 Okay everybody welcome to our off-night tear select board meeting on Tuesday September 4th due to the Memorial Day holiday I kind of skip this into I'm sorry Labor Day yeah I wish it was Memorial Day so call the meeting to order skip are you okay first thing to do then is to approve the agenda is there any changes or additions I'll make the motion that we approve the agenda as presented okay second that favor say aye all right consent agenda items minutes from the August 6th meeting and to appoint the municipal manager as a voting delegate to the Motley the city of town's annual meeting take a motion to approve a consent agenda I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda I'll second that all those in favor hi hi and the public anybody wish to speak and the public at this point yeah go ahead Bill yeah just have one I just have one information from public the installation of that on the railroad trestle or railroad bridge that was supposed to happen two Sundays ago I think had to be postponed there was a glitch in the paperwork from the railroad so the permit was not issued it's been rescheduled for this Sunday September 9th same thing as before 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. they don't think it will take that long but all the same detours that we talked about the last will be in place so just for your information it would be this same day installing the part on bridge so they were on a little unsure as to a couple of traffic issues and but you got that all figured out straight down the square away all right promise they'll be not a glitch and batteries I can never works the batteries must last 30 minutes off your lucky okay anybody else from the public all right seeing none at this point we'll move on to presentation of drafts number two of the municipal plan update by the Planning Commission Mr. Loppe speech you don't want you to feel left out it's a meaty plan thank you I've got a timeline that I'm passing out here when you pass the timelines down I would be easier more than homework yeah here we all I got a couple of you can you share yeah that'd be great I didn't break quick there's one extra coffee here too many trees ready Ken okay I'm the chair of the planning mission and we are Steve tonight and Eric growth is also the plan to transmit to you the draft of the update to the municipal plan so this is a five-year update of the plan has required I do not state law this will be the last of our five-year required updates because the statute has not been changed and we'll go on a year cycle so the five-year cycle is I've worked as a professional player in four different states and I've never seen it done like this any other place I've been to mind so sure there's a reason for it but we won't do it anymore we'll do an eight-year cycle in this particular update our goal was to not reinvent the wheel as it will or do a comprehensive rewrite so five years ago back in 2013 we did some pre extensive outreach community survey some public meetings things of that sort and our goal was much more ambitious at that time it was also an opportunity to realize the data that came from the 2010 census which was relatively fresh at that moment in time and that's the time it makes sense to update all that data which should be part of what's being looked at in in terms of what's going to drive the plan so we didn't really we didn't do that this time our primary intent was to update the plan to include two new required elements that were required by the state legislature since 2013 so one has to do with forest fragmentation so in the report that was handed out to you this two-page report I think it's right in the front if you go to page two starting about halfway down there's a full of point list of things that identify where the specific updates in general to the plan were so we talked about forest fragmentation it it appears in multiple chapters in the plan so you'll you'll see a number of things that are related to that now the other it has to do with energy planning so because of changes in state law Waterbury like other municipalities in the state have an opportunity to have an energy plan that can be viewed by the public service board when some applicant goes in to site whether it's a wind facility or some large-scale solar facility the things within our town plan can be given what's called substantial deference precisely what that is not exactly sure but it's more than what it was before so that was part of our goal was to include some information in the plan that would give us some additional leverage and standing with the public service board and also with with act 250 and act 250 procedures now as part of the process we had you know we had a lot of public meetings and various people showed up and there was a certain amount of what I'd call mission creep it wasn't necessarily our intention to update some various sections in the plan but but we got some input people wanted some of the data for example in the local economy section to be updated so we did that so we updated some of that that information but it really didn't include we weren't rewriting what the goals and objectives of the plan we were trying to put some fresh some fresh data in that the other thing is that since 2013 the village government has been dissolved and so we had all kinds of references all littered throughout the plan between Waterbury Village as a separate government and the town of Waterbury as a separate government well that distinction no longer exists so there was some language you know Bill Bill provided some updated language for us to talk about some of the things structurally that have taken place since since those events I guess really last last year and now we're all big one happy somewhat happy family like a lot of families it's not always a hundred percent happy so a lot of that a lot of that information was was updated as required by state law we did have a public hearing we as I said we have multiple meetings our meetings are run very very informally and if people show up and they have something to say they get an opportunity to say what it is that they want to and so you know we had lots of input on that score so that said I'm gonna let Steve earn his pay and and give you some more of the detailed information about what's in the draft thank you thank thanks Kim