 Recording in progress. Other business. Number of communications to the board. They're posted online. So if you've made a submission to the board that has been posted. And you were here to testify, that's fine. But please. Take into consideration the fact that. There are a number of people who would like to be heard. We will read your written submissions. So please don't just reread them into the record. So the first item on our agenda. Is 50 Howard street. ZP 23 100. Request to renovate historic cottage to convert a dwelling unit. Rogers nest LLC and Luke. Is the applicant here. Yes. Great. So. I just lost it. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Staff put this on. If I look at the staff report. Was recommended for consent approval. But we don't have a consent agenda. Would any of the board member have you, have you seen the staff report, Luke? We've seen it and reviewed it. Do you have any issues or concerns with it? No, I think it looks pretty straightforward. I don't think we need to go down that road. Yeah. Hopefully pretty straightforward. So. I think that. You know, there was approval back in 1966 to. Erect in addition to an existing cottage at this address. And so I. I think that. You know, the reason we have to come up and do this is because it. That, you know, that use was stopped at one point. And so. That's why we can't just. I guess Scott can weigh in or Garrett. I don't think we need to go down that road. So. Is there anybody on the board that would have direct object to treating this as a consent item? Are there members of the public who are here to be heard on this item? So we have a couple of folks with their hands up. So I'm going to ask that if you're looking to speak on this item 50 Howard, keep your hands raised. If not, please lower them. All right. So we have a couple of folks. So we have a couple of folks with their hands up. Amy Maggar and Christine Beckford with their hands still raised AJ. Okay. So I suppose then we will open a public hearing on this. All those who wish to be heard. Luke that includes you on 50 Howard street. Please raise your right hand. And repeat after me. I swear that the testimony I'm about to give in the matter under consideration is true and correct under the pains and penalties of perjury. I do. I do. All right. Well, um, Luke, we understand what it is. I'd like to hear from the public to see what their commentary is on it. So. I see Amy has a hand up. Can she be allowed to speak? Yeah, Amy, you're, uh, you're on and, uh, because we're back on zoom police tonight, um, give us your mailing address, please. Absolutely. Amy Maggar at 56 Howard street. And to give you and Luke, I really apologize. Um, I wanted to talk to you before this meeting in person, but I just realized last minute that it was by zoom. So unfortunately I know this is opening a cabinet of worms and we'll delay you. Um, I actually own an accessory dwelling unit that you all approved many years ago. Um, my property actually looks right at the, um, 50 Howard street. And I actually have no problem with, uh, the fact that it's not going to go higher, um, and it's going to be the same footprint. Um, but I think the challenge that we're running into is that this actually does exceed the density limit. Um, my problem is not with the accessory dwelling unit at the historic cottage, but the duplex currently has a total of eight people four down in the bottom four at the top by adding this ADU on, you're going to add potentially two more bodies into, um, into a corner lot. Um, and that's, that's a big problem. Um, and I'm just going to say that I don't have a problem with the, the amount of people that are there. The challenge is, is that we have little to no parking on that property, 420 square feet is basically two cars. And what you're doing is talking about adding 10 bodies. Into, um, into that. And I just again, want to go on record and say, I'm a huge fan of accessory dwelling units. I own one myself. But I just wanted to say, you know, parking is an issue on Howard street and the corner of Howard, Howard, excuse me, Howard and, um, and Hayward. It is an issue. I support the ADU, but I just want to say, Luke, it's probably good to talk to the neighbors about what you're going to do, adding two more bodies into the neighborhood for parking because parking is already pretty tight. So that's, that's all I have to say. Um, Okay. I guess then we'll probably talk to staff about that. Uh, Christine's hand is no longer up. Christine, do you want to be heard on this one? And not up. All right. So, I'm sorry. Yeah. No, my hand is not up. So Scott, um, do we count ADUs in the density specific numbers? Uh, we don't, but this is not an ADU. This is a detached primary dwelling unit. ADUs are tied only to single family homes. And what's there now is a duplex. So this is a PUD, pretty minor one, but it is a PUD. And yes, it exceeds density. And the only way it can be approved to exceed density is by the historic building rehab bonus. So the criteria around that really are aimed at rehabbing the historic building. You can all have a chuckle about whether it's historic or not, but the building is specifically included in the listing. And so by doing rehab, they're eligible for this bonus. And there is no parking requirement though. There's no parking requirement. Okay. Members of the board have any questions? I have a question. Just for Luke, um, looking at the property, you've got a paved area to the, was the north of the building and west of the AD, of the building you're renovating. I think that's a parking area. That's correct. How many cars do you put in there? Just curious. Uh, it depends on how the tenants park. If they're, if they're smart about it, they can fit three and possibly four, but they're typically not that smart. And it's more like two, possibly three, but if, you know, like if they did it correctly, I didn't think you'd get four. And how many bedrooms are in the, uh, this rehabilitated unit? We have not, we're still, um, we haven't figured out exactly how many bedrooms you want to put in there. So we're still working through that. I don't believe we needed a floor plan as part of this. Um, but knowing how big housing is, uh, we'll probably fit as many as would be comfortable in the, in the building. That doesn't necessarily correspond to what the city needs. I mean, as many as would fit just as that generally, um, it would be a good idea to, um, to have the building on the floor. So, um, it doesn't necessarily, uh, it just says that you're limiting it to student type rentals. That's not necessarily a great criteria. Spouse. That's fair. Any other members of the board? Um, okay. Well, uh, Amy, you have your hands still up. Thank you, AJ. I appreciate the opportunity to just follow up in what Luke said. It rarely has more than one car parked in it side-by-side or nose-to-tail. The way that that situation is that I'm not sure that if it could fit for that legally the city would say that four would fit in terms of the measurements and things like that. They might be able to squeeze four little key is in there. But again, I don't know that that is the, that that fits with what the city would say a certain car needs. And again, I'm really, I'm a huge believer in we do not have enough housing. The challenge is, is just this is on top of already eight bodies in the duplex. And it's just going to add what we know is that, and we've seen it with this duplex having rentals, becoming a rental in the last year and a half, is that we've seen already an increase in number of cars. And we're just asking ourselves what is going to happen with two extra cars potentially. And it's just really going to enhance and increase a parking issue in that area. Thank you, AJ. Let's sit on the site. Okay. All right. Well, I think with that most public hearing on this item. And maybe deliberating on it tonight. Okay. So the next item up for us is 16 South Winooski. Ronald McDonald house charities appeal of zoning denial to a place existing fence. With six foot high fence. Is the applicant here. Yes. And is. This is a Garrett project, right, Scott? Somebody, right, Mary? This is a Garrett. Project so he can put Garrett in the hot seat. I'll be here with a bucket of water if we need it. So Garrett, typically when the city. Made a decision that is on appeal, such as an administrative denial. I would ask that the city present the reasons for the denial first. So if you would walk us through. Your. Faces for the denial. All right. So, I swear, let me swear you both in. Raise your right hand. Do you swear that the testimony you're about to give in the matter under consideration is true and correct under the pains and penalties project. All right, go ahead. All right. So for the. Fence, there was two main issues. The first was clear site triangle. On the corner. Of. Perl Street and south of the new ski avenue. Currently the fence runs all the way to the corner of the property. So increasing the fence height would be increasing the nonconformity already there. So that was part one. And then part two. Is for our downtown district. The walls and fences in the first lot layer. Shall not exceed four feet in height. They're currently at four feet in height. And the proposal was going to increase to six feet in height. So to paraphrase the fences. Yeah. Right. So it's a six foot high fence and. The first layer of the property. So the first layer of the property. Is it downtown core? Is it farm based code has to be four feet. Yes. Correct. In this layer. So that's so to speak. Yes. Correct. On the rear sides of the property, they would be able to make it taller. But they wanted to do around the whole perimeter of the property. Can you just clarify? I don't know if we have an image that would show what would be allowed, but can they do a setback fence that meets that and still have taller fences on. The sidewalk facing side portions of the sidewalk facing sides, or it has to all be four feet. So if you look at the attachment. Scott just pulled up. Yeah. This is an adjusted. Proposal where they address the clear site triangle. So if you look on Pearl street. That fence would have to stay. At the four feet. But along the back of the house by the paid parking areas, that would be able to go up to six feet. But if it could move inward and to some dimension to the second or third layer, and then it would be able to be six feet high. The lot layer is bounded by the frontage. And not setbacks. So even moving the fence in towards the property. Would not change that. So essentially that then the fence along the sidewalks. On Pearl. And when you ski has to be four feet according to the form base code. It's not a good idea to measure the footage. And then you can measure the footage. Where do you measure the footage from? Like what if they put a three foot berm of dirt and then a fence on top of that? No, I'm just curious. Like where does the fourth foot get measured from? You know, for a fence. Boy. Correct me if I'm wrong. Maria Garrett. I think we were just bait. Measure from the grade under the fence. To back up to Brad's question. Okay. So the first layer is basically from the front property line to the face of the building. And there's a second layer, which is indicated on the. Report. That's 20 feet. Yeah. Basically 20 feet in from the face. So 20 feet in on Pearl street from the face of the building, they could go to six feet. Am I reading that right? Yes, but if you can see my cursor, it would be back here somewhere. Basically here that could be taller and similar on this slide. Yeah. So essentially under the, under the code, they could fence in their parking right now, but not their playground area. Yeah, basically. I have a question. This, this is phone based code. So this is basically it's a checklist. You do what they say in your home free. Basically it's phone based code. So that's, that's the way it is. What, you know, does, if you don't do what they say, I mean, does that go to some design review? What's the criteria for that? Was that just as adamant as zoning regulations and. You need a variance, which you can't get. Is that. There's alternative compliance, but that allows for up to 20% flexibility in the numeric standards. So 20% of four feet doesn't get them to six. And then, yeah, variance. Sure. They get applied for a variance, but I wouldn't recommend it. No, it's the same state criteria for variance, right? Yes. Yeah. Can you bring up the image that's out of the code that's in the report, the reasons for denial. Can you bring that up Scott? Yeah. That image there. Can you blow that up? So that's what I'm trying to understand. The left side of that would be Pearl street. And it goes to some distance. The third. Layer. Right. That goes. That's what I've got for the moment. So the 20% variance, they could be. Just under five feet. I think that's right. Yeah, because it's four feet in height. So 20% of the four feet. Five feet. