by seeing if any of the board members have questions for the applicant on this project. Yes, I do. I'm curious about general, generally how. Decisions of the zoning just so we can answer in the most helpful way. I think it's gonna be wide ranging to tell you the truth because as I said in the beginning, our actual purview is pretty limited in this, but I think in terms of public information, it's helpful to have some of these questions, so. Okay. And Scott, I would ask if it's possible for you to make Marcella a panelist to help answer some of the questions about operations. Okay. I mean, it's like the finder. Hi, I'm the founder. Great, and I would say, I know I answered one of them easily that there would be no, there's no rent, there's no payment required by people staying at the site. And Marcella, I don't know if you want to speak to, I think the other question was like, how people get on the list or how people get a space out of the shelter? Yes, sure. Marcella, before you speak, Marcella, can you just swear yourself in to say the truth and hold truth on the panel to your purgery? Yes, if that's what I need to do, yes. Introduce how you're connected to this. Certainly, I was also going to ask if Sarah Russell could be made a panelist as well since she's working on our team. Is that possible? Thank you. Okay. And your team is from where? Marcella, just to... I work with CEDA as well. I work with Sarah. I'm a community development manager. I'll let Sarah introduce herself. I will swear you in too. Do you swear to tell the truth and hold truth on the panel to your purgery? Absolutely. Okay. So you and Marcella have the floor at the moment. So thanks, Marcella, for inviting me into this. I have recently accepted a position with CEDA as the Special Assistant to End Homelessness that Brian referred to in the Mayor's Templine Action Plan to End Homelessness in Burlington. And we're happy to answer questions. I think Leo had a question around how folks will be selected for the site and the eligibility. Is that correct? Yes, that was his question. Great. Marcella, do you want me to answer or do you? Yeah, go ahead and I can add if you have anything else. Sure. So we have been working with local outreach teams over the last, well, much longer than six months or so, but to identify people who are un-sheltered within the city and who may benefit from living in a community, a shelter community like this. I think that we're focused on ensuring that people can access available resources like motel rooms through economic services or other shelter opportunities within the city before pursuing, you know, moving into this particular shelter community. We will be following the guidelines of the state definitions for homelessness, prioritizing those who are category one homelessness. For those of you who aren't familiar with that, it means that someone is actively without housing and or who is un-sheltered currently. Anything to add, Marcella? No, other than the fact that we'll be coordinating with our shelter partners and with 211, which are the other kind of routes into other types of general assistance or a hotel shelter that's also operating at the moment in the state. I'm gonna ask a couple of questions here. One of them is I was surprised in looking at the application that the community center is only open till four. Is that, is there, I'm just thinking you've got 24-hour day people living there and you've got this center that is the only community space there in the middle of the winter. That's a great question. I think that just needs clarifying that community resource center is open from nine to four for the general public as it operated at the BFW work. Anybody can stop in to access food, coffee, basic like stocks and access to services. The community center building will be occupied 24 hours a day by onsite staff to serve the folks living in the community and so went to the public from nine to four. And will the people living there have access to the community center outside of those hours? With staff, yes. Oh, okay, okay, thank you. I guess I'm also gonna have a question for you on the fencing. I think the, and I don't know how this will work, but the typically fencing is the, I don't know how it's exactly expressed, but I believe that you require a fencing is that the good side goes to the neighbor and jargon like that. I think that's the case. And so your bamboo that you're putting on there, and I don't have a clear picture of exactly what you know, you showed three different kinds of fencing is the whole fencing gonna be all bamboo around the whole lot, or is it just part of it or? Are we? So I think those details aren't quite fleshed out yet, Brad. I think the goal is to use all the techniques we present in an interesting way to create a good sense of enclosure. So that bamboo would be supplementary to the existing chain link fence. I suppose if the intention is to have a good side out, we might mount it to the outside of the chain link fence, Brad, on the inside, or perhaps we buy two laders and we sandwich the chain link fence. That bamboo fencing is quite inexpensive. So I think we can accommodate that goal one way or another. I just mentioned because I think it, the chain link itself is not very attractive. It does send good message on either side. And that's one of the concerns is how this sits there in the neighborhood and how it's presented from both sides. I think for the people who are living there and people who are living next door, like fencing becomes an important element of that project. I think your question is a student and we've actually thought about that, that maybe the artwork has a multi dimensionality to it that it might face out as well as Andy because as I alluded to in my presentation, we wanna make sure that this is not an insular and we're looking project that rather has that connection to the key. I guess we'll go back to the lighting for a second just cause I wasn't quite clear. So it's got parking lights and generally those are on business outweigh controls. Those will be on a, however they're controlled now which is either a time clock or a daylight sensor. And the intention right now is that those will operate the same way. So those lights will be on, basically at night for general illumination for safety. If people will be getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and they'll need to be able to see their way to the bathroom facility. So that's the general illumination for nighttime. Seems like overkill to get to the bathroom in terms of a lighting design. I know your budget's limited, I'm sure. But I think if we have more money and Samantha said I could do whatever I want that I could probably come up with a different lighting scheme. But I think we're working with what we've got to try to create something that meets our budget. You may have said this too, I'm just curious. How are these pods heated? So the pallet shelters are gonna be climbing condition with electric resistance heat and a small quarter layer conditioner which we all are not happy about them because that's a pretty significant investment in electrons. But we are looking at the opportunities to add heat pumps but again it's a budget challenge as well as a temporary emergency shelter. So we're trying to balance all of those costs as we develop it. I think the up-end shelters are intended to have a heat pump and it will be more efficient both from the fact that they're insulated better but also have a better system to begin with. So everything on the site will be electric. It's a fossil fuel free development and I think you may have noticed on the site plan that solar panels, we have applied for money to be able to put solar panels on the two larger buildings to offset the electricity costs. Where's the public eye? Before we get to any other questions from the board at this time, Shawn? Yes, I have two questions. Just to be clear, the emergency access depiction in there that's for emergency vehicles. Yes. Even fire trucks and they're going to go in and back out? Not for fire trucks. We've been working with the fire department. They really need to just be able to get the ambulance all the way into the site and open the doors. That's what people work with them. In terms of fire, they can serve the site from the street or from the way that they can pull in. Also, what is your plan for