so just like to explain a little bit more about the process and delve a little bit deeper into the issue of forest fragmentation and also energy planning to explain that and then give you and anyone else an opportunity to to ask questions at this point I I also passed out a timeline and the goal of this presentation if you will would be for you to set a date for your public hearing that has to be at least 30 days from the transmission of the plan which we'll call tonight and no more than 120 days so we can talk a little bit more about the timeline after we've gone through the plan so as as you know we work closely with the Central Mont Regional Planning Commission around many aspects of planning there are supports and we've had a lot of consultation with them Ken mentions people in the community like Alyssa who helped us with the local government the local economy chapter a bill of course who helped us with local government chapter the Central Mont Regional Planning Commission provided us with planning support for both the issue of forest fragmentation and energy planning Ken alluded to the energy planning being optional for municipalities it's required for regions the state Act 174 which was enacted in 2016 required regional planning commissions to come up with a regional energy plan to meet the standards and you may have heard about a goal of 90% renewable energy usage by the year 2050 and then interim goals years 2025 and 2030 so the regional plan addresses that that plan has been approved I serve as our commissioner to the Regional Planning Commission so we've approved the the regional energy plan so the local plan is optional but it does give us a benefit in proceedings Ken mentioned with the what's now called the Public Utility Commission used to be the public service board and a good example of the role of the middle plan in their proceedings is the rise in North Hill of South Tower where our municipal plan certainly had a standing in that procedure so the energy plan is really intended to be proactive its intent to say this is the way we want to see renewable energy develop in the future in our municipality and so let's start with that it's it's included in this beefy package of paper and is as the draft energy plan it's appendix B so let's just start there and then I'll come back and say a few words about the forest fragmentation issue and then open it up for questions so the energy plan follows a set format and if you go to the introduction it talks about the plan a little bit of the background that Ken and I have have offered to you and it has basically three sections it has analysis and targets it looks at an analysis of current energy usage this is it's about two-thirds of the way through and it's just before the packet of maps that that are the municipal plan maps so section one is analysis and targets and sets up a baseline of information about energy usage in water very these are largely estimates they come from sources such as efficiency for months green mountain power some of our own data such as municipal energy use which is a very important component and so on and talks about renewable energy generation the hydro facility at Waterbury dam we mentioned the new hydro mini hydro generator that's in our water main on Guptell Road and it talks about all the rays solar arrays including the well field on sweet road Ben and Jerry's has a large solar array a half a megawatt solar ray so it it inventories that energy generation and then talks about an energy usage including transportation because that's a huge energy usage as we all know so so it sets up some parameters and does some analysis of that data and then it talks about it's section two pathways and implementation actions and this is basically laying out a game plan if you will like any good plan whether it's force or planning you got to have a game plan and this is the game plan and it addresses conservation and energy efficiency which is a huge aspect of moving forward in our energy future if you will and then it talks about reducing transportation demand this is on the third page of the introduction and and then it talks about land use and this is another important aspect of energy use the more we can concentrate higher density villages tend to be very efficient ironically cities are one of the most efficiently efficient forms of energy use because they are so dense if you look at it from a per capita basis and villages have that same benefit so land use is a very important aspect of conserving energy and then the siting of renewable energy generation which is you know where we would like to see energy and where we want to discourage it and then the third section is mapping and there are a set of maps in here they're eight and a half by eleven because I didn't want to generate even more paper they are in color and they're at the end of this section and it starts with looking at two aspects of natural resources one is what are termed known constraints and then another one is possible constraints known constraints are the areas where we really don't want to see a solar array or a wind turbine class 2 wetlands the rare endangered species sites the flood plain river quarter areas floodway so on so so this is really the kind of the red flag areas for where we want to see facilities cited and then the next page is the possible constraints map you can see it's filled with color and this is basically the yellow flag where there may be issues deep slopes deer habitat bear habitat prime ag soils it doesn't mean that these aren't good sites for renewable energy facilities it's just the yellow flag that there needs to be further site investigation in order to develop a site like that so so that's the purpose of that map and then it goes into a series of maps for the public hearing we'll have we'll probably project them for the public hearing so we can really delve a little bit more into detail that talks about solar resources south facing slopes open fields things of that nature solar resource map wind resources which tends to be of course the higher elevation areas and that includes primary wind sites where we have a relatively few because we're pulling out the constraints with with prime wind and then secondary wind where there may be some possible constraints and again it's primarily the ridge lines as we know