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I don't have many more questions for the city. I don't want to page out here from the applicant. I know they have some. Yes, please. Christine, I think you're up. We have your appeal letter. We've read it. So please share with us. What the Ronald McDonald house needs. Hi everybody. And thank you for having us. I'm Christine Bickford. I'm the executive director of the Ronald McDonald house. And I have Lisa Nagel, who is our admin assistant and data management person. And I've got Chris. Bolio, who is our in keeper and is the resident of the building living here 24 hours a day. I hope I believe you have all the supporting documentation. It sounds like you did. I checked earlier and I was disappointed in myself. I uploaded photos. The other day I thought I did, but they only went to 99%. So I just uploaded them this evening. I don't know. I don't know. I think you probably don't have them yet. Maybe we could do a shared screen, but. So if you don't know about the Ronald McDonald house, we're on the corner of South Manuski and Pearl street. And we are a 12 bedroom house. And for, we're a respite for families who have children that are being treated at the hospital. And they're going through the most difficult time in their lives. And the last thing they need to worry about is their safety and safety. So we've been here for almost 40 years. And for 39 years, we've been able to guarantee to our guests that they're safe. And now we're failing because our guests ask us, ask us every single day if they're safe. They are not feeling safe. We've taken every measure to ensure our safety. And we've seen rapid change in the climate of Burlington and the population in the last six months. And we've been trying to get the best possible option to avoid the final, this attempt to ask for the spencing. To protect our guests and our staff. The guests are coming in, by the way, all different hours of the day, they have lots in. In the middle of the night. And despite all the signage we've put up the cameras, we've installed the additional locks, window treatments. We still have an influx of, uh, trespassing on our property. honestly we're at our wits and we we're scared we're nervous these are here they are the pictures. Clearly we're in a vulnerable location as well. People can't go to the city parks and so they actually think that we're a public park. And each day we have YMCA kids come they don't have any green space over at the Y so we've allowed the YMCA children to come in and they play every day. And we're concerned about their safety as well in our yard. A six foot fence is actually not out of character with our neighbor at the church. They put in a six foot fence around their memorial garden in 2020 I believe to keep out intruders in the memorial garden and it's been effective. I know somebody who cares for that garden and who also is a volunteer or was a past volunteer at our house and she said it made incredible difference. So I would love for Chris to speak who lives here and he could give you a better snapshot I think of what what a typical day and night looks like at the Ronald McDonald house. Hello and thank you for the time. Hey Jerry did you sign swear these people in? Yeah I did a swearing in everybody who wanted to speak on this application. Um Ronald's zoom so I don't know if they're handing this out. Mine was actually. I can attest to that. So I've been here since about 2019 and I've definitely seen a change in the city as we all have and we don't need to go into semantics of what's going on and we're all well aware. My primary goal is to make sure the guests have what they need whether it be food or comfort or an ear to listen to and it's slowly turned into or rapidly in the past year turned into more security. The last thing I do before I go to bed is to make sure all these guests are home safe, check the property. The first thing I do is check the cameras to see if there's anything that I've messed while I slept. Now sleep consists of if I'm lucky four and a half hours. Um the main question is Christine said is guest star is it safe? Is it safe? I can give you a scenario after scenario of things that have actually happened even when I'm technically off on the weekends. I'm on as our weekend staff has concerns with what's going on. It's nightly and it's not just the college crowd anymore after the bars closing, hopping the fence to hang out and drink or smoke. It is now heavily drugged out individuals either coming to the door or just wandering back here. I can only dig escalate to so much but when someone's under that high of an influence they aren't taking the options that I'm giving to for Howard Center at Feeding Chittenden and they're becoming combative. The last time I had to call the police you know as we all know their short staff they told me to go in and lock the doors and I can't in good faith tell my guests that that's what we have to do is you can't go outside. You have to stay in and lock the doors and I don't think that's what Burlington needs to be. So the fence around the perimeter would be super helpful and I think mitigate what's been going on now on a nightly basis. Right now I have probably 4 or 5 points of entry in the current fence that are jumped over consistently and yeah I just want to be able to go back to 100% taking care of my guests and not watching their back in the middle of the night. And I'm going to jump in on that because people have always asked me all the time about my job and what keeps you up at night. We all have that issue right who what keeps you up at night. I used to say oh you know funding and get guests and now it's it is I'm with Chris on that it's safety and securing the safety of our guests my staff. It's a huge concern we're a vital resource in this community. The hospital needs us the community needs us and I have to tell you I get concerned I don't know if it's if it's sustainable to stay here with the fence that we have that they can clearly climb over and you know we're looking at a picture right now this is a guy he's looking right into our camera with his backpack and that's a sleeping room right there he's on the side porch and that's where guests sleep. And you know we it's a terrible feeling when they ask if they're safe and we don't we don't really tell them the truth but we don't want to lie. So we're putting this precarious situation it's like oh you're okay but in our hearts we look at each other like oh please God like don't let anything happen. So it is truly a serious issue and the population has changed as we all know and I wish I could say it's going to get better but I feel like the only way we can protect this property and this respite it is an enclave in Burlington it's a beautiful we have one of the primo spots and it's really sad that we've come to this point that we have to put a fence but we do believe that the fence although it would be taller in height it's still see-through you can see through the fence even on that clear side of vision in the corner it it's the same fence and you can see through it so and we've backed the fence up to behind our sign so that we wouldn't have that clear sight issue at the driveway coming out of um um onto south Manuski but I think I'm really making a plea I am I can't even tell you and right before we called you for the last half an hour we were watching people Chris had to just call the police and the fire station because people were sitting just over on the property just next to us adjacent to us we thought they died I'm not joking we kept looking at our watch to see if we're going to be late for this meeting because they were shooting up and they passed out and they they're still shooting up probably out there watching among the camera yeah Chris is watching them so this and then we have people that are coming in a family with five beautiful children right now and we have lots of kids here right now and to have to kind of shush them in the house so we don't have to worry about them or have their parents worried because their parents are already you know so upset and concerned about their child in the hospital there's all kinds of people that are here they have premature babies we have a trauma um you know head injuries we've got um all kinds of things going on here right now surgeries and cancer so as you can imagine we always say to them are actually our tagline is you bring hope we've got the rest covered and that's what we stand by and we always say we want to be the best bed and breakfast in town and we truly believe we are you might hear about us in the community you know about the great cooking and everything we have here and it is like your grandmother's house once you get inside but outside it's it's really a dangerous situation and you know i'm pleading for your approval and i guess i'd say if we can't get this fence then i'm asking you what would you do and how would you deal with this because we we've run out of options at this point thank you now what qualifies as a fence about landscaping landscaping doesn't need a zoning permit so like if you land because but does the maybe Garrett if you have landscaping on the other side of the fence doesn't still fall within the form base code six foot uh four foot or four foot four point eight foot limitation i'm just going to jump in quickly um because i had this discussion with vj komai who's been a phenomenal advocate in his quick plantings in our yard at on his own time um we talked about cedar hedges we've talked about landscaping he's concerned that they're going to hide in those bushes or hide between a fence and the landscaping um and the needles we find needles all the time out by the fence perimeter constantly there's every day we're picking up needles so we are a little concerned about having just a hedge as a barrier versus the metal fence i understand that but i'm just i'm asking different questions oh i apologize so whether there's a hedge or not doesn't impact the standards for the fence it's about the fence location whether it's the first second or third law player qualify as something to measure off of right it's kind of a berm yeah if you raise grade uh yeah i mean if you raise grade that could raise the permissible what what would we say actual height of the fence uh there are standards as to changing topography in the form code uh i don't have those memorized maybe mary does but you know it might be a way to raise the height yes i'll just you know so it's hard when you look at the phone based code you know i understand it's it's derived through lots of thought and um uh studies and and other standards other places but it's also hard not to see it as and sometimes arbitrary you know you meet these things and you're good you don't meet these things you're bad and we have a situation here that is one would say is a unique situation and form based code is absolutely not intended to meet in unique situations by intent it's i know it's supposed to meet all situations i you want to say i mean it and this is the one that um i think it fails it fails for functional reasons of uh something that's important to the city brad and aj i am i am able to read you the um form code language about changing uh topography grading or regrading of sites sites with uneven topography present unique issues in relation to building height then it makes a reference to steep slopes but when a sites topography is modified the site shall be graded in such a way to avoid the following retaining walls or unfinished blank walls taller than four feet in height along a principal or secondary frontage so i think that's the applicable standard so they could berm it with a one foot wall on the street side and put the fence on top of the one foot the five foot fence on top of the one foot wall and have six feet on that four put eight four four point eight would be the twenty percent four point eight one point two foot high yeah wall i mean uh you know just not in defense of anything except the form code is that it is intended to present an open and available frontage for the public that that's the intent of the form code it does not anticipate any sites that require the kind of security that appears to be needed in this case well it's it's something that i agree with the applicant is saying in terms of what the city needs it's not just this lot yeah i mean it's intended it's intended under the respect that the city actually takes seriously public safety concerns of of people like the ronald mcdonald house and takes seriously the need to um do something about what's an obvious situation that's becoming untenable for someone providing a charitable service at just about the worst time imaginable um extremely frustrating to be pinned in by a form-based code created in in abstraction uh with a regulation that has no real tether to the actual situation on the ground mary or scott or gary are there i i'm not familiar enough but are there standards for playgrounds or any other public services that involve safety needs in the form-based code that we could look to as some sort of alternative guidance here because if you want to have a playground you might want to put in a taller fence just for the safety of the kids regardless issues that are raised here i think the only wording in the ordinance the entire ordinance about playgrounds is that the equipment itself is exempt from zoning well we have playgrounds as typical structures within um civic features and that is a that is a different part of the form code this is not a civic site mary with the the discussion i've had about the berm here if we were to approve with the 20 percent you know uh additional amounts of the 4.8 feet would they need to have a separate permit for the retaining wall or is that under the the landscaping features that don't require a zoning permit well i feel uh comfortable that uh a change in the topography might be adopted within this application the application could be revised if the drb were to make a recommendation for this only hesitation with that is they're seeking alternative compliance under that and that it has its own set of criteria that aren't being considered here tonight right we can't we can't prospectively approve something no we can only sort of explore it um yeah i mean we have a as much as we'd like we have a very limited question before us which is whether the appeal was appropriate under the applicable code at the time it may i mean the denial it may have been do we like it no do we agree with it no do we think it's a good idea no but i think it feels like the code doesn't give us a lot of wiggle room as it's presented now i think there are options that i hear the board very much wanting to go down but i'm not sure we can with just an appeal in front of us i think we could probably say 4.8 feet is okay but that i'm not sure that achieves doesn't sound like that's cutting it yeah i get it probably is six foot different can't jump over a six foot fence well could we could we now approve a 4.8 foot fence under the appeal and say we are open to considering a further application that would involve a retaining wall that the fence would be placed on top of the applicant at i mean was willing to advise their project we could probably we could probably uh yeah it's interesting we could overturn the denial upon a condition that the fence will be more than 4.8 feet do we need more testimony on this or do we want to close the public hearing and deliberate on it or i'm ready to close all right so um i appreciate everyone's testimony on this uh you can see we're gonna have to think about it talk about it and see what we can do um we'll close the public hearing on this agenda item and deliberate on it shortly so the next item on our agenda is uh 655 Spear Street University of Vermont State Cultural College continue review of proposed construction of parking lot 162 spaces um and if i might interject here AJ there's an error in the project description on the staff report yeah it's not a parking waiver that's been withdrawn it's a request for the tree planting waiver because the university has met the requirement and this came before us recently yes and we asked for them to take some further analysis into it uh do we have the applicant here Claire Forbes is here yes yes i'm here uh Claire do you does anybody else want let me do it this way since i'm doing a resume on talking to myself um all those who want to be heard on 655 Spear Street please raise your right hand and repeat after me i swear that the testimony i'm about to give in this matter under consideration is true and correct under the pains and penalties of part of me i do i do Claire do you want to walk us through what you did in the interim sure i can do just a very brief summary and then sort of address some of the questions and comments that came up from the last meeting so again this is um proposed parking lot so it's the