small removal? This is a pretty compact little area here. Yeah, so we'll develop that plan operationally with whoever it is, contract to plow it, but my guess is that we're going to plow. We have to keep the emergency. I'll plow and so there will be a plow truck that'll come through and take care of that. Snow will be piled at the end. The streets and the rest of the pedestrian circulation will probably be cleared using a mixture of snow shovels and a snow blower. And like the rest of us in our neighborhood, it's not always easy if it snows a lot, but I think it's doable. Any questions from the board? Sorry, I have one more. This was described as a temporary project. What are the chances that this is gonna be necessary still in 36 months? And I'm not opposed to it, but I guess I'm wondering kind of how definite it is that it is temporary. The concept of a bridge to housing is both true in the sense that the individuals need a bridge, but that we need a bridge as a community to get some housing built in Burlington throughout the region. And that there are a new $50 million allocation on top of 150 last year at the state level and significant read investments are underway in and around Burlington that will result in a significant increase in housing, specifically for folks experiencing homelessness, as well as permanent affordable housing that allows people to afford their housing and not become homeless, which of course is the best strategy to deal with homelessness is preventable happening at all. So it's ambitious that we will accomplish that in three years. I have to say that, but it's ambitious, but it's not a moonshot ambitious. So that question does bring up another one for us. If it's described as a temporary project, if we were to approve it, are we approving it for a temporary period of time or like we recommend it, it's approved, it's built? Scott. So when the findings AJ talks about it's valid for three years, I guess kind of getting it Leo's question, if that needs to be extended, they would need to come back before the board. The applicants clear on that, you're okay with that? Yes, because we would also need, I mean we also would need to return to the city council and the public works commission. And I think we are, yeah, I think that's clear. And I do believe that people no longer at the end of 36 months need 30 individual shelters on the site. Might be possible that we relocate to a different smaller site or we learn something, we're still sheltering folks in a different way, but right now it is absolutely the city's intention to operate on this site for no more than 36 months. Okay. I also think it's important. Yeah, I also think it's important to note that the city has made a significant investment in increasing capacity for coordinated entry, which is the community agreed upon method for which we identify and prioritize households for housing placement. So I think that in addition to this emergency shelter community that we're working on, we're also on a separate track, working to really increase the capacity of our infrastructure to be able to connect households to permanent housing at the same time. So this isn't just a band-aid on a challenge, this is really part of a plan to move us forward as a community, ensuring that we can move as many people as possible into permanently affordable housing that is service-enriched to meet their needs as well. So there's members of the public who are wanting to speak. Is that assuming that's correct? Yeah, it looks like we have maybe 30 give or take, including six with their hands raised right now. So just as a process, so we're going to have the public speak and I'll just ask the applicant. At the end, we're not gonna try to answer the questions as they come up, but after we hear from the public, then we come back to the applicant to have them respond to some of the issues that the public may have raised. And if it's six, I think we're okay. If it's 30, I think we may do a timer on it. So let's see how many people are wanting to speak. Can you get a sense of that, Scott? So if you'd like to speak on this item, raise your hand, please. And we can swear you all in. So it looks like we have eight hands up. So I'll let all eight, we have nine. So I'll let all nine speak, Brad. And you can put it in while I'm doing that. Everyone who speaks, it's gonna be important to give us your mailing address at the beginning of your comments and that's so that you're notified of future meetings if there are any in the DRB's decision. And I am gonna just ask for people who speak to just be a little conscious of the time but not to repeat each other if you can. And I'd like to keep the comments to three or four minutes and see if we can do that to go with that. And I'm just going to start with, I see people above my screen, I see Eric Lafayette. How's it going, guys? Hope you all can hear me. I live at 183 Colarney Drive in Burlington, Vermont. I'm a property manager for the two residential apartment buildings across the street that my mom owns. I'm very concerned about this building and the structure going in across the street. I'm also very concerned with the temporary status that has been put upon this. As you noticed, nobody from CEDO wanted to commit to any temporary timelines under perjury. And they did not give any guidelines for what we remove or keep those there. This does not seem temporary. The mayor has mentioned that this is a no barrier shelter so people will be allowed to use drugs and alcohol effectively breaking the law. We cannot allow structures with the intent to allow people to break the law. I've mentioned this due to safety and the people around it. This does not seem like it fits within the residential neighborhood of this space. I mean, the mass, the scale, the building codes, I actually recommend that everybody Google Oakland Palate Community Fire. A lot of these palates communities are, they're highly flammable. They're made out of plastic. They do not meet the building codes of the city. They are not safe. They do not meet energy code. I know they're carbon fuel free, but that does not mean that they need to promote energy code. They do not. What else can I go? Just the size of it. And I think that the general intent of the design review board is to make sure that it complements its context and its environment, which just does not seem to do either of those. It does not fit within the design of the community. These are all 100 plus year buildings around here with a lot of architectural integrity. I don't see how plastic sheds meet that. That goes with promotes Brompton architectural and design elements. These do not seem to be temporary. They do not incorporate climate sensitive environmentally conscious design. Unfortunately, plastic buildings that do not have the envelope design construction meet it. And they don't seem to meet ADA requirements. I just think up and down with the design review board and what you guys are there for is to make sure that stuff like this does not get put into neighborhoods. And that's what the whole zoning purpose is about. And I just hope that you guys look at this very carefully. You guys look at the building, the design, the timeline. And I guess my last part of it is just disappointing that they chose to put it in this neighborhood. It seems like an example of structural racism or white supremacy, however you wanna put it, but just the ability to go through and put this very undesirable project in your lowest income, most marginalized community where you know you're not gonna have a lot of pushback. To me seems like a very, I don't know, it just seems like something as a design review board and what you've seen in construction of cities over a long time. You usually don't put the most undesirable developments in your poorest communities that are already suffering a lot with crime and other issues. So it's just disappointing that they chose this location and it seems like it perpetuates a long-standing history of putting these things in areas where you're not gonna have the most pushback. And I know just specifically I do have tenants across the street, non-English speaking ones that can't be here, multi-generational families. They are concerned about it. So I just wanna thank you guys for your time and hope for your consideration. Putting this year and meeting the size, scale and all those things that go into your guys' review process. And I'm just, because I see all these hands at once, I'm just gonna go through the water I see it on my screen. I see Wanda Hines. Sorry, Brett. Do we need to swear in the members of the board? I thought Scott, sorry. Everybody and begin with them. I read Scott. Everyone, yeah, a quick point Leo is wondering the same thing. Everyone can speak when you need to speak. If you wanna swear everyone in collectively, Brett. Yeah, okay. I'm gonna, everybody wants to speak. I'm gonna, if you would swear to tell the truth and hold the pain and penalty of perjury. I'm gonna assume that by speaking that you were answering in the meeting. Yes. Can we present alternative facts? So I'm gonna again go in the order. Wanda Hines, are you there? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes? Okay. Yes. Okay. Am I swearing or am I speaking? You're speaking, I'm speaking. You're speaking. Okay. You're affirmative about the truth. Okay. All right. My name is Wanda Hines. I'm going to speak with two caps. I've been an old North and residents. Since the sixties, I grew up here. I have a home in the old North then over by the Boys and Girls Club, over behind. They have a lot of homeless population over behind Manhattan Drive. And so very familiar with the homeless population in Burlington over the years. And it's, well, to the point where last fall I was awakened early in the morning because somebody was sleeping into my window and it was somebody homeless. And so on one hand, I really would welcome the opportunity, this opportunity for the city and homeless populations. And I'm also here as the director of JUMP, the joint urban ministry project. And for the last couple of years, we've been sitting or I've been serving, representing on the board of the scary committee of the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance. And so when this project came up, it really captured our attention. We serve 20% of our population, our homeless populations, but it captured my attention because we will be feeling the impact of the pod shelter being right there. But that was all the more reason with the 28 supporting faith communities that we began to really take a look at how we deliver our services and how we've been impacted by COVID. We know that when COVID first happened for a month, we couldn't, we were unable to serve homeless populations because they didn't have a residential address. And we eventually worked with community partners and were able to ensure they had access to those resources, do those partners, in other words, causing them to come in from out of the cold or from wherever that they were sleeping. We strongly believe that if these said populations have access to basically a sense of needs that bad behaviors may not be the case. But even more so, I think about, I mean, there are a lot of moving pieces here. And I agree, I'm reading a lot of the material, all the material pretty much, that it went quickly. Didn't it go quickly? I thought, oh, it's gonna be June now it's going back in. So there are some bumps in the road, but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't embrace this opportunity knowing the city's commitment towards homelessness. And when you think about the fact we have over 2,500 homeless people in Vermont and 700 in Chittenden County, that is just a small this 30. And I think about one thing I like about program development I like when it has a beginning and it hasn't end. This has a beginning and this hasn't end. And I think that it would be small risk and yes, there's discomfort. And I can sympathize with McKinsey House. I sympathize with knowing that said populations that I may not feel comfortable, but I haven't done a community where I've not felt comfortable on many occasions, but sometimes the community, we have to rally them together. We do want to interrupt your one, but we do want to say we're trying to keep it under three minutes. The bottom line is I do jump a directive jump to join every ministry project. We support the project. I would feel more comfortable. We would seeing some of those said populations in the pod shelter as opposed to church streets where I don't even go down church street anymore not feeling safe down there. But I think that even though again, it may be seeming fast, but just 30 people is just a small bucket and a control contained environment that we could provide the necessary help that they need. So I'll let it go with that because there are a lot of moving pieces here, but we are in support of it at the joint urban ministry project. Thank you. Okay. So again, I'm just going to order that people are here. Matt Byrne, are you there? I am running a timer here on three minutes so that we can keep it moving. Matt. Yes, I'm here. I'm Matt Byrne. I represent the Kinsey house. I think you really should spend some time with the residents who I've understood are on here as well so that they can talk about now how this project is going to be impacting them. On a legal level, I do think you're making a mistake about section 4413 because I think your review is much broader than what the city is leading you to believe under section 4413. It does not say that municipality-owned projects are exempt from review. It says state-owned or community-owned. So I think the scope of your review is very broad. We put in a bunch of declarations from residents at the McKinsey house. And I think that you should take your time and read through these declarations because they really go through and describe to you the impacts that the residents of the McKinsey house are going to face here. One of our declarations is from a mother who has a son who's going to be looking out directly on this project from his bedroom window. We have a disabled person who will have her conditions exacerbated by the stress, the noise, and the smoke from living next to the pod village. And we have people who have worked in the human services field who say clearly that you need to have a plan here for how this is going to operate. What's happening here is the city has not given you a plan and it also has not said to you who's going to actually be operating this facility. They say they've talked to people in the community, certain community providers, but they haven't identified anybody who's actually going to be operating this facility. So I do hope that you'll take and read these declarations and also listen carefully to the residents of McKinsey house who are going to have their entire lives turned upside down by this project. And I really do think that you should spend some time with them. We understand that the mayor and the city council are in a very difficult position with the homelessness problem. But the answer to this problem is not locating this particular place right here and this neighborhood, which I think it was Eric said, this is locating it in the worst place because this community already has a number of issues that they are trying to deal with. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer that, but I think you should spend some time speaking with the residents of McKinsey house. Thank you. Hey, Matt. This is Age of the Rose. I have a question for you. Yeah, sure. I want to understand your point. You say 24 BSA 4413 doesn't exempt city projects from review. It's only state and community-owned projects. Do I have that right? That's correct. Is there a case that you can point me to that clarifies that? I only know of the city of Montpelier case for the parking garage, but that one had a specific provision in the Burlington bylaws. I'm not the Burlington, the Barry, I guess, or Montpelier, Capitol Plaza bylaws that addressed and incorporated 4413. I'm curious if you know if that's been answered. I don't think it's been addressed by the Vermont Supreme Court, and I don't think it's been addressed either by the environmental provision, but I think reading the plain language of the statute, if the legislature wanted to save municipality on it would have. And I mean, the other point on this is that these are the city of Burlington's own regulations, right? They are the ones that pass them. They should have to comply with the regulations that they passed. And there is a lot of authority about how an administrative agency or municipality has to comply with the regulations that are passed. The fact that they're not even willing to comply with their own regulations really should cause you to question this development. And we've put forth an extensive legal analysis as to why this does not meet the regulations and you should take a look at that. I might jump in just real quick. So we have precedent, including projects going to the DRB, city-owned managed projects that have been under the same statutory limitation. Also point out that the limitation really slims down Article 6. It's not affecting conditionally used. I understand that's a great area, but we've asked that question and it's been answered that it can be conditionally used and so it is. Again, Molly Flanagan. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. I am Molly Flanagan. I'm at 59 LaFountain Street in Burlington and I am a steering committee member with the Awards Two and Three Neighborhood Planning Association, or NPA. And I'm here to inform the DRB that at our May 12th meeting last week, our joint NPA voted to support a resolution that supports the shelter pod proposal. The support came after a lengthy discussion of the proposal and the process the city has undertaken to involve neighbors with this proposal. Many adjacent neighbors to the parking lot voiced their concerns about the level of notice and involvement they have had in the project to date. And many of them felt that it has been insufficient. As a result of the discussion, we ended up voting to support the following resolution. The vote was 23 in support and eight against. The wording was Awards Two and Three Neighborhood Planning Assembly endorses the establishment of a temporary shelter pod village and community resource center on Elmwood Avenue to support the community members who are experiencing homelessness. And we require that the city take proactive efforts to keep the budding neighbors informed about development plans and activities at the site. That second part of the resolution was a critical importance to our conversation and support of the resolution. Many members of the NPA felt that they had been inadequately informed. And so the NPA request improved communication with neighbors to continue our support. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Michelle Borbas. Hi, this is Michelle Borbas. I live at 191 College Street. I want to, sorry, my brain is kind of scattered right now. So one of the big things that was concerning was the lack of details on exactly how this is going to be operating and managed on a day-to-day basis who's supervising, who's making sure that things are being taken care of. You know, I'm looking at your plans and it looks pretty on paper and I'm a teacher. So I know what plans can look like on paper, but when reality strikes that doesn't mean that's what happens and what actually comes out of what you've planned. So I'm looking at it going, okay, how are we going to make sure that they're putting the garbage in the garbage cans and in the recycling bins? Because I've seen homeless people literally standing 10 feet from a garbage can and throw stuff on the ground and walk away. How are we gonna make sure that these bathrooms are kept clean because they're trashed in the bathrooms over here in the park that's brand new. So a lot of this kind of day-to-day management is definitely a major concern. I know that this is the whole bridge, the homeless into some kind of home down the line, but what is actually being done in the step-by-step process of making that a reality? You know, a lot of these homeless people did not end up homeless because they just decided to wake up one day and walk out their door and say, I'm not gonna live in a house. They got there because of something that triggered that. Situational homelessness is different. We're not talking about a spouse died and they just fell on a hard times. We're talking about people that have addictions and mental health. What is being done to actually prepare them for the responsibility of being in a home one day beyond this pot, beyond these little shelters that we're giving them for free? Because nobody's paying my electric bill, that's for sure. And it's very frustrating as a person who's living in this community to see how they're getting stuff all the time and how they basically trash it. So I wanna know, what is the steps that's actually being done to manage this, supervise this? What are their behavioral expectations? There's just a lot of details that are not being addressed on here's the pots and we're putting them in, go for it. You know, whether you like it or not, this is what we're doing. And I think that's where a lot of the frustration in the community is coming from. We're not getting strategic answers and details that actually tell us what is happening and how it's going to happen. Thanks. Thanks, Michelle. I see Joe McGee. Ugh. Yeah. Is that Joe? Are you there Joe McGee? I'll go on for Cooper Segal. Cooper, are you able to get it right now? Hello? Yeah. Can you hear me? Hi, this is actually Alexander Twombly speaking on behalf of Cooper Segal and myself. Okay. We live at 50 Elmwood Ave, which is just across the street from this. And I do just want, I'm coming on to speak today because I do just wanna say I do think the location picked is a complete like failure of urban planning. It's not a good site. I did a lot of research into other pod communities around the country that they based it off of and none of the other ones are located in kind of a low rise presidential neighborhood, such as this one. And I'm also a little concerned about, well, noise and security and traffic increases that this will bring to our neighborhood because in earlier meetings, we did learn that the daytime shelter portion of this will actually is expected to have up to 150 people a day attending it. And they didn't really do any kind of impact survey or like survey on the opinions of the surrounding neighbors before planning this and choosing the site. So yeah, that's just the concerns that we have here. Joe McGee, are you, I see you're on mute. I am, sorry about that. I had to step away for a moment. Thank you all for taking the time to let the public speak tonight. Can you do your address, Joe? Yep, so my address is 41 North Champlain Street and the city councilor for Ward three, which this site is on the boundary of. And I'm speaking on behalf of councilor Bergman for Ward two as well, who couldn't be here tonight in support of this project. We have each canvassed the neighborhoods surrounding the site for the emergency shelter project. I've had several conversations with folks in Ward three who are excited that this project is coming, that this shelter community is being built. They're excited to volunteer to help put the pods together and continue to show up and bring food and supplies to help folks get back on their feet. I think a lot of folks have spoken to the real benefit that will be brought to the community by this project. So I don't want to take up too much time here, but I did spend some time on the pallet website, the company that manufactures the majority of the shelters that will be on the site. And I just wanted to read some of the statistics that came out of Aurora, Colorado, which is a suburb of Denver and just some of the success that they've seen there. Since I believe July of last year, they built the shelter, the pod community in November. 101 people have been sheltered. 54% of those residents have obtained employment or employment services. 11 people have been moved into permanent housing. There have been seven family reunifications and 72% of residents have obtained benefits through the state. 