from larger scale wind but smaller scale wind is becoming much more popular it's much more flexible the technology is really evolving and I think we're going to see a lot more smaller scale wind the regional energy plan really encourages towers of 120 feet or less tub height of 120 feet or less so what you might see on a farm or a school or even in somebody's backyard so that's the the energy plan in the nutshell I'll say just a few words about the forest fragmentation issue can mention state statute there's an act 171 which was enacted just last year of 2017 that requires municipal plans to address forest fragmentation I think the law understands that some fragmentation of forest areas inevitable but asks us to look at these issues and try to minimize impacts of fragmentation due to development other other activities so so we've looked at this with the conservation commission and also looked at it in terms of wildlife habitat because I think the law my understanding of the law is it's really intended to protect animal species birds and mammals and so on that are dependent on interior forest areas so so there's a map that I'll draw your attention to that's a new map that was developed it's 2.5 it's right in the middle of your 11 by 17 map packet and it's titled forest resources and connectivity map so this is based on state data there's a state mapping system called biofinder and it's a publicly available mapping system it's statewide and this picks up a number of layers from that statewide mapping system this map was prepared by the regional planning commission the plan the planning mission reviewed it made comments and this is the draft map at this point so it looks at these areas of an interior forest and a different priority mostly highest priority and then looks at connectivity blocks which is relating to wildlife and shoot still hill area is the one that you hear a lot about these days conservation commission is is done a lot of work with landowners in that area trying to highlight the importance so so this has an area around shootsville hill that's purple on this map and then it looks like it looks at road crossings where you would tend to see more wildlife crossing and where you we want to address that through signage or some other means to try to minimize the blood teams the bloodshed right exactly and the safety issue to be honest I mean it could be deadly obviously hitting hitting a large male so so this is there's some language in both the especially the natural resources section that talks about about how development should be handled it's the language is just cautionary I think when the planning commission gets back to the zoning rewrite we'll look at that especially in terms of the higher elevation areas and how some of these considerations may be built in to the ridge light hillside steep slope regulation so it's meant to be informative it's meant to meet statutory requirements I mentioned the regional planning mission many do you remember Claire Rock who is our zoning administrator she's now a senior planner with the regional planning commission Claire has been working closely with us on the forest fragmentation issue another one of their staff who's now the planning director for the city of musky Eric Warwald drafted the energy plan for us water relief by the way was very involved with that we've had them come to a number of meetings and review the plan provide comments and so we've had some good partnerships so far and intend to continue that through this public hearing process hey mark very good Steve jump back to the energy portion of it how does how does the municipal plan and the regional plan coincide as far as does the regional plan designate like a piece of pie from a percentage perspective of how much energy efficient solar rays and whatnot or how many megawatts we have to provide as part of this 2050 goal do each does each town get designated like a mile marker that they got to try to reach by certain dates to in the year 2050 that that goal meet be met of 90% so in other words every every town based on their energy you should have to come up with X amount of a percentage of the overall usage you understand what I'm getting at here so there's an analysis of energy usage at the regional level and there's also an analysis of energy usage at the local level and a big part of what you have to do in the energy plan both at the regional and the local level and the local plan has to be consistent with the regional plan so the regional plan so there's a regional plan when our town plan comes from this process one of the things they have to make determination is that our local plan is consistent with the regional plan so it's you know they can't be going one way and we're going another direction but a lot of it has to do with being able to demonstrate that we have a sufficient amount of land area to meet the renewable energy goals that have been established by the state so if we have to meet so many megawatts of solar or wind we have to be able to demonstrate that there's enough land area we can't say everything's constrained you can't put anything anywhere so you have to be able to show that there's a sufficient land here and doesn't necessarily mean that where we the town the town government's actually going to have to be the one that provides it but we have to be able to show that there are sufficient there's a sufficient amount of land area opportunities for people to be able to site those facilities yeah I think specifically the regional plan is more generalized and you know it does do an inventory region wide in terms of energy use and the sources of that energy you know whether it's you know oil gas you know whatever the wood whatever the source is and looks at what's currently provided by by renewable sources and then I think the answer to your question is that it takes that that pie of what percent is renewable what percent is non-renewable and then it sets out a pathway to try to reduce that non-renewable source and an expand so a goal may be to try to encourage the use of electric vehicles electric charging stations and so on so that's a way to try to steer no pun intended the transportation towards electricity that can be generated in a renewable fashion so so the the the benefit of having a local plan is that we we can look more specifically