expansion of existing parking so it would be 130 net new spaces for a total of 155 spaces and this is out of the UVM bio research complex off of Spear Street so the project originally was part of the 2020 to 2025 joint institutional parking management plan so that was the one that was currently approved at the time that the application was submitted so the goal here is for UVM to consolidate and create a campus wide shared fleet program across departments as well as transition to an alternatively fueled fleet and this this area of campus really allows UVM to build the infrastructure for that electrification so that's why we are building here also the parking will allow UVM more flexibility to shift parking needs on main campus for priorities such as housing as well as sharing resources with University of Vermont Medical Center the purpose of the JIP as you all know is to manage resources at a comprehensive level and as we want to continue to meet those demands we don't want to unfairly burden the nearby neighborhoods so this neighborhood really allows us I mean this parking lot really allows us that flexibility so that we don't so we don't spill over into those neighborhood areas so UVM along with the other institutions we will continue to incorporate the TDM measures so all of the TDM measures that we've outlined in the in the new JIP along with you know the the presentation that that they will give in future meetings those we will continue to do however Vermont does not have the infrastructure in place for everyone to be able to walk bike bus to work but we will continue to do the best we can so to address some of the comments from the last meeting the project is expected to have minimal impacts to peak hour traffic along Spear Street the majority of the employees accessing the fleet vehicles work from the hours of 7 a.m. to 3 30 also we've added some bike parking on the lot we took away two of the parking spaces to allow for that bike parking and this does connect to the shared use path along Spear Street which is has easy access up to main campus we've also talked kind of staff wide and thought about different possibilities and we UVM is able to expand its cats ride service so the on-demand shuttle to encompass that 7 a.m. to 3 30 schedule so that would allow us to collect any workers from public transport carpool endpoints across UVM's campus and this will really allow you to gather data and determine future needs of a bus stop is needed later on also just wanted to say that we we've added additional trees so like Mary said we do not need the the variance for the the additional trees okay and I see that you provided us some background calculations as to how you got to that's not more than 75 net new trips which I think we asked for as well right yes yes and we've reached out to the state transportation engineer to understand their requirements in terms of peak park peak trips and access to the parking lot and because this is a campus we are not actually having any new users so there is no trigger for any of those requirements to do a traffic study or to pay any of the traffic impact fees I'm not I'm not I mean I think it's new circulation in the campus right though that that people aren't currently driving here to get their fleet vehicle and then leaving there will be there will be a little bit but it's the majority of those employees are accessing those vehicles from the hours you know the 7 a.m. early shift and and before the peak p.m. hours so the 330 so won't be won't be accessing Spear Street during those peak times which we thought was important any other question any questions from the board I thought that was the question that we're trying to get clear was the fleet you know by putting everybody here did it mean that people were coming from all over campus to get here and driving here to then get the fleet vehicle and that seemed like it was creating more traffic but that was the question right I mean I think our concern was well if you're if you have a 50 fleet vehicles scattered all over campus and you're putting them in one centralized location while you're not creating that new trips to the overall campus you're re-centralizing those trips to a single place and a single driveway but if I'm hearing the applicant that's not really those ins and outs that may not be occurring today at that driveway are still not going to occur during the peak hour and so the idea being that there's not 75 new trips in any one concerning hour gentlemen is it clear is that an appropriate way to understand what your testimony is yeah that's correct but also just because of the UVM campus and we're not building any new building or building anything that constitutes new users there are certain state regulations that wouldn't trigger it so we you know just but just in terms of spear street traffic we are trying to minimize that because of the hours of the employees that would be accessing there at that point and I also the director of transportation and parking services Jamie Smith is here as well if you need any questions related to the fleet vehicles I think AJ also with the relocation of the circulation we were concerned about the number of of rides and so I see the less than 75 number as as perhaps answering one of the main questions that we that we had right right right I'm off camera looking something sorry okay we're ordinance okay how many I'm looking for the number I don't see it how many total new trips a day are anticipated in and out of that facility I'm going to defer to Jamie I don't know if he is available to speak to that question hi there so currently when we look at the overall fleet plan it would move I can I can speak to in terms of vehicles how many fleet vehicles it would move there somewhere between 104 and 114 fleet vehicles would be slated to move into that location I'm only asking that this is sort of a narrower transportation safety issue that the intersection between this road and the bike path I have observed to be somewhat dangerous I think it's much improved with I guess the meditation work but I'm going to assume it was it was the country club did but that particularly that downhill coming to your intersection seems like there are some unsafe interactions between bikes and vehicles entering and exiting that driveway is that something you all have given any thought to in any response I don't know that I'm necessarily from from like a design standpoint the right person to answer that question yeah currently we just there is just an access driveway there's the bike path there's a I think I believe there's a stop sign but that is all that exists currently okay it's not an issue that you all have raised and internally as a concern you you feel like no we we haven't heard that concern from any of the users because there are several people out of the bio research complex currently and we haven't heard that as an issue okay okay um well I like the shade trees edition that's thank you for that any other questions from the board I guess I would ask staff about this is this is general but I think Jeff raises a good point I'm curious if there's certain ordinances which regulate the stop signs on the Burlington bike path and you know there are stop signs for for for the bikers at various intersections I wonder if if that was a choice by choice basis or if there was something governing that that I would have to defer to parks and rec for that question I don't have any jurisdiction over the signs and it is technically in south Burlington too just to note that that the driveway access is from Spear Street is in south Burlington of course to make it more complicated I will say in UVM's defense of this proposal that the unsafe interactions I've observed have been bikers not stopping at that stop sign so there is a stop sign there it just seems like it is commonly passed by um so I don't have anything further AJ all right well then uh are the members in the audience would like to be heard on 655 Spear Street all right hearing none uh let's close the public hearing on this item okay the next item up for our agenda is get it right zp 23 247 179 Queen City Park Road zoom holdings LLC Martin Corsell 65,000 square foot addition to existing rhino foods facility including associated access parking utility and stormwater modifications AJ I'm going to be recused from this item so Jeff's recused and I think we have the applicant here the applicant and all those wishing to be heard on this raise their right hand repeat after me do you swear that the testimony you're about to give in the matter under consideration would be true and correct under the pains and penalties of hergery okay so we very recently saw this project at sketch plan it was a fairly developed sketch plan fairly well conceptualized sketch plan and I suspect the board has it somewhat familiar so um whoever wants to start walk us through what change between sketch plan and now which I'll call final as to the project plans so Blaine um to interject I know you're part of the applicant team is there anyone else with you tonight that should be speaking yeah so why don't we go around and introduce ourselves and so we'll start with Martin so Martin Corsell with Champlain Consulting Engineers Rooney Castle a president um and CEO of rhino foods Garrett Surkey senior process engineer rhino foods Ted Castle founder rhino foods Matt Greer logistics manager rhino foods Julia Timini process engineer rhino foods and Blaine Paxton supply chain planning lead rhino foods so this is Martin I'll go through kind of what changed since sketch so since sketch we did finalize the stormwater design as we mentioned was what I think we had discussed but it was finalized in size so there are two gravel wetlands one on the south side of the property one on the east side of the property and also a bio retention area that will treat the stormwater the landscaping plan was also completed including the shade trees kind of see the bird's eye rendering that is on the screen now that does represent the landscaping plan being proposed and then really the full engineering and design package was completed so site grading site utilities and then after our design advisory board meeting there was a quick discussion of what the face of the building would look like we did submit there we go the elevations showing some different colors along the east and south elevations and then really those are the main changes that were there actually in addition we did put the walkways in the parking lot to the entrance of the building and we have submitted additional details on our both short-term and long-term bike parking I think the long-term might have gotten to Scott after the exact report went out but we have also incorporated that into of some additional oh thank you I'll be right on top of that so near the northeast corner at the just past the existing entrance it will still remain the primary entrance yep just where Scott highlighted that will be both the short-term and long-term bike parking that was also added to the plan since we were before you first catch those are the main changes and okay I have a couple sets of questions mostly about the storm water and the front line on the road so when we talked about it the last time the storm water design was not finalized and so you didn't know exactly where the storm water pond would be on the front entrance now there's a gravel wetland proposed that you're satisfied and that that's going to be generally where it's located there and the one that's shown on the south so there's a smaller one along the south property line those two in conjunction yes we are comfortable with the storm water design that was done was sized to meet city and state requirements we had some testimony from neighbors last time about noise mitigation and in particular I don't want to misstate I'm sure they'll correct me if I got this wrong but the compressed air the two large I guess praxe air tanks that are on the site today I guess those are compressed air is that right or something liquid liquid nitrogen about the noise those make from filling or I'm not exactly sure what causes it but are those being relocated are additional ones being added to the exterior no there are no new tanks being added and their the location is not changing they're staying where they are when you walk us through we had some testimony on it but why what is the orientation interior of the building that you you folks talked about that required the loading dock to be on the south side well just about anybody we've said before was the layout of our production facility right now is employees enter on the main entrance they get downed up and get into uniforms and the existing north west corner is where all the production is in production lines so what we're doing here is bringing a flow to our manufacturing that the raw materials will come in they'll be produced and they will actually be exiting on a truck out of the north side and be brought around the building our hope is eventually to actually relocate our robots to be able to have all that happen internally but the the comments before were about parking and could we put the parking on in the back and the challenge with that of course was just the people flow from gowning our existing production lines were unable to get from the back of the building which is the west of the building to the front of the building and I don't I hope that answered your question AJ and I'll just throw in one other facet was if the parking was in the rear of the building and the trucks were in the front to use the current entrance way which is the only place that employees connected they would have to be crossing truck traffic so it was a safety issue okay and then also just again this is Martin in the zoning regulations under vehicle access there is no access for service and loading area should be located behind buildings or otherwise screened from streets or public ways so that was also important to us to be able to meet that environment and keeping the loading dock screened from the public way. Your trucks idle in the loading dock? So some would idle some wouldn't you know but a truck doesn't there's an ambient truck it does not need to idle so a flour or sugar or chocolate chips were brought to a loading dock which would be 50% of the trucks I mean there's a lot of concerns about reefer units but half of the trucks that would be using that loading dock would not be idling because they wouldn't be using the reefer units and otherwise they have to idle because there's refrigeration yeah one one clarifying question trucks idling would only be idling when they're loading or unloading there are reefer units which are actually attached to the trailers themselves and then those can turn on and off they're basically running a refrigeration system so those sort of operate independently of if the actual tractor trailer truck unit itself is there but those would