91 of the residents have been able to obtain vital documents which is a driver's license or birth certificate. Some of these essential things that folks need to get back on their feet, get access services and access employment in a way that's really not possible if you're worrying about where you're gonna lay your head at night. And I just want to also add that I've heard from a number of folks over the last couple of weeks that are concerned about the increasing numbers of encampments that are showing up in the city as the state is beginning to spread the word about the changes to the parameters of the hotel shelter program. This is gonna cause a real impact for a lot of folks that is gonna lead to them losing shelter. And so it's very vital that we get this project started now and that it's implementing in time for not just later this summer but as we get closer to the cold weather months. So we're not in a situation again where dozens of families and hundreds of folks are left with nowhere to go. So I just wanted to add that piece to this and thank you all for taking the time tonight. Thank you. Christopher Hesley. Thank you, Mr. Benowitz. First, I'd like to recognize Director Pine and Mr. Dunn and the staff at CEDA for the project. I think this is definitely a step up than what we had seen last fall at Sears Lane. And I think it's an innovative unique approach and like to commend them for the creativity and bringing this forward for Burlington. I think it's a good concept and I'd like to see it move forward but I'm just not sure that this is the correct process or the correct site at this time as some of the other speakers have commented out when you deal with an issue like this, like such as the houselessness crisis, there's always going to be an element of NIMBYism going on. I don't want it in my backyard. We need to acknowledge that houselessness is a community problem. And in my view, the solution should be shared by all members of the community. And rather than congregating all of the pods in one centralized location and kind of creating a critical mass, it seems to me that, you know, every ward in this city bears a responsibility for taking on the houselessness crisis and that perhaps we should consider distributing it through the city. I'd also like to say that there was some questions regarding, you know, the process here that we've talked about. I serve on the Steering Committee at the Wards two and three NPA and was the facilitator for the most recent meeting. I've noticed, you know, in the 20 plus years I've been here in town, more recently under current leadership that the public process has been breaking down in. And the very short time that I've been on the NPA Steering Committee, I came on board, I think last November, there have been a number of projects that have come out of the Community and Economic Development Offices, which were essentially a done deal without any type of meaningful public engagement or opportunity for the residents to speak in. It was basically like, we know what's best for you, we're putting this here, deal with it. So I have concerns about that because, you know, one point, you know, in the past, CEDA was very good about public process and making sure everybody had a seat at the table, the right people. And if there were objections, we tried to bring people together to come up with a plan and build some consensus in a way that didn't set up an adversarial us versus them relationship. And now it just seems like members of the public are being viewed as an impediment to the agenda being foot forth, you know, from city hall. In terms of the NPA resolution, I would also point out, as many of you may already be aware, NPAs are designed for the residents that are kind of a quasi public body. And anyone who is a member of the ward as a resident is allowed to come and speak and vote. So even though the vote passed, I would point out that a majority of the folks who actually spoke and favored this and actually got to vote for it were people who were elected officials, people who were on the payroll of city hall and perhaps working on the project just happened to live in the ward. So they got to vote on it. So I'm not really sure that the NPAs endorsement of this project really demonstrates widespread community support for it. I think it's a very small sample size. Try to wrap it up. We're trying to keep it open. And I think that it's a good idea. But in my view, what I would like to see is see us take a step back and have a very open and transparent public process, a robust public process where members of the community from across the city have an opportunity to weigh in on the initial list of I think nine or 10 sites that were considered. Nobody got a chance to really see that. Okay, Christopher. I'm trying to keep it short, so if you don't mind. Yep, so that's all I have to say tonight. I think I've made the points. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Mr. Christopher Aaron Falker texted me. He wants to speak, but I guess he didn't get promoted too. So. Very cool or keel. Cool. Okay. Yes. Very cool. 43 Elmwood Avenue. I live in McKenzie house. I just wanted to say that you spoke in length and in detail about what you are doing and how great it's going to be for the homeless people, but you have not considered or spoken about the impact on us. We here at McKenzie house are low income seniors who have modest wishes for our remaining days of life. And that is a true concern. We ask only for peace and quiet, a clean environment around us that is not toxic or polluted by cigarette and pot smoke and safety and security in and around our dwelling. Our landlord has worked hard to provide all these things for us, but your proposal to inject a pod village side by our side, as close as two peas in a pod, threatens to upend all of those efforts. Everything just mentioned, peace and quiet, a clean and non-toxic environment and safety and security will be, will jeopardize, will be jeopardized and lost if you install your pod village. And just on a very personal level, I have an autoimmune condition called mass cell activation syndrome. Most people or a lot of people in this building have health problems. There are people who use oxygen, there are people with asthma. I am unable to eat many foods and stress exacerbates the condition. I live here. I chose, I choose to live here because it is good for my health, my mental health and my physical health. I also have multiple chemical sensitivities which here in Vermont is considered a disability. All of this is what will make life more stressful and miserable than usual for me if the pod village is placed here. There will undoubtedly be cigarette and pot smoke produced by the inhabitants. If only a part of that smoke, the smell will make me really sick, exacerbate my condition and give me a migraine. It comes in my window already just from people passing by outside. I have had the smell come in from George Street when they were having a party. I one night had to wash my dishes with a respirator mask on because once it enters my apartment, I can't get rid of it, even with two fans going. I have terrible now even, I have trouble now, even when people pass by the outside of the building. Even people smoking where they're allowed to smoke. Mary, you've been very eloquent but I'd like to wrap it up now for you if you can. Okay. All right. I want to say one more thing. I worry about COVID. What happens if you get a COVID infection in there and it spreads through your whole pod village? I don't want it on my doorstep. One more, I'm 74 years old, 74. Am I going to make it to 75 or 76? I don't know, but I'd like to do it in the comfort I have now. I see, Tucker Wright. Hi there. And I will do my best to keep under three minutes so you don't have to call on me. My name is Tucker Wright. I live at 69 Peru Street, which is just around the corner from the pod village. I like others believe that this concept is good. However, I have been completely unimpressed with the way that CEDO has moved through this process and feel disenfranchised and beaten down. We've attended meetings. I've attended many meetings and at each of them it is clear that the CEDO members are there to listen to respond, not to listen to understand or to be equitable or inclusive with their neighbors. At the NPA meeting that was just referenced, we were told we're already doing more than were legally required to do. Just basically be grateful, which is not what the person said, but that is not actual engagement. That is not including us in the process so that we are stewards of the pod village. It is creating adversaries. This has been a disgraceful process, quite frankly. And not only that, but they have not been forthright with information. They have curated and shifted information that 150 people started at 30 just a month ago. On their website, I think even today, it says 30 daily visitors to the Community Resource Center. How can we trust anything that CEDO says they're going to do once you give them approval? How can we trust that they're not going to shift again? At the last community meeting, they mentioned to all of us that