at what our demands are and what our usage and have strategies which make sense for Waterbury rather than having it just dictated by the by the region so the region has some has mapping which is region-wide that is you know includes water merry obviously but but this goes into a lot more detail as far as what are what our current uses of what what a pathway moving forward look would look like for water so this 2050 thing is is it just a suggested goal or is it a mandate to be 90% renewable by 2050 it's a target it's like any any of the like climate change targets or so we'll look at energy targets it's a it's a goal that we're gonna try to achieve yeah each town will look at its better strength as far as you know do they have access ability to our availability for more solar arrays versus wind or you know different types of abilities to get to that milestone it may not be a little bit everything it may be one stronger like several wind towers as opposed to Waterbury maybe having one or two or not at all so I guess it does the plan point out through its process their specific avenues that are better suited for different types of like the solar or part of the mapping that was done at the regional level already identifies areas that are best favorable for it for those types of things so they're able to do some analysis for example they can map out places where there's deep slopes and where you would have say southern exposure those sorts of things and some of the things that have been identified as known constraints have already been identified at their at the state and or the regional level so so Steve is suggesting this ours kind of fine tunes it a little bit but they already get a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of identifying just in terms of an energy production basis where where the low-hanging fruit is like your day Chris I think the important thing to remember is what Ken talked about is that there's no mandate that municipalities generate any electricity at all it's simply that you can't use your town plan or your zoning bylaws to prohibit any of these things from being built in your town you've got to have sufficient areas where these types of facilities can be cited and then at this point we're leaving it to the market to decide whether a solar array is going to be built somewhere or a wind tower is going to be built somewhere there's nothing in state law now anyway that says each municipality has to go out and generate X amount of you know like that it's simply that that you can't exclude the renewable energy resources from being developed in your community and the plan as they just said tries to identify areas where it's best suited to do it and I guess from what you're talking about these known constraints it's identifying areas where if somebody came in and said we want to put something here you could say no because it's a wetland or it's a you know it's a floodplain or what have you right the red flags always go off with industrial scale projects and those are the ones where they clearly they need to be cited in greatest care whether they're they're potentially going to be cited where there's a very real bonafide sensitive area or you know part of it may also be you know aesthetics you know large-scale energy production facilities regardless of how the energy is being produced generally it's not viewed as being attractive it's one thing to put a bunch of solar panels on your roof like I have and my neighbors don't even notice it you fill the entire field with solar panels it's a very different thing and so you know we talked a little bit about you know the shoots fell here hill area for example and both whether it's in terms of forest fragmentation or any other kind of resource protection you know it's a very sensitive area and we've had multiple conversations with the conservation commission not just as part of this update but other things where that area really needs to be handled with with kid gloves and you know so having some language in our town plan it's going to give us some additional leverage when somebody other than the town is making a decision we want to be able to have our best foot forward to be able to articulate what's important to Waterbury to this other board that's going to make a decision that we don't get a chance to override and that's that's what I think is is really important now the other thing that in terms of things that the town might be able to do at the local level is to encourage and or facilitate things for example like electric vehicle charging stations you know Steve mentioned your transportation is a component to it you know low having electric vehicles having them be able to recharge having them to be able to recharge the resources that can be an important component helping us to meet those state those state goals for you know switching from fossil fuel based energy sources to something that's more renewable source I have a question I don't see anything in here in headings that relate at all to you know character or aesthetics and route 100 the corridor is it you're hearing me okay the the corridor is it is a byway a scenic or in a byway the Green Mountain byway a designated sign by way and it doesn't just pertain to what you can see from route 100 because I was part of the whole process when I was on the conservation commission but it's kind of extends away from the road to so how does that mesh with what you just said Ken about industrial scale developments which so it isn't just Shootsville Hill which you can clearly see because of the forest the wildlife connectivity has got its own some sort of protection or something by recognizing it but is there a way to extend that to other parts of route 100 so we had some conversation with members of the Congress Conservation Commission about this issue in terms of scenic quality and there was a lot of discussion about trying to do some sort of scenic quality mapping so what we did is put an action item and I was I was gonna try to find it here I think it's in the natural resources chapter in the actions under under scenic resources but the idea is to try to do some sort of inventory and there there is a kind of a scientific approach to this if you will as you know being landscape architect to analyzing scenic views and so on we address it in our rich line