only be idling as they're dropping off or picking up they wouldn't just run idle you know otherwise the truck itself just the refrigeration units would idle are you increasing the number of employees well if we grow right now we're reducing the number of employees because our business is down but we we will be bringing the shipping receiving folks or at our lease facility in wilson over to this facility and we will continue to as our business grows we actually bring in we have brought in a lot of automation the last five years so it's the balance of trying to reduce jobs that are unsafe for monotonous and bringing automation but as the business grows that we hope to actually grow our account and it potentially will change the way it has the last five years from is a lot more higher paid jobs actually a lot less what would we sometimes call frontline workers that are doing pretty menial tasks to more like engineers that happen to be in the room today to help us figure out how to automate these lines okay so that's a question though like this is a larger building 60 000 square feet is fairly substantial did you when we talk about traffic increases should we be including your will you need additional employees should we be including that i know we talked a lot about truck traffic at sketch plan and you you made the the comment that you're actually maybe sort of net neutral on truck traffic because currently today trucks are going from your wilson facility back and forth and back and forth but we didn't really talk about increased employees yeah we provided all the data on truck traffic of what we are currently doing today and what we expect to do that we've been i think we provided that yes over the early stages of this yeah and i would just add again the right off the bat the jobs will be transferring from the wilson location here but this facility allows us and again as we plan to as a business remain in this community to grow into sort of the the space that we need and therefore we've estimated up to right around like 30 or so up to 30 new jobs over the next you know three to five years but that all depends on a lot of different factors okay i think it's addressed partially in the in the kind of the traffic study that they attached to this application too yeah i'm going through it now how i got to that number because they use the trip generation for land use warehousing 150 it includes the total trips i guess for additional workers okay um questions from the board for the applicant any other anything yeah there was there was um there was some some discussion of the delivery hours and i believe there was a comment that night deliveries might be less than but but as of now do i understand it that there'll be potentially deliveries 24 or any time of the day or night no i mean i think it's important to know we work very hard with the neighbors obviously the tougher time for them is the evening um there's no difference between the delivery schedule that they're experiencing today because we're making product on our third ship today and bringing uh having bill trucks exit the building to go to williston and and back and forth so really there's no expectation that we're going to be using that loading dock to unload flour sugar and other things during the night that's not the expectation in general what are the the the drop offs hours kind of like like six to ten sort of thing or our current business operation in williston is seven to three o'clock um with staying late is staying open as late as five p.m. for late deliveries as necessary we don't intend to change our shipping and receiving hours uh once we move down to this facility trucks generally like to come and go during the day as well truck drivers do often sleep at night so and so the truck traffic that's between the facilities is is our internal use that's not external uh folks bringing in so it's us bringing finished goods from this facility out during the evening trucks will actually leave the building less if we are to build this expansion right right now during the night hours we are operating um trucks going back and forth between williston and burlington uh in this model there will be no need for trucks to leave during the night as the product is going to be stored on site as i had a question about the fencing on the west of the property um i believe there is some fencing there now and my understanding is that there's no plan to change it at all is that correct we put that fencing up um to mitigate the noise which has actually been mitigated i sent a letter to you folks about what has changed it's actually much better on that north side than it was before but right now the landscaping it's difficult to see if you're at this property but there's a 11 foot grade so from the uh that loading dock to the other side is a pretty steep um slope plus you can see the neighbors and the woods is quite a bit of different buffer than the corner on the northwest corner we have some neighbors that are very close to us on that side of the building so right now we are not planning on putting a fence there okay well um i know we have a number of members of the public here who would like to be heard we've submitted comments and i guess it's um you should get we'll give them an opportunity to share their feedback ask questions if they have questions directed to the board i want to note to anybody who wants to speak uh we're here on this we have read the submitted materials uh we will will read the submitted materials there's no need to reread what you've already submitted um but we'd like to hear what you have to say so i see three hands up uh brian pine susie lazarev janice ellis uh derrick zipprich and i'm going to go in the order i have them on my screen so brian do you want to start sure thank you for the opportunity this is brian pine i'm the director of the city's community and economic development office um thanks for the q a j not to repeat what i wrote because i just sent a memo to scott and i won't be uh i'll try not to be redundant um but i will start by saying that um our office and the in the administration is very supportive of this project as a really important um opportunity to add to this the city's um workforce in terms of the opportunity for growth of a not only a successful company but a company that is in many ways um um typifies what burlington has tried to cultivate over the last uh 40 plus years in terms of having um an interest in um both their own bottom line and in the sort of dual or triple bottom line of of social benefit as well as um for their for their own employees i'll talk a little bit about that in a minute but um i think it's worth noting that the the land area that we're we're discussing here um goes back in terms of its designation as an industrial park the city with in tandem with the greater burlington industrial corporation in 1957 created the city's industrial park and the purpose of that park as with industrial parks all across the country is to encourage and facilitate the development of manufacturing businesses as we know this country has seen a huge loss in the manufacturing sector and to have the opportunity uh today to have a manufacturer actually adding square footage and adding the capacity to add jobs is is pretty pretty remarkable actually given that most urban areas across the country are seeing significant disinvestment in their older industrial parks and with that comes a net loss of income i'm sorry of tax tax base um and employment and all the related activity that goes with it so um we're really excited that right now has chosen burlington again um for their growth and expansion they do have other options i think that would allow them to to go elsewhere and in many respects i want to just touch on what i think is a unique aspect of this company at this location at this time and that is they rely on a workforce that they've employed a largely um a workforce of immigrants and refugees former refugees and new americans many of whom have um no access to vehicles and so last by last count it was it was well over a third of of rhino um workers at the um at this property were arriving by bus and that's not something most employers can really um can tout as a as a benefit and it's not just a benefit in terms of less congestion and less pollution it's a benefit in terms of making good family wage jobs available to people who otherwise may be stuck in um less lucrative sort of dead end service sector jobs and i think it's it's really critical and i just want to highlight one last point and that is that um in addition to these benefits rhino offers something to their employees through their own foundation which is really a um innovation that and hopefully other employers will pick up on and that's the income advance um it's a loan program providing very favorable loan financing available to all their employees so folks have um come upon challenging financial times um they structure their their loans so that they are not um you know in any way put a big burden on folks but give people the ability to manage a household budget in a way that you cannot do with your your weekly paycheck so um i just want to highlight that as just one other example of what makes you know rhino um um you know someone an entity that takes this notion of good corporate citizenship and actually really um doesn't just um you know talk to talk but actually walks the walk and um after reading the staff recommendations um you know we fully support uh this project and hope the drb will grant approval um and uh just want to say we're we're thankful that we have rhino in this community thanks okay ryan thank you um next i have on my list is susie susie floor is yours yep just i needed um i have two questions one is would the um liquid nitrogen tanks need to expand if the two production lines went into forests that are in the expansion i can answer that um no if i'm understanding correctly you're sort of asking if they're going to be more liquid nitrogen use based on this expansion yeah that's what i'm asking yeah um we don't believe so and actually the hope is as we continue to expand and grow there's actually less and that sounds a little counterintuitive but the reason would be as we move into new spaces we would be using new equipment um versus some of the equipment we have here it's been here longer than i've been here almost so it's it's pretty outdated and old and less efficient um for example we put one a newer unit in about a year and a half two years ago um and although it can do the same amount of output um in terms of our product it's actually consuming far less um and it's more efficient with the the nitrogen so our hope would be to continue to convert to higher efficiency units um and again at the moment there's no planned expansion of those into those um new spaces it's um so hopefully that answers your question yeah it does that's great i had one other question and this is something that i did submit to uh scott gustin so uh let me know if this is redundant in any way but i wanted to initiate a discussion about alternatives to uh diesel for powering the reefers the truck refrigeration units when they're at the loading dock it looks like there are some options for hybrid uh refrigeration units that could plug into shore power just when the trucks are at the bays and then run on diesel when the trucks are rolling and there's also state and federal funding for diesel emissions reduction and i'm just wanting to open that up as a discussion to see whether that was something that could be explored that's a good question i i actually meant to ask staff i noticed there's a lot of solar panels on this top they have a i'm gonna say it the wrong way a green standard they have to meet is that right uh no there's a green building standard in the form code but not in this district and there's there's a more general energy efficiency standard they need to meet but it's not the green building that applies downtown okay so it's just reduced energy utilization it's an uh architectural design standards yeah yeah if you want to call that a standard no i was thinking of the state's standard for commercial buildings right the rbs no they don't yeah so susan this is ted castle um i appreciate your um concern and suggestion on the petition um and is noted being a b corp and aligning with our values um really this project is no exception with that um we see that we're gonna reduce the number of truck loads going back from burlington the warehouse about 2000 truck loads a year and your question about the electric hookups on the loading dock is a really good uh suggestion and we're inclined to move in that direction some important things just to make sure people understand what we've learned so far is yes there are such a thing there is an additional cost um we see that as a pretty practical idea for our trucks that will be circulating the around the building with the reefer units we do understand or it's important to know that as you look at reefer units driving up and down the road in the united states very few have the capacity to do electric and the in our short looking into this over the past few months also different units have different electric hookups so it doesn't mean that we would not do this but it does mean that we've actually talked to bed already and we're working on this solution and this is the type of thing that we hope to be able to do to reduce carbon footprint in any way we can do to be a better business and the last thing is just to remind people that 50 of the trucks that would be utilizing this facility are not using reefer units so there's no diesel running the reefer units but we're all in on your suggestion Susan and we're going to continue to work on it it sounds great Ted I was just to be clear I was talking about the auxiliary engines that power the reefer the refrigeration units not the actual total truck so like are you talking about the entire truck being electrified or just the reefer unit no exactly what you're saying right now you're you're correct the reefer units on the trucks are runoff diesel and we would be investigating the reefer units themselves being electric exactly how you're thinking that sounds wonderful I just had one last one last question I guess it's not a question but looking at the revised elevations you said there was a change in color and it was overall tan I don't remember what it was before but and this is this is not really so important but it's about how possibly you could have multicolored panels that were on brand to bring some of the rhino brand into the panel coloring on that side of the building before they were talking about uh murals that would bring the community in so I just wanted to make that suggestion yeah this is playing that ideas you know come up in some of our previous meetings can you speak up I can't quite hear you yeah yeah so this is playing that ideas come up previous