they were having trouble getting someone to manage the pod village because of staffing issues. I would just ask that you require, they include us in a plan of engagement for how it will be run, but so with a contingency plan, if the people that they choose to run this run into staffing issues once it opens, what happens then? How is it managed then? If they don't have the staff to do it in the way that we were promised, and what happens to, quite frankly, the members of the pod village, if it can no longer be staffed in a way that is appropriate, how can we approve this if none of this due diligence has been shared with the community or with you? How is that fair to the residents of the pod village if they have not prepped on what they're going to do if they cannot keep their commitments to the neighborhood? Where is that information? Why is it not on their website? And why is all of the information they're sharing at community meetings, where you must have the luxury of time and space to go to them on their website? So many new pieces of information were shared just a few weeks ago, and none of it was on their website at the last MPN meeting. This has been a shameful process, and I really hope that if you do approve this construction, you start holding CEDO accountable from a permitting process in true equitable and inclusive engagement of the community and ensure that they're doing their due diligence that are likely to impact them. I'm done, it was so close. So close. I see Lacey Smith. Hi everybody, my name is Lacey Smith. I am a social worker with the city of Burlington. I am the community support supervisor and I supervise the group of community support liaisons that work out of the Burlington Police Department. So I just was here to speak. I just wanted to share a little bit about how my team isn't going to be involved in this work and kind of the conversations that I've had and just what the Secretary of the Homeless Alliance and being in this work for the last eight years as well as the individual that manages the policy for the city of Burlington that are sheltering on public land. The need far outweighs anything that we have in terms of sustained capacity. So not only is the system like getting smaller by the changes that they're making, there isn't any capacity in that system currently as it stands. So in order to address chronic homelessness so someone had spoken about the people that have been in homeless for chronic homelessness is defined by only one year. But we have people in this community had that have been homeless for many years. And so the best practice when really addressing the needs of those individuals is relationship. It's about getting to know those people really meeting them where they're at. And I don't think that no other issue can be addressed if you do not have shelter over your head. Everything else is going to fall away. So I think my team, the way that we will be involved is not only in the intentions of really trying to help the community be active parts of not just the pod community, but the greater community working with the pod community to be really part of a collective impact model of everybody being not only involved in the conversation because they are part of this community. They need to understand the impact that some of the behaviors that they have. My team will be assisting being not only on the ground as social workers, but responding to in the moment needs. And I think that there's just, there are more people in our parks than I can say in the history of me doing this job. And there is no recourse for them. There is no other end. And this is allowing for the city to be able to provide people with some place to go when they're literally right now is no other option. And I know shelters, there's just, there isn't any other option. And so in order to be actually meet the needs of these people, we need to have multiple sorts of choices, we need to be able to identify and address needs on an individual level. And we need to be able to build the relationships to do that and the pod community will allow for that. And so we will be working with all of the providers that will be on site working out of the community resource center. We will be in and out this pod community on a daily basis, I'm sure. And so not only will we be a resource for the people that live at this community within the pod community, we will also be a resource to try to help make inroads. As I know that it's gonna be hard. There are always going to be impact with new neighbors, but that doesn't mean that we can't have relationships to try to address and minimize that impact. So I'm happy to answer questions if people have anything specific, but I just wanted just from the perspective of somebody who's in the parks and side, that number has done nothing but grown. And they're really, the system itself doesn't have any capacity. So there really is just a need. Thanks. Thank you very much, Lacey, and thanks for your work. Brad, could we have an address for Lacey? Oh, so I don't, I'm a city employee, so I don't actually live in the city limits. Do you still want my address? A contact address? Yeah, 1 North Avenue. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. I see McKenzie house, I'm not sure who that is. Hi, my name is Bill Jones, and I'm the McKenzie house. Actually, I just live in the McKenzie house, but here I am. I am so honored to be here to be able to express the best that I know how as a 76-year-old man who was a veteran, senior citizen, and I really deeply care for the homeless, at least most of us, because I was homeless myself more than once. And I know what it's like to be searching. I'm no longer searching, but I don't see or hear people who perhaps, such as yourself, are fortunate enough to have a home, to have a family. When this is all done, you know where you're going. You can get in your car or take the bus or go out for a meal, you can do all that. I couldn't do that many years ago. So I know what it's like. And I also know what it's like to have certain individuals of a city, this one or the other that I was homeless in, try to convince me that they know what it's like to know what I'm feeling. You don't. You may know a homeless person, you may know a relative who's homeless, but unless you've been experienced, you don't have to be homeless, but you have to have that feeling, that instinct, that understanding that now what? Where do I go? What do I do? Mr. McGee, you're our city counselor. I haven't seen you at any of the meetings. I'm not saying you were there at the, you weren't there at the ones I was at, and there was three of them. I asked Mr. Pine if he had contacted you and he said all the city counselors were contacted, but I still haven't seen you. And I wrote down something very interesting. Before I get into that, I wanna say Barry, you did a great job, thank you. For Mr. McGee, you said you canvassed the neighborhood. You put canvas on our neighborhood? That's all you could do because you didn't come to our building, you didn't knock on the door, you didn't call us, you didn't come and see us. So what does that mean to canvas? Can we try to keep it on the issue at hand, please? This is the issue at hand. He was on your show and he was on the, yeah, see that's what, keep it. So we're not gonna listen to what you really feel. That's the reason I brought that up. But all right, I'll get off Mr. McGee. I know we can get in touch with him. The other thing is I have one more thing. I'm asking you rhetorically, if any of you hold or feel any responsibility, no matter what the outcome of this is, for the actions of the people you're trying to help, the homeless who move into our neighborhood, whether it's glorious or whether it fails, you in my view have responsibility to people such as ourselves. And I don't hear you taking the responsibility because you don't know who has the responsibility. I heard Governor Scott this morning or he's spoken for him said, today he said he is running for the reelection because he wants to continue to bring people together. Let's hope that works, but this is not the way to do it. Veterans are the backbone of our country. We deserve your deepest honor and respect and this is not the way you're doing it. I know what it's like to be homeless. I'm not against people trying to find the right place and you go to Oregon and it's