hillside steep slope breaks kind of in reverse in terms of trying to have development be what we call minimally visible up on the higher hillside but so this is a project that we've now identified it's it's a new action item in the plan that we've identified to look at creating a scenic resources map other some other communities have done this did you mention that Williston did a scenic resource map as part of your work there right so the short answer is we discussed it we don't really have the things in place now to really do it effectively and so we've instead what we've done is identified that we put this on the to-do list going forward is something that we should do to help us to get to that issue because to really do it effectively it would have to be based on some kind of a study and we just don't have that in place okay I thank you I mean I have some knowledge of active 50 and new criterion eight and the whole issue of context and I guess all of that would go into your study as well identifying what the different context are and go from there thank you I think we have to hire a consultant that really has some expertise and you know we need to be a project that you as a slack word would be interested in moving forward with as well yeah the two mapping projects that were added into the plan was one to do some additional mapping for wildlife corridors especially in the shootsville hill area and then the other one is to do a scenic resource mapping project I had a question thank you I had a question about the map that you were just pointing to yeah and on the on the east side of route 100 and shootsville hill area it's shaded purple it's the highest priority connectivity block there are a number of like white areas that are cut out of those why is it have sort of the pockmarks in that yeah those are typically fields okay so so this map was generated using aerial photogrammetry so they're not forested so they're non forested areas okay yeah and then I was curious why on the west side of route 100 where my understanding is that large mammals or crossing route 100 at shootsville hill so they're coming from the state forest none of that is shaded as a highest priority connectivity block it's just a prior priority connectivity block it's yellow any reason why that would be or that's just the way it turned out yeah I know I'm not surprised one who's highly knowledgeable about this map but it really has to do with how forest blocks function as a large block and I think the determination with that man's field state forest especially is that functions as a block shootsville hill functions as a block and then I think the state did some analysis of each of those blocks to say well what what's the value of that area and shootsville hill knowing that wildlife is the highest value I think that was termed a connectivity block Mount Mansfield course even though obviously there's there are important wildlife corridors overall the forest block is what's is what's most significant did the central Vermont Regional Planning Commission work with a agency natural resources who had done mapping two years ago and that was part of what was the uses exhibits at the North Hill Horizon Tower hearing well you don't really know well yeah the Conservation Commission brought a map this is purely data right out of biocliner this is data that's publicly available already we haven't done any modification to the state data the conservation came a conservation commission came with a map that they had developed in concert with the agency of natural resources and some other partners and the the planning commission felt that it was really premature to put a map in that hadn't gone through a really thorough public process so that's why the planning commission work with conservation mission to come up with an action I have to do that mapping and in that case we would involve agency natural resources people like Jens Helke we'd look at some of the these specific areas and really look at them in more detail looks is on page 133 with reference to that that it looks as though you're considering it more of a future action item anyway it looks like in in prior language and previous pages it discussed what the current zoning is there and the fact that it's it's created some unintended consequences and the follow-up here is that you have the intent to continue to work on that to delineate these particular areas and and address it with more more instructive language in the future is that fair assessment yes yeah because I think it obviously involves a lot of private property so you know we want to be very careful as a municipality when we're looking at how the plan and zoning regulations in particular impact private property to make sure that we have a good public process that we property owners and it's also always important to remember the town plan is not zone and so the zoning which is our regulations should be based and help to implement in the town plan but moving from the more general to the more specific and as Steve mentioned there is some mapping some work that's already done by the conservation commission we really feel it needs to be taken just one step further that that would help to inform us on potential zoning changes is there any specific pressures based on the state's guidelines about forest fragmentation that that have in other words put pressure on you guys to to draft certain things and in the municipal plan addressing specifics about forest fragmentation or what's the overall goal just to try to make people aware of the issues pertaining to forest fragmentation and and what to you know to do to help prevent it or is there specific guidelines by the state's rules that you're trying to meet with us it's as I understand Chris it's not that specific you know ultimately the plan has to be approved by the Regional Planning Commission so you know for lack of a better word you know we had to be able to show that we did some sort of an analysis that makes sense and that we have some ideas and some strategies that are going to help to preserve forest blocks where they occur for all of the reasons that we might think about why it's important to do that from whether it has to do with water resources or wildlife resources any of those things and you know ultimately the Regional Planning Commission will have to look