meetings we are fans of trying to explore that what we've learned so far is that there are limited colors that you can you know choose from and still get the energy efficiency warranty from those insulated metal panels that are used we did submit not only the elevations that you showed before but we also I think today Martin submitted revised renderings with that color scheme so if you want to bring that up this color scheme matches the existing building in terms of the colors that are already in use and also just you know reduces the massing the visual massing of the building yeah switchback is using a subtle palette over on Flynn that is like warm gray cool gray and it's just enough modulation to make it not a massive single color right yeah this you know it is difficult for us it is pretty stark when we're looking at it from industrial avenue there so we we uh AJ maybe you could pull it up we sent it earlier today a new rendering which is our not this but we have a rendering of the building that does show sort of our number one suggested way to not have it be so stark I don't know Scott if you could pull it up you're on mute Scott I just looked at I didn't see it are you referring to in the permit system yeah so this is Martin we didn't get it until today from the rendering company second I'm in the portal right now under the attachment that's the perspective that's attached online Scott so this is the permit system right here yeah no it didn't upload it's on my screen I'm sorry about that sheet c3 is the most recent thing I just logged in it's I'm I'm sorry it's uploading right now it was frozen on my screen Scott can you share his screen just it's at 99% but just then it went in I apologize for that yeah very bottom so as you can see we try to actually um do what has been suggested and if you look closely uh the striping if you want to call it the the vertical striping is further apart on the north side it slowly comes together on that south side um as you as you look at the building so we tried to make it interesting like again to agree with you folks that we're going to do what we can to make this look as interesting and possible with the existing colors scheme that we have on the building today and we had when we had our last design advisory board meeting we submitted multiple options um and they they like this one the most so we furthered this concept okay um well we'll so that that that would be your most current proposal that's correct Susie do you have anything else no and I thank you very much for the time and also Ted for responding uh so favorably to the idea I have uh Janice Ellis next on my screen hi this is Janice um I live at 250 East Red Rock Drive in Burlington so I'm in the condo um I quite often hear noise now from the location and so noise is a concern of mine um I can tell you that the work that's happened just recently um for the Champlain Parkway which is you know a location even further from my home than Rhino um you know was plainly loud and disturbing um some of the stuff that I've heard tonight from the folks at Rhino is somewhat reassuring but I would just like to say that I I hope that you will acknowledge that noise is an issue for the neighbors and that you will try to mitigate it as much as possible um you know this this is an issue for me and not only Red Rock but some of the other surrounding neighborhoods and you know in recent years I feel like the neighbors really have been dismissed and not heard um so I just want to say that it's it's a concern and I and one that I hope that you will address thank you where do you live I didn't hear your address I'm at 250 East Red Rock Drive so I'm I'm in one of the developments in the Red Rock condo right and my my building actually faces um the Edlin property so I'm closer to Edlin but I do hear activity from the Rhino property what do you hear I hear the compressor that the air tanks occasionally hear trucks not not all that often but um you know we do we do hear some activity when do you hear the compressors well currently I'm only working two days from home but um early morning daytime hours mostly and like 4 a.m. or 7 a.m. 7 a.m. and I recognize that you know during the day there's there's business that is occurring and that's fine I guess my concern is noise like in the early hours of the day and in particular the evening yeah I would just just add we we do understand that and do recognize that that the noise here is is a reality for neighbors I myself um lived in Arthur court uh for many many years so I can have experienced it myself um both at home while not just at work um and so for example those nitrogen tanks which we know are sort of the most disruptive um other than emergency situations which hopefully don't happen very often we have worked with neighbors and that's we now have a limited time that trucks can deliver into that that space because that was is by far the most disruptive thing so don't quote me off top of my head here but I think it's sort of like at 7 a.m. they can't they can't deliver in the so I don't want to quote incorrectly but I know we have worked hard with the neighbors to make sure that we can limit that as much as possible and also Janice had mentioned the noise from the compressors I did want to know that one of the design facets of this building is that the refrigeration compressor compressors will be in a mechanical room um and not room mounted uh or in the back of the building so that that was a consideration that was taken in during the design of the facilities yeah I think I think my my personal concerns were more about you know the loading dock since that's probably the the closest part of the expansion to my home but like I said some of the things that you've covered tonight were really helpful so thank you okay well thank you Janice I appreciate it um next up I have Derek Zipprich I think I'm unmuted now yeah we can so yeah I'm Derek Zipprich I submitted some comments but just wanted to make a couple additional notes here so I'm 145 Austin Drive you can see just off the northwest corner of the building the pretty direct you know close resident and I met with Ted about some of the noise great neighbor very fortunate to have you know a responsible business owner like Ted and his family there but I'm definitely concerned about the noise I think we're hearing a lot you know concerns from other residents in this area about that and I'm struggling a bit you know with the ELM district doesn't provide a lot of definition around noise emissions right so we're kind of always in this constant treadmill of you know you know going back and forth and I think it would be helpful and I think it's up to the zoning board to provide some guidance on this but I think you know we manage water emissions water pollution air emissions I think you know we need to approach the noise emissions and noise pollution you know with some quantifiable measurable measures you know we talked about the vegetation put on the northboard border but you know did anyone ask if it was effective I would say no because you know the trees are only leafed out portion of the year the trees that were planted you know are over shaded during the growing season so you know I think they're planted six seven years ago they really haven't taken root or grown substantially at all so I think that you know before we move forward you know with this I think the zoning board should take in consideration you know what what they think is appropriate for noise emissions from a site like this to see you know to not create conflict with adjacent residents because I want I don't think it's fair to the residents and I don't think it's fair to rent out foods or other members of the zoning of the ELM area to be on a constant treadmill you know back and forth without having quantifiable limits on noise emission so that's kind of my my ask of the zoning board here is to to help provide some guidance I don't think it would be a state or other regulatory authority you know role to do so but my recommendation and ask would be to have you know night time hours you know more than 45 decibels emissions you know from this ELM district and that you know daytime hours you're restricted to 50 decibels where measured at the property boundary of the district so at the corners thank you for your time and I just want once you guys say thank you to Ted and Round of Food for for being a great upstanding neighbor and I you know I do you know want to see them you know prosper but I think you don't want to see you know mutual benefit in this project and see you know if we can get additional noise mitigation put in place to you know reduce those levels down to you know something that you know I think is more compliant with the definition of ELM to not create conflict with the residents as stated in the zoning definition any other questions I have next on my list is GVIC hi there I think I'm unmuted I'm Alex Demily I'm with GVIC we're the Greater Burlington Industrial Corp we do economic development at the regional level so really throughout Chittenden County and uh bits and Franklin County but you know really Burlington is at the heart of what we do and by virtue Rhino's at the heart of what we do we've had the good fortune of working with Rhino for a very long time now and we've been you know providing some guidance throughout this process and we've been you know very grateful to watch this move along with input from the DRB that's been yes that's been very appreciated and and very very thoughtful and so I you know I don't want to rehash anything too much but we just wanted to express our support for Rhino they really exemplify what a good business can do in Burlington you know we've heard about some of the challenges that Burlington has heard has has had recently and we think that really good neighbors like Rhino in our communities can help address some of those issues so just wanted to express our support thank you for your time does the applicant want to respond to any of the comments made no I you know I think that's why we came to you folks early and often and tried to make the adjustments Martin's done a good job and we appreciate the improvements that have been made to this project and we it's really important for us to get this permit process figured out to decide if we can move forward with this project if it's economically feasible so we'll continue to figure out ways to be a good neighbor but really look forward to making this pretty big step for Rhino there's a big huge investment on our company's side and we think it's going to make this more prosperous into the future so we look forward to having the board accept the recommendations from the staff well I guess with that we'll close the public hearing thank you next on our agenda which I just lost so that that ends our public hearing we have other business 98 Sunset Cliff Road uh address permit condition number one submission of noise mitigation plan prior to the approval of the pickleball coin uh I am still recused on this item and so Caitlin you're up we were looking for additional noise mitigation um it looks like we have some folks have already raised their hand but if you would like to speak on this item please raise your hand so we can swear you all in at once um so I'm seeing there's still some folks coming in um we have Elizabeth Herman, John Draper, Kiwong, Melissa Ronaldo, Claudine, Safar, Evan Dick, Lucy Wong, Chris Roy, and John Clark um I'm going to swear everyone in at once if you could raise your right hand and swear to tell that your testimony tonight is um the whole truth and nothing but the truth under pain and penalty of perjury I do I do I do thank you all and then um I believe Elizabeth Herman and Ki and Lucy Wong are here from the applicants um do you want to start by reviewing anything from your noise mitigation plan or can you all hear me yeah okay great um I'm Elizabeth Herman uh I'm Ki and Lucy's architect um so we're here to present our um our uh our sound mitigation strategies um to you we've um based on the conditions of the permit um I just want to make a few comments and then I'm actually going to turn it over to Keith Wagner's office the landscape architects who prepared the drawings and can walk you through a bit more in detail what's going on here um one of the things that I wanted to mention is a lot of what we're talking about here with with the sound mitigation is uh decibel levels and a lot of things have been referenced um recently by neighbors um concerning a lot of stuff that's been in the news about pickleball courts and noise so just to um add a little perspective um I just wanted to say that you know all of the um articles that I have read about pickleball court noise have been in very different um places under very different conditions so I really like the board to focus on this site in particular um we have just one court and we have one ball here um we're surrounded by soft material and plantings um just to give you an idea um the uh it's been been mentioned in one of the articles that pickleballs have a decibel level of 70 and that the noise is annoying um 30 decibels is a whisper 60 is normal conversation 95 and even above is typical lawn mowing equipment we're talking about um intermittent use of a ball at 70 decibels um and one of the things too that I just wanted to mention is we have very little hardscape other than the pickleball court around um grass is a grass and soil can reduce noise by up to 10 decibels so we're talking about reducing and already intermittent noise to levels that are normal conversation um so I just wanted to basically illustrate that I don't think that the comparisons that have been made are relevant here at all um so with that I think I'll hand it over to Keith um we have a beautiful plan here to show um there's a lot of um wonderful stuff going on here and um I think he can walk you through everything in detail can every can everybody hear me now yes okay hi I'm Keith Keith Wagner uh Wagner Hodson Landscape Architects so we were uh after the DRB gave the condition of uh adding plant material uh to help mitigate um the noise we went back and revised the planting plan um and we did it with a mixture of both deciduous and evergreen and we've done it in a two two layer effect so along the property lines uh to the left and right of the house um we've added eight to ten foot arborvite the entire length along the left side and then uh right behind the pickleball court on the right hand side of the plan here and then down further uh as we get close to the to the water um we then along the the road we've planted uh hydrangea you can see that sort of in the the white uh plant material you see up top yeah and then right at the court sort of immediate to the court we have gone with uh a lilac so these two layers uh were proposing um and these plant materials were selected because they're dense branching and they have dense