not like us at all. I am unique. Okay, thank you very much. Have a nice day. Thank you very much. I see, going through everybody, I think the last person right now I see is Bob Duncan and Bob are you commenting as a member of the public or the design team? Are you there? Sorry, I'm actually speaking as a member of the public. Okay. And I only wanna say that you have a very difficult challenge before you to think about this tonight. There have been a lot of good points raised by many people about whether or not it applies, whether or not certain aspects of the zoning ordinance apply whether they're being met in this application. I just wanna say that I think we all know that we're in a crisis situation, that this is not only a housing affordability issue, a homelessness issue or a houselessness issue, it affects the broad spectrum of our community in many ways. And I think that it's really important for your approval if you grant it to have some understanding of conditioning what the management plan is so that it's clear how that management plan would be enforced and what type of safety valve there might be if it's not being enforced or if it's not being followed. Mr. McGee raised some interesting statistics about how successful a proposal was or a situation like this in Aurora, Colorado. And I can only think that it probably had a lot of support and a management plan in place in order for that to happen. And I think that we need that to be true here in order for this to be successful. I've been, as some of you know, I've worked most of my career on affordable housing issues and I've faced a lot of opposition on many projects over the years and some of them neighbors who were concerned about it actually became advocates for projects after they were built. So I think that's entirely possible. I think it's, in fact, it's likely if you have the right plan in place but I think it's really important that we have a plan that people can depend on and is enforceable. So to the extent that you can do that in your conditioning, I think that's might assuage some of the, some persons, some people's concerns. I also wanna just point out that unlike almost every other project that you review, this has a time limit. There are many, many projects that have been built in this community that don't have time limits and aren't kept in the manner in which they were planned to be kept when they were approved and there's really no way of enforcing any action later. And I think that in this case, you have that opportunity because it is a time sensitive approval. And I think you can say that if the plans aren't being met that you have some way of determining that it can be changed if it's necessary. And I think those are some important points to consider. Thank you. Thank you Bob. I think I've kind of, I don't, I see Lacey Smith up, did you speak? Hey, Brad, I see more hands up that haven't been promoted. Oh, I'm not, I don't see them at all. I don't know how you're saying that. Well, I see there are five hands up. One is someone who has already spoken and the other four have not been sworn in. Well, I thought we had everybody who was asked to speak in the beginning. So if I get, just to interject real quickly, there are a number of McKenzie House residents, there are 13 residents in the room and there are more people that would like to speak here but we're all on the same computer is the challenge. McKenzie House has already submitted a 77 page contribution towards review by the DRB. At some point we're hearing, so I mean, it's very heartfelt, it's very good information but it's also information that we're hearing confirmed or the concerns of different people. So I don't know how you sort of people Brooks. Yeah, well, if you go, you can see who the attendees are and I see Christopher Aaron Belker, Raven Smith, Matt Leota, I know Matt Byrne has his hand up, Nick Ash. There are more hands going up as we speak. One, two, three, four, five. I have six more hands up. Yeah, I think that's where we asked for hands in the beginning. We had a finite number of hands, we asked those people to speak. Now we've got, I'm trying to attend these 39 attendees and I see. Hey, Brad. Yeah. That's like quite a bit of people. Yes. Close to seven. Yes. I'm hoping to suggest you and say, Jay. Yeah, first of all, I'm curious about whether or not we could get Kim to give us an opinion on Mr. Byrne's assessment of 24 VSA 4413. I'd like to get that right. I understand his point. I'll save my opinions, but I'd like Kim to give us one. I'm also wondering if we wanna consider sort of taking these comments and then continuing this to a next meeting to give CEDO an opportunity to respond. I know I'm not ready to deliberate on this tonight based on what we're hearing. And I'm a little concerned that we could go around and around on this. I wanna consider these points. And so I would strongly recommend that if we, you know, if there's a lot of people who wanna speak, we may even wanna continue here shortly and give people further opportunity. Right, you mean? Yeah. Yeah, okay. I would support that approach as well. I think that maybe that is the approach it will take. Again, it's very hard to determine the participants and- Our next open DRB date is July 5th. So that's why we'd have to continue this too. I have a question for the applicant on this one then too. I think I don't see us deliberating tonight either. I think a lot of questions. I'm looking at one, two, three, one. Another 10 people, 10 hands up or something like that. And I think if I can do this just because it's getting to be late and we've heard a lot of testimony, I'm gonna go through people who have the hands up and I'm gonna ask to keep it to one minute and try to be, you know, to the point in terms of what you wanna say, because we've heard a lot of comments already. We know a lot of people's concerns. So I'm gonna start with Nick Ash. You gotta swear everybody in though, Brad. They haven't been sworn in. Yeah, well, and they have to be brought up to level of participants too, right? Yeah, Brad, I would actually move that we continue this to July 5th now, because I don't think limiting people to a minute is good. And I'd rather have people have an opportunity to be heard and then pin them down for a minute. And if I'm counting that, that's another 30 minutes just on this, I don't know, that would be my thought. Are you making that motion? I will make that motion that we continue this till July 5th. I'll second that. Discussion from the board on this. I think it's probably what we need to do. And, with this also push back. No, you can't raise your hand right now. Would this also push back the 48 sunset cliff applicant? No, no, we need to hear that. It's been warned for tonight. That's part of the reason is that's another application we have to be fair to them. Yeah. I guess somehow we're gonna have staff have to keep track because I don't wanna have people who testify tonight retestify when we open this hearing again. Can I just, it's been seconded. I just wonder, because I think AJ makes a good point. I'd like to have the city attorney's office weigh in on the statute, because I'd like some clarity on that as well. And I don't know if we can get that prior to the next hearing. Or at the next hearing, but yes, we can ask the staff to do that. Yes. Okay, so all in favor. Are there any discussion on the motion that AJ put forth? And it's been seconded. Okay, all in favor. One, two, three, four, five. Jeff, are you participating in this one? No, I'm recused on this item. Okay, so we're continuing this. It was helpful to have written submissions from the public and we've been looking at those. We had quite a few from the McKenzie House, but also other people. I think the applicant also can understand some of the issues that have been raised. So we're gonna continue this to July 5th. And Brad, just to, I'll just speak for myself here to the folks at the McKenzie House, to the extent that you're weighing whether or not you should speak totally up to you, but I know I've read everything that's been submitted. Yes. So you've been heard there. Thanks everybody for the participation. It was a good round of information here. So we are gonna move on to our, we have one more item on the agenda tonight. That is 48 Sunset Cliff. Who is the applicant here for that? Dr. Zucker. I apologize, I'm covering