foliage um and as you know the plan has other uh landscape proposed plantings but this was really in an effort to the DRB's sort of um condition any questions is there anything else just from the applicant team that you wanted to share before we turn over to the board for questions um I think there maybe there's some renderings but I don't know if that's as important since we're talking not about visual impact we're talking about noise yeah all right from the board any questions or commentary before brad yeah Keith did you consider solid fencing at all Nicholas um we we had we we thought it was a plant material directive so we stayed with plant material was that really the directive I mean I thought it was sound mitigation for the landscaping not necessary plant material but I interpreted it as plant material okay it's pretty open direction brad yeah okay yeah it just seems like the solid material would do I mean I agree all the materials they would do a lot to absorb sound but um yeah solid you know dense barrier would also do a lot to stop the sound from traveling brad I'll just add that we thought the house did a pretty good job of that itself um not in the direction where the court is there's no house from there to the next property well the I guess the nearest house is to the is not in this picture actually it's the one to the left here um and so sound would have to travel around the house and then one next to it um it's kind of at an angle and and I guess on parallel with the house but not terribly close but in any case the proximity of the of the house I think would help to to stop sound rather than let it reverberate do we have any information on how much this proposed planting would reduce the sound I mean I appreciate the effort to put a vegetative screen in but I understood the board's request as to speak to sound mitigation and to me that is an acoustic quality I'm I'm still struggling with how we evaluate whether this is an appropriate mitigation for what's going to happen here or not and it feels like we're missing a little bit of context from someone who could provide us some some expertise on the sound side well one of one of the things I'll mention is it's really hard to get sound ratings sound um coefficients with plants because they're there's so much variation and they're not constant but there has been quite a bit I was spending some time online today looking at various academic studies on the the acoustical benefits of grass because it's a little more easy to quantify both the length of the grass matters and the soil um properties are a little bit easier to get a handle on and it's a very real um sound mitigation device that's used in a lot of places it in this case we have a lot of grassy surface surrounding the pickleball court and like I said earlier it is fairly consistent among all the articles I've read that the reduction in sound can be up to 10 10 decibels 8 to 10 is um is fairly well agreed upon and that's actually a pretty good sound reduction I mean I'm sure the other plants add add benefits but it would be really hard to find something that has a very hard quantifiable coefficient of sound reduction. Elizabeth another question that I have because you mentioned the relevance of this property and and use um because I know some of the evidence that was presented earlier was referencing um you know public set of courts and you were talking about the specifics of this um this property is there anyone from the applicant team that could give us a sense of the expected use both seasonally especially especially since we're talking about foliage that won't be there in the winter um the expected use times of year and times of day when this is a single family residence just to give everyone here some context on how frequently this might be in use. So I think Lucy's here and if she's able to speak maybe she can I mean we've talked about it a little bit in case she's not able to chime in um is she raising her hand? We have Keir. Yeah I would love to speak but go ahead. So uh with regard to the timing we initially thought that if there were time restrictions placed sounds very reasonable it was an all or none type of thing I mean if I I'm not the pickleball player Lucy is this is a wish for her um and we don't mean to try to annoy the neighbors just like um but if I were to guess I would guess between 10 10 am and 2 pm um and if it were outside that I mean I would say we should be respectful but in the case that's my guess. If um that's my answer to that question I just want to respond that we have directed our professionals you know as to how do we try to get this through? We asked for Lucy asked for some guidance and no you can't pin yourself down I mean are we looking for landscaping or walls? If we're walls we've directed our landscape architect to try to to deal with that but we weren't given direction other than some some nuances from Lucy's sister who lives in Burlington as a lifelong resident of Burlington who said that her impression was that landscaping would do it and we thought that landscaping was would look better. One of the previous residents said oh you could put a wall up but it would be ugly so in response to that we are trying to not make it just about sound but something and we weren't given direction and now I appreciate hearing this direction but it's um that's been frustrating so the specific answer with regard to the question about timing is I would anticipate four hours in a range between 10 and 2 p.m. but that Lucy can speak to that um with regard to the the volume did the may I speak on other things or just to that question? Okay. Are there any other questions? Well the other thing that I would say is that it's you know I'm not I'm not a sound engineer and I don't and but I just kind of think what rules have we broken what you know they're and I want to be respectful of neighbors but when neighbors that are 500 feet away with basically I would say a forest in between and these trees are it must be 50 feet of trees and um I mean at one point do you say you know that a concern is not um I would say legitimate you know but um it just seems like they are far away and um again not being a sound engineer at some distance with intervening dense fully dense trees that you know the decibel level is uh acceptable you know on a personal level I actually find and you know little little dogs barking to be quite annoying one of the neighbors who bought down the road said he specifically bought but they have a dog run so I mean if I hear a dog bark once which I find annoying is that just give me direction who do I complain to is that a complaint is that something the board I mean um the board to respond to so so the hours I think would be such that well another neighbor also said that not only did you bring up the walls but now she says that we need a roof on the on the pickle ball court now again not being a sound engineer but I think sound waves travel in a straight line they don't uh so it seems like a scorched earth type of you know all or none for the for our neighbors and we have hired professionals to not that that's your issue I mean that's our issue and we're trying you know so Keith Wagner said that they thought landscaping was direction that's what we were thought but I remember asking Lucy you know if the wall was just we would put up a wall and she wasn't necessarily forward but um but again a neighbor said wall would be ugly so and then sometimes I think you know what have I done wrong is it because I'm Asian there are no Asians in on this on this road and are they doing this because I mean I don't see actually many Chinese in Burlington not that that's your problem but just makes me wonder what have I done wrong so thank you thank you Keith um Lucy did you want to speak as well I see your hand is up you just need to unmute yourself if you'd like to speak um I'd like to clarify the time on the pickle ball court I know neighbors have suggested they know how many hours I'm going to play they know the time of day I'm going to play it's all been written in letters and comments public comments they know my habits I guess well I'd like to clarify I probably will play a game five days a week for no more than two hours an hour and a half maybe and I would be very respectful as I told Mr. Draper if he came over to me and said we're entertaining please get off the court it would be no issue but like he said there was no middle ground for any of our neighbors it was a court had to go so to answer your question five days a week maybe two hours a day I'll try not to do it at sunset but I don't have a problem playing at 12 noon 2 p.m. 4 p.m. when it's 95 degrees because I play in Florida when it's 95 degrees in 100 humidity at those exact times so I don't like people commenting about my habits when they don't know me thank you Lucy um any questions for the board before I turn it over for public comment no and I I only ask that maybe forget public comments that they're specific to this plan and not to issues they've already shared about and talked about yes yes I was definitely going to cover that so before we're to public comment um as you said on other matters we have received any written comments already if you've made comments at the last hearing those are are noted so please try to keep your commentary to anything new if you agree with someone else that has spoken you can say that as well we have been in a long meeting so far we want to make sure that you're heard just make sure that your comments are adding to the discussion so with that I'm going to go in the order that I'm seeing here um with John Draper um up first if you'd like to unmute yeah yeah this this is John Draper and we actually have a couple of neighbors here using my computer my account so uh Marcia Hemley who is here would like to speak if that's okay and she did take the oath one yeah um you know first of all it's my hello can I speak can you uh let us know what your address is just for the record if my address is 68 sunset cliff um and 62 sunset cliff great thank you sure um you know my understanding the directive from the drb was a noise mitigation proposal not specifically plants but in terms of plants I want to mention that plants particularly like hydrangeas and lilacs are not static there are many times of year where there's nothing there where they are practically just a couple of branches from the previous year so in terms of them presenting any kind of effective sound barrier I can't imagine that that would be the case except for a few weeks or maybe a month out of the season um in addition the drawing on the screen shows that there is not a lot of grassy surface between the pickle ball court and the driveway of the adjacent house and in fact the actual positions of the houses on either side of the pickle ball court is not what miss herman described in terms of being at angles they're right there um so that's all that I have to say except the idea of counting on someone to be respectful I'm not really confident about that since as I wrote in my letter the lawn hasn't been mowed for two months and it's very high and deer are in there and ticks and mosquitoes although the lawn was mowed last year so I don't know why it isn't being mowed this year but it doesn't bode well for counting on some someone to be respectful and concerned about impact on neighbors thank you you're welcome bond did you want to speak next um no I don't have anything further at thanks we will move on to Melissa rinaldo if you'd like to unmute yourself hello thank you um I live on Nottingham Lane and my home is located approximately 500 feet from the proposed pickle ball court um it is uh I guess beyond those uh hydrangeas and lilacs and things like that and grass on the other side of sunset cliff road um I can tell you that I hear uh garbage trucks and other vehicles construction vehicles backing up with the beep beep beep from very clearly from sunset cliff road um I don't know which end it's at but I'm I have to believe that I'm closer to the pickle ball court than I am to garbage trucks backing up so sound carries and I it's my understanding that we have no expert report about any of this sound mitigation we have no uh sound study uh to actually give the board any clarity or direction with respect to whether or not any of this any of these plantings will be at all effective um my understanding I have been doing some research as well and my understanding uh from a sound engineer who specifically um does sound mitigation for pickle ball courts his name is Bob Unetic and he's from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania he is an avid pickle ball player um and he's uh uh spoken on npr he's uh uh been interviewed for um you know numerous articles about how to create effective sound mitigation for pickle ball courts because he loves the sport and he wants to grow the sport and I don't have any objection to a pickle ball court back there as long as the sound is not going to disturb me but I suspect that the sound is going to disturb me and uh one of the the best way to mitigate pickle ball noise is to fix the problem before it starts and build courts that are far enough away from people so that's not going to be a problem um and absent that you know I understand I'm coming late to this party given that we didn't receive notice even though we live certainly close enough uh and right next door to Bob or two doors down from Bob Fisher who did receive written notice um but we didn't so um you know I am understanding that this has been I guess given preliminary approval subject to these conditions and I would I I don't see where the um proposal meets the requirements that the of the condition of the zoning permit that the board has approved um I don't think there's any report or expert opinion or any other thing that is going to suggest that this is going to be effective uh Bob Unitich specifically says on his website and I cite that in my materials windscreens and bushes are not very effective sound barriers um two commonly accepted sound barriers are a reflective mass loaded vinyl sheet which blocks sound preliminarily primarily by reflecting it or a vinyl sheet with a quilted layer of fiberglass and thin fabric which blocks the sound by absorbing most of the sound striking it um additionally um Mr Unitich uh has recommended that in order to mitigate the sound that different paddles and balls be used soft paddles and soft balls so that you're not hearing the constant popping of hard plastic against a hard plastic ball against a hard plastic um paddle um so I I spend a lot of time out on my screen porch in my backyard my um happy place is my screen porch where I sit and read at all hours of the day um and I would be very upset if I heard the constant pop popping popping of a pickle ball for two hours even at only two hours that's still a lot of time to be sitting there um additionally I don't know Ms Wong whether or not you would be practicing out there your pickle ball skills but that's something that certainly you might want to do and if you're out there just hitting the pickle ball you know endlessly against a hard surface that's going to create a different type of sound instead of just playing a pickle ball game I think that's going to be even worse so I apologize for taking so long here um I hope I haven't been too repetitive um I enjoy my backyard I certainly hear sounds coming from Sunset Cliff Road including the little dogs that happened to bark back there um and uh I I hope that the there is some consideration given for the fact that we have no expert testimony we have no expert reports we have no demonstration that this um mitigation is going to be effective thank you very much thank you um Claudine if you would like to speak thank you uh good evening letters ladies and gentlemen of the board I also have uh with me the same expert which you had the pleasure of hearing last time Lance Willis I'd like to direct some questions to Mr Willis but before I do that I want to make a couple of comments in regard to some of the presentation and arguments that we've heard in favor of this proposal first and foremost I want to be respectful to Ms Herman as much as I appreciate her acumen with respect to architecture I submit to this board that she is wholly unqualified to be commenting on the acoustical sound reduction that is associated with this type of a plan or in general with the type of acoustical mitigation that would be necessary for a pickleball court in the first place uh Ms Herman is an architect she is not as she said a sound engineer she's been doing some researching on the internet which you know I think uh kind of says it all I would submit to this board that our sound expert who is a PhD in engineering who has made it his specialty to address pickleball noise who has participated in several mitigation plans who has been a part of lawsuits around the country who has participated in matters that have led to zoning changes as a result of pickleball which we have provided to this board in the past but who has deep and extensive experience in this very issue and Ms Herman lacks all of that I would also like to echo the remarks of my colleague Melissa Ronaldo she is absolutely correct when she submits to this board that there is no expert report which has been provided by the applicant as there is also no sound study and as much as I appreciate Mr Wong's frustration that he didn't get better I'm sorry but can we just get on to your commenting on the actual substance rather than the participant who has spoken so far it would just be more helpful it's been a long day and I understand that you have an expert witness there who has some relevant comments to make it would be nice to get on to that thank you well I'm trying to do that Mr Rabinowitz with all due respect I appreciate it tonight is my daughter's birthday and they're all sitting having dinner without me so I too would like to conclude tonight's hearing however I do recognize that this issue is extremely important to my client and all of the people that are there so I would like to get through the arguments if I if I may just I think for you a little bit longer what I would like to put I'm sorry is that we're trying to keep the arguments relevant to how our proceedings work because this is not a court of law and we had discussed previously as well that the way that the expert witness was used previously did not really fall within the grounds of the typical drb process and if he would like to make a statement we are happy to hear that but it is not typical and we would prefer not to hear a back and forth questioning um because that is is not our process I I'm sorry I didn't see any prohibition in the drb's rules as to me asking uh mr willis questions in order to particularly focus the testimony and I and I would think um this helper that it would be useful for this board for me to focus that testimony rather than just uh asking mr willis to have a free for all I mean I I I think it would be to you know to your assistance and and complying with mr rabbinimus as a request to kind of get this process moving um so you know if you would allow me that courtesy I I'm happy to have uh to ask mr willis those few questions to be able to comment on this particular time is that testimony is to be directed to the board and so having questions directed across to or comments addressed to other people that are speaking that is what is not typical so commentary and questions should be directed to us as the board and we can decide if we pass those on to anyone else um so that's the directive that I'm I'm giving and I understand we didn't police that as much in the previous hearing but I want to give that clear direction now and Brad I don't know if you wanted to add any well I if if I may all of mr willis's testimony will be directed to this board and so my asking him questions does not uh change where his questions or where his answers are directed and I I think this back and forth is unfortunately taking more time than than it would be to for me to ask mr willis a couple of questions uh to sort of guide the testimony and I you know and forgive me we didn't get this direction in advance so so we prepared in this way uh and I'd like to proceed maybe the most expedient thing I I think it would be thank you I appreciate it um Lance are you there I don't know if he's muted as well if there's a way to unmute him uh Lance is a separate entity in the zoom is that what you're saying pardon me oh I see I'm not I see him Caitlyn I had to scroll a little bit okay can you hear me now yeah okay good so Lance have you had the opportunity to review uh the landscaping submissions that the that the Wongs have presented to the board yes I've looked at the drawings okay and can you comment on your professional opinion as a engineer with substantial experience in sound mitigation for pickleball courts um whether this proposal is sufficient to impact or to mitigate the noises that will be generated by the pickleball play on this court yes well this is really a plan for visual privacy it doesn't really accomplish much of anything in regard to abating sound uh in particular in regard to the comments that were made about ground absorption uh ground absorption is measured in decibels per foot or decibels per meter uh to say that grass can provide 10 dB of sound absorption lacks context um and also between the proposed pickleball courts and the adjacent property to the west is a driveway so there's really no grass there and on the other side there is less than 20 feet so the idea that grass is going to provide any meaningful sound absorption is just not accurate um the other issue is that vegetation such as a hedge is not a noise abatement treatment it it would give some privacy but it is too open to stop sound uh but the real issue here is not either whether or not you know vegetation will work whether there should be a wall but that there is insufficient setback between the pickleball courts in the adjacent residential properties uh and I think it is unfortunate that the Wongs were led down the path of you know trying to come up with this plan because it could not work from the beginning due to the setback issues can you explain what you mean by that Lance a little bit more that a plan couldn't work because of the setback well what what we need you know a a noise barrier can only accomplish so much attenuation of sound the rest has to be made up for with distance and so there's having a pickleball court on a residential property it's just not a compatible land use because the lot is too small to provide a sufficient setback to make an actual noise abatement plan work okay um Lance did you also hear testimony I know you talked a little bit about the the grass sound attenuation but could you could you talk a little bit about whether these bushes would provide any meaningful attenuation at all I I think you already addressed that but yeah one other thing I would add to that is that grass is a ground effect it it provides some absorption over long distances you know not not 20 feet or so but you know hundreds of feet you can get some ground absorption from that however if you place a noise barrier between the noise source and the observer it blocks that ground wave so you either get the attenuation of the noise barrier or you get the attenuation of the ground so to use them in combination does not make sense either you know the hedge is not working at all and you're getting a little bit of absorption from the grass or the hedge is working as a noise barrier in the grass is irrelevant um in your professional opinion is this mitigation quote-unquote this this landscaping plan a reasonable sound mitigation plan for the proposed use unfortunately not as I said the the lot size is just too small to construct ineffective noise abatement plan for pickleball all right I don't have anything further for mr. willis I don't know if the board has any questions for him thank you can I ask a question this is Keith Wagner um let's I would like to yeah just a response if that's all right um is there any other public commentary I see that the longs would like to speak again so I wanted to check if there was anyone else here from the public who would like John Clark if yes John are you there we are not hearing you John I don't know if you are muted somewhere else you're unmuted on our ends but we do not hear you got any suggestions for John I don't I was just going to look to see if we had written comment I'm on Mr. Clark any questions from the board for anyone from the public that we've heard from so far before I give the applicant an opportunity to respond to the comment okay well this is Jeff my camera seems to have died but I did have a question for Dr. Willis and maybe for Ms. Safar I appreciate the testimony and value the perspective I'm trying to understand how we're assessing this from a standard perspective you know it it may be that the proposed mitigation doesn't mitigate the sound level but I'm not sure if we're looking at a specific sound level or if we're evaluating this just on a nuisance standard um and if just on a nuisance standard um Mr. Willis or Dr. Willis excuse me I guess I'm interested in your perspective in your experience with pickleball courts how the level of usage or the occurrence of that type of activity already in the area which I think is the case here there are pickleball courts pretty close on at the tree point how we should evaluate those facts when considering whether this mitigation itself is enough for this type of project okay sure um I have been involved in a number of cases like this where someone has tried to build a pickleball court in their backyard in a residential neighborhood and it has generated a lot of friction with the neighbors um and even though it is less use than a park or an HOA facility or something like that it still causes a lot of issues and I just have not seen it work well in that regard what was the second after your question I guess I'm just wondering in terms of the sort of question of nuisance how relevant it is that I recognize these individual neighbors may not experience this exact sound level but this is not a a unique sound experience compared to what already occurs in the general vicinity and so I'm interested in sort of how we as a board evaluate from a nuisance perspective does this sort of limited use really rise to the level that we should say this can't be permitted or this or this mitigation is not sufficient given all those other issues to um to not allow it to go forward without more I guess right well the the mitigation that's proposed is really not going to accomplish anything because this is only vegetation in that really does not walk sound at all uh even if it was a solid barrier it would still be an issue because of the short setbacks so what we're really talking about is about the only difference would be a reduction in the amount of time that the courts are being used presumably um it's you know as I said I've seen this a number of times and it just has not worked out well in a neighborhood and it's mainly because the lot sizes are too small to accommodate a sound source of this type I guess do you think it's relevant for us to consider the fact that similar uses are already occurring in the neighborhood at what distance well I I don't know the exact distance I just know that there are several pickleball courts you know a block or two away in in that in those neighborhoods okay uh I have not looked at those courts I can't really give an opinion as to what the potential noise impacts are those you're going to be okay fair enough thank you I have a question Kalin but Dr Willis I'm just surprised that you say the trees have no benefit um even they're typically used evergreens are typically used for sound barriers in fact they used up at the airport here in Burlington as a sound barrier okay well I'm not talking specifically about the trees I'm talking about the hedge that has been proposed to go between the properties well they've got the seed the evergreen hedge the cedars okay but that's that's a single row of plantings in order for trees to be effective you need to have a width uh you know hundreds of feet usually uh in order to have enough density to scatter the sound to make an effective noise it's not that they have no impact they just you don't think this is enough to have a significant impact it's is probably not even not even going to be measurable yeah John Draper we already heard from Melissa we already heard from correct my confusing my John's John Clark we were not able to hear can you hear me for this is Melissa Ronaldo I do need to respond to um this assumption that was created earlier the park uh Appletree park which is in the neighborhood is at least four blocks away from the current um uh proposed site and so it is not in the same vicinity at all I just need to make that clear this is not the sound that you will be hearing and being produced by this pickleball court is in no way the same as the sound that is four blocks away at Appletree park I don't hear those sounds I most likely would hear the sounds from the Appletree from Sunset Cliff and also I would just point out that there are no evergreens um between the pickleball court and Sunset Cliff road and my property thank you I apologize for interrupting um I just want to get through the rest of the public commentary before giving the final word to the applicant Brad sorry did you want to ask something okay um I see that jail you have your hand raised I'm not sure that you were sworn in before so that's my first question for you is it um when you unmute yourself if you were sworn in I was not I wasn't expecting to speak but I do need to say something that's okay so uh can you raise your right hand and do you swear that the