for Scott. So I see that the applicant is here. Is that more exact or? That would be more. Anybody else who's gonna be speaking on that item? More, does there anyone else that you'd like me to allow into the meeting? Our architect, Jeff should be here. Jeff Commuter should be there too. But I... I'm not finding your architect. If there's anybody here to speak on this project, would you raise your hand please? See him there, Mary. Jeff Commuter. So do I. Yep. Yep, got it. There you go, Jeff. Thank you, can you hear me? Yes, so, and more. Do you swear to tell the truth and hold truth on the pain of penalty of perjury? Yes. And I just wanted to confirm, is Michael Koch on the calls? Well, that's the civil engineer. He should also be part of the presentation team. There he is. So you should swear into, do you swear to tell the truth and hold truth on the pain of penalty of perjury? I do. I think there were some DAB comments, some of which were addressed. I think most of them might have been. So if you wanna make a brief presentation on this. Yeah, I'm happy to introduce the project. This is Mike Koch with Civil Engineering Associates. We presented the first phase of this project, the DRB, back in March. And that was for the proposed demolition of the existing house at 48 Sunset Cliff Road and a proposed shoreline stabilization project, which were approved. And we're here again this evening to present the second phase of this project, which is the replacement single family residents on the same property. Just to give everyone a little bit of background, this property as you're driving north on North Avenue, you were to make a left on Star Farm Road, cross over the bike path. The road becomes a private road, Sunset Cliff Road. And if you drive about a half mile down on your right, is this property. CEA has been contracted on behalf of the landowners, as actors, by Birdseye. And we are here this evening to just review and present the project to the DRB. Our role as civil engineer in this was mostly making sure that the project's in conformance with the low mo zone requirements. And this project was reviewed by the conservation board and was approved and was also reviewed by the city stormwater department and also received approval per the staff report. Just wanted to turn this over to Birdseye to see if they had anything to add with regard to the design of the house and the staff report. Thanks, Mike. Is it possible for me to share my screen? Let's see if we can do that. Well. Isn't Jeff the one who has to do that? I am not seeing that I'm able to do that. You think Jeff has to, Jeff has to select that yourself, Jeff. Can you do that? I don't see anything. All I have is a chat button. Is there something that was posted with the DRB on the website that I can open for you? Sure. If you want to open the PDF that was the address and then it's called supplemental drawings. I was just going to run through that. Okay. I know you guys have had a long night so I'll keep it brief. Renderings and photos or project plans? It's... What about the PDF? Renderings and photos, I believe, is this the one? Okay, let's try that. Thank you for your patience. No problem. Is this helpful? It was a different PDF. I believe, pardon me, this is Mike. I believe that the name of the file is called supplemental drawings or supplemental information. And I believe it was submitted. There might be a date code on it of May the 9th. I have existing and proposed site plans, project plans, renderings and photos, window and door specs. What is the rendering and photos file as a cover on it when you open it that says supplemental? Mary, when I open the renderings and photos link, it comes up with supplemental drawings. Okay, if you wanna begin an overview, I'll try to play catch up with you. Would you like to meet to open it, Mary? We have the plans in front of us. Yeah, yes, yes, right. So maybe you tell us about the project. Yeah, now. Yes, it's in Sunset Cliff. There's all the adjacent lots are long, narrow lakeside lots, street on one side, house. Here we go. So if you just go to page, exactly. So our site's 48, it's at the top of the drawing. All the lots are similarly set up, long, narrow lawns that lead to a house on the lake. The house itself is shielded by vegetation from the road. If you go to the next slide. There was an existing home on the site which sat outside of the buildable envelope. That house is just recently been taken down after city approval to demolish and create a new sea wall. The existing site also had two large spruce trees that flanked the driveway, provided screening for the yard and structure as well as for the driveway. Next side. So in looking at how to redevelop the site rather than replacing the existing structure, we decided to pull the home back and reestablish more manageable and sustainable slope along the lakeside and also locate the house within the buildable envelope. The site arrangement and the character of the existing house was carried over and we would reuse the existing driveway location up to the spruce trees and then just cut it shorter and create a small turnaround to avoid any cutting of any large trees or vegetation. So using the site constraints. Next slide. This is the existing approach for the existing home. This is the driver that we'd be reusing. You can see the two spruce trees on either side. Next slide. And now some renderings of the house. So the design scheme was really about creating a continuous transition from the driveway and the lawn down to the lake, reestablishing the shoreline and sea wall and allowing the house to kind of occupy the space between the two different landscapes. The house is set back 170 feet from the street. It's all one level and age in place design and one large roof mass, which then allows the house itself to sit within that one roof form. The driveways you can see use the existing location and brings you to the front of the house. We use the existing unique spruce tree to frame the entry and screen the car turnaround. And as you can see, the house is a very low profile and symmetrically organized around the front entry. This is coming into the neighbor's yard. And the front of the house was oriented around this symmetrical idea of the entry at the middle with cascading wings that bring you to that zone. The two walls on either side of the entry then turn inwards and frame the foyer as you move towards the lake. So by removing that tree, just so you can see it for clarity's sake, that's the front facade of the house. All clad in wood under a metal roof. This is the main entry where you can see the two flanking walls turn in and become interior walls. And following the DAB discussion in the last meeting in order to adhere to zoning requirements, we moved the longest street facing wall forward so it would be proud of the garage. So happy to take any questions in order to keep moving forward. Yes, I appreciate the house is a smaller footprint than the existing house. Pleasant direction to go in. Any questions from the board for the applicant on this one? No, no, any questions for the board from the applicant? Oh, no, no. Thank you. Any questions from the board? It's been a long night. Maybe it's because you've answered the questions that the DAB and the staff had. Keep it nice and simple at this point. Unless there's anything else that the applicant wants to add. We'll close. I'd just like to say it feels somewhat ironic our application following the last one. And I commend all of you for your patience and your difficult decisions. And I'm cloud that I'm a resident of Burlington, Vermont. It's ironic at many levels, yes. Yes. Yeah, I've certainly been in plenty of DRB meetings. And I think after tonight, I have an even greater appreciation of your work. Okay, well, on that note, we will close this hearing. And I suspect we will deliberate on this one tonight. Thank you. Thank you. And I think we have no other business during the development review board meeting. Recording. I can. On 48th Sunset Cliff Road, I move that we approve the application and adopt staff's findings and conditions. Second on that discussion. All in favor? I'm not opposed. No, just being get up in time. Okay. One, two, three, four, five, six, zero. Does that sound right? Yes. H.A., thank you for your help on the motion for the Elmwood Avenue project. Well, let's get started. Yeah.