testimony that you give today is um the truth and nothing nothing but the truth under pain and penalty of surgery I do and can you please give us your full name and your address jail Anderson 82 Sunset Cliff thank you um and would you like to give your comment now yes uh we're our property is about 80 feet away from the pickleball court it's our front yard and our house may be diagonal it may be you know however it's situated but we do use our front yard for things and so this would be loud but excuse me I'm just and I would like to just clarify that my concern about the pickleball court is about decibel level only and um it has nothing to do with the Wong's personally and I also wanted to uh correct something that was said earlier which is that there are no other Asians living on the street which isn't true our two daughters are Chinese so there's no other issue for us other than decibel level that's our issues you know and one of our children lives at home so um nothing personal against the Wong's nothing personal at all it's just the decibel level we just don't we just it's we're very close uh to that property and um you know it ultimately could affect our property value as well you know yes you need to them John Clark is at John Draper's couch oh and also that's what our dog someone just knocked our door uh John Draper is over at John Clark is over at John Draper's property I guess he's trying having trouble speaking to you so I guess he wants to use their their computer anyway that's all I wanted to say I just wanted to say nothing personal it's strictly about the decibel level and I wanted to make that on record our children are Chinese we have nothing about that thank you thank you Gail um all right I will give one more shot at John Draper if you give John Clark the floor on his zoom dot I think you need to re-enable is it John Clark or John Draper's I just enabled John I think they were saying John Draper's audio work there well both John's can talk can you hear me yes yeah yes uh John Clark 104 Sunset Cliff Road I live right next door I'm the closest one to the pickleball court uh I'd like to say that uh my family's lived here for 80 years and uh most of my neighbors are either seniors or work from home my two kids work from home and the pickleball court 10 o'clock in the morning is just as annoying if it was after dark uh I've got several neighbors that could hear it we did a test last week I wonder if Melissa's still listening but we hit my daughter and my wife hit the pickleball back and forth in our driveway which would be a little bit farther away from where she lives and she went apoplectic with hearing the noise now my yard is 80 years old I have 10 to 20 foot hedgerows surrounding my house with all those plants you're talking about viburnum white pine cedars I mean it's thick and then then she there's probably another 200 feet of dense woods between us and Melissa and she was able to hear that pickleball as plain as day and that was just two people playing most of the time pickleball is played by four people and you know I'm a botanist and I can tell you right now plants do not absorb that much noise it's like if somebody was hammering in your house and you closed the door to your room it's still here it would still be annoying but the sound was muffled muffling is is just a relative term but the sound is quite annoying recently I went to visit my son in Alabama he just moved into a brand new apartment complex a roll of 10 townhouses they put a pickleball of court in the halfway through their stay and not a single person re-ups notice we went back to look at there was not a single car in the parking lot and several projects that we have in Florida they're thinking about removing the courts if they're too close to residential areas thank you for your time but I really feel that this would there are four camps out of the 19 houses here and those four camps like mine have no air conditioning we have no insulation our windows are open all the time so we live with with nature here it's been tough with the smoke and the pollution but it's something we have to live with and we have no defense against that kind of noise thanks for your time thank you um buddy do you have a final thought you would like to add I just wanted to respond thank you to uh Mr. Hands attorney hands question about the legal standards and whether we're just looking at this in terms of a nuisance and I just wanted to direct the attention to our drb letter and supporting documents that we submitted in April I think it is a nuisance issue but I think it's also you know they are we have to be mindful that they're applying for this as a as an accessory use right and so and and we also I think the board can't permit use as a property that would violate the noise control ordinance and that's exactly what this permitting this use would do and that's been you know I think amply supported by expert testimony thank you um and then Melissa if you have a final comment to me there you go thank you um so mr draper's test worked well I was sitting on my screen porch last Tuesday and from three o'clock p.m. to three thirty p.m. I heard the constant pop of a pickleball I didn't know where it was coming from and uh but uh so yes from his his yard which I believe is even further away from the proposed than the proposed pickleball court I heard it as loud as day so we have empirical evidence of the that this would be uh disturbing to me this would create um a noise disturbance and it would be a public nuisance and this court should not or this board should not permit a pickleball court that would create a public nuisance thank you okay thank you it looks like we have made it through all of the public comments any questions from the board before I give the applicant a chance to respond to a comment mr mrs long if you would like to speak or if anyone from your team would like to speak Keith I know that you had a comment previously that I asked you to hold you wrong I would like to just add a couple things there have been some comments about you know not getting notification I hope it's obvious to all those people say that that's not our fault we have no idea who's supposed to be notified and we're trying to sneak this by anyone it's refreshing to hear someone say it's only about decibels because all it's about is the qualitative aspect I'm not all it's about but it seems to be about the qualitative aspect I wish it were just about decibels um and I wish I would have some idea you know that what is the reasonable distance for someone to complain about I mean the expert says that distance makes a difference but it's um so I don't have the answers to this you know we have you know we've hired professionals and we are seeking direction for professionals I do ask our professionals to say you know what have we done wrong I mean so thank you for your time Lucy would you like to add anything well you know it's really hard we've really been attacked here and we've been blindsided um that we've been on trial here there's no other way to look at it with the lawyers the expert witnesses um you know and we've been fairly quiet and it's been hard to read those public comments and Key is right I mean we your job is permitting we applied for no variances we haven't broken any rules they're just assuming that this noise they're in it's going to bother them and it bothers me the way they're all responding and not only are they it's not even about the noise they're attacking us personally especially me and making judgments on us and you know mrs hemelsley she's been one of the she's just attacked me and I I haven't enjoyed sitting through this it makes me wonder about this property and moving into this development now but Key and I are not vindictive retaliatory we've been accused because our lawn hasn't been mowed I just this is it hasn't been a great experience and my husband is right and whoever this malice is that lives in Stratmore 500 feet away 400 feet away you should ask mr willis there is a certain number of feet that uh I think it's acceptable 150 feet some people will say from a pickleball court some of these neighbors that are complaining are 400 feet 450 feet 500 feet they're far away but they've all just got on board and the other thing to my knowledge and I don't know Scott if you have any information but there are a lot of public pickleball courts that are close to housing and a few months ago there had been absolutely no complaints none whatsoever regarding pickleball noise from neighborhoods and then finally apple tree I don't know where that court is but someone should go over and measure from that court to the nearest house and see how many feet because we're being held to a different standard you know we're respectable people and I tried from the very beginning when everyone got on me I said what can we do how can we make you feel better about this I thought it'd be a great thing for the community but we're in the losing end of this of course I do have anything you can add because the lawyers and uh the expert witness and in bob actually I'm familiar melissa with that guy um and we're not comparing apples to apples he's talking about courts in bonita springs that have 1416 courts a lot of pickleball courts going in and that's where these lawsuits are stemming from yes there might be some residential problems but the way you're you're just your arguments aren't working here for me thank you Lucy um Keith did you want to address something as well I know you had asked to speak before if if so just unmute yourself no I'm fine you don't I don't have anything to say thank you thank you the board have any final questions for the applicant I don't know if the applicant was asking their attorney to have the right to speak I see Chris Roy has his hand up I'm kidding I don't know if you want to allow that okay um you enable Scott Lucy and I'll just confirm that Lucy did I understand correctly that you wanted Chris Roy to speak yes I'd like Chris to say something okay and I would be happy to say something um and I and I'm not going to testify because I'm not a witness um but I am going to to focus a little bit on what is supposed to be guiding this discussion what's not supposed to be guiding the discussion is sort of ad hoc whatever the neighbors think ought to be allowed on other property that's not how we do zoning in Burlington or Vermont we actually have bylaws that establish standards and nobody has ever pointed to a standard in the bylaw that this court would violate except a very very general reference to nuisance in section 5.5.1 without reference to noise and certainly without establishing any sort of measurable metric against which a landowner could ever hope to aspire in putting together an application there is nothing in the zoning ordinance that deals with recreational noise and I'm afraid the DRB it would really be opening up a Pandora's box without the benefit of specific provisions if it goes down this road what about the next project that puts a basketball court or a basketball hoop on their driveway I've seen kids playing basketball and it's as loud if not louder than pickleball backyard rinks ice rinks in the winter when there's no foliage if anybody's heard a backyard rink they know they can be noisy and there's a lot of pop pop pop as pucks are hit by sticks swimming pools people diving in the water screaming having fun doing all those recreational things that apparently are allowed in other parts of Burlington but not on this particular street and a tennis court there's been no claim that if this was a tennis court there would be any basis for not allowing it without any dubious standard to having to be met and it's also well known that a lot of people play pickleball on tennis courts so for a zoning purpose you would grant a permit for a tennis court on a lot there's no basis for preventing that and then the question would become oh if they go on and they play pickleball on their tennis court is that an issue it's not a zoning issue it's a noise control ordinance issue and I don't think the drb wants to get into the area of regulating on a micro level recreational uses of residential property because your agenda is going to get twice as long pretty darn quick the couple other points that are important here there's no evidence anywhere in the city of Burlington anywhere in chitin county where you have pickleball being played in close proximity proximity to residential areas that those residential areas have generated complaints about noise not a single bit we hear a lot about florida we hear a lot about 16 court complexes in indiana what about chitin county what about burlington what about actual complaints there's not a scintilla of evidence about any complaint ever having been lodged this is an important issue and clearly it's an issue that's cropped up around the country but you don't deal with it after the fact you deal with it in a thoughtful way you come up with specific standards and an example of that that the city of burlington recently did had to do with leaf blowers there were noise issues about people using certain kinds of leaf blowers at certain times of the day and a thoughtful process was put together and a specific provision was developed to deal with leaf blowers that's appropriate that's how you establish zoning policy and public policy you you address it on the front end you have a public process you hear input from people and then if it's appropriate you develop standards that everybody can then guide themselves with we don't have that here the standard we have is the neighbors don't want it and that can't be an enforceable zoning standard so I I just caution you about opening up a can of worms by starting to regulate as a question of zoning permits recreational activity on residential blocks thank you for your time thank you uh and with that we will close this agenda item and close the meeting we have been here for almost three hours so AJ will ask we would like to do deliberative um or see what we can get through on deliberative all right so we'll close public hearing agenda items we wrap up our meeting for the evening we'll go into our deliberative session now um recording stopped first item on our agenda i'm going to get the address wrong is 50 Howard street the renovate historic cottage and convert to a dwelling unit that was put on our consent agenda item we had one witness raise a density concern uh but staff articulated how that the density issue was addressed through the fact that this was a historic renovation um and so they didn't have they had that sort of density bump bonus um you know I think it's provable as it's proposed anybody else make a motion ah all right Brad recording in progress 50 Howard street uh zp 23 100 I move that we approve the application and adapt staff's findings and recommendations second anybody chase uh all those in favor I have a comment I know it's late I just