at it and say yeah that you know that makes sense and no doubt there'll be a number of questions like well did you look at this did you look at that as people start to drill down into that now I think in terms of waterbury one of the I think both an advantage and a challenge for us at the same time is that we're a community we have lots of forested areas lots of big forested areas that are protected because they're controlled by the state and so so without doing anything we're already going to do a lot at the same time because we've got those big areas it's also important to make sure that they're still connected in some way because as we all know 100 goes right down the middle splits the town east and west and you have these big giant forested blocks on either side you wouldn't you wouldn't want to not consider how those things are going to be connected in some way so I think that's that that's the challenge for us unfortunately when one of the biggest contributing factors to you know participating for force fragmentation is financial pressures people having to be forced to sell large tracts of land or choosing to sell large tracts of land that go into hands like people like me who you know turn around and develop it and hence your force fragmentation problem you know had a little discussion with Mr. Shumlin back when he was in office the earlier implement attempt to implement force fragmentation rules at the state level stirred up quite a hornet's nest with a lot of a lot of people so I was just wondering how that had kind of backed down a little bit from from that first attempt but sounds like it has to some degree so I don't think the goal of state law or what we're being asked to do is to prevent development I think the whole idea is to try to you know channel development where where it is appropriate as a least impact and try to keep really critical areas intact so so that's the benefit of a plan as it gives us an opportunity to try to do something that makes sense for Waterbury there are many parts of the state that don't have town planning efforts as sophisticated as Waterbury's they may not have zoning regulations they may not have subdivision regulations and the challenges for them are would be far greater than for us because we do have some of those processes and those tools that we're already utilizing and that you know gives us a chance it's also really important to understand what the resources are so that you can be responsible and I think what's land owners understand what the resources are that's helpful too yeah that's one big benefit of the plan is it identifies identify the resources what do we have to do with respect to this timetable is that something that needs to be adopted by by the board right so the next step I put this in my introduction I mentioned it to Bill earlier is that we're we're on a bit of a crunch to get the municipal plan re-approved by December 9th because that's when our current plan expands so this timeline is designed to get us to that goal and so what we are requesting is that you would warn a public hearing or authorize us to warn a public hearing for your meeting on October 15th your second meeting in October and you could pick a time I'm assuming you'd be willing to do this at a regular meeting I think it's a good opportunity to make sure that we get full participation so to the extent possible to the extent yes and we do try to publicize these things what are your thoughts Bill yeah that's fine I just had a concern about the time the October 15th over here they can warn that and meet the 30-day deadline right I'm concerned about the November 5th select board makes changes or the the next one is only a 15 right right so the way it works is the first one has to be between 30 and 120 days and then the next one's a 15-day warning so the idea is after your first public hearing you the select board can make any substantive changes to the plan you can make any revisions things that you might like to have changed I would insist hey you might engage the planning commission they're willing to help out if you need suggestions for language or have a concern that they might address and then on November 5th that would be an opportunity to incorporate the comments and have a new have another draft to warn for December 3rd so that's the goal only 15 day warning for the second crack you know both of them are actually 15-day warnings but we just have this time Frank so the language that's in here now is pretty much final draft form from your perspective the work that you've done and then it's just a matter of the select board having the opportunity for more public input and any finalized changes okay yes yes well the the question I had was just about the language relative to the substation here on Winooski Street and there's their power lines terminating there at the substation on Winooski Street and I had me scratching my head a bit I thought oh the plan needs to be revised yes right okay well these are the types of things why we need more eyes on it because any comments like that email me because obviously it's been moved we missed that so far there's going to be plenty of I think it's on one of the maps that the planning Commission provided you as well right they're probably dealing with dated material outdated yeah good catch okay I'll make a note of that and but yeah those are the types of things that we want to change tweak in the next draft but those things don't have to be done right so I think what you should do now is entertain a motion to one hearing for October 15 public hearing right they've received public comments on the plan and then those types of things like we'll come up at that hearing and we can tweak them in the final form change those and well you the board can make substantive changes after their first hearing but when after the second hearing then any substantive changes after that we require a third hearing so we want to catch as many of these things as we can yep it more appropriate to discuss changes or to talk things out more at a select board meeting I just feel that if I just show up to a meeting I'm like I want this change this change to this change is that appropriate or is it better to just bring up something that we want to discuss at a select board meeting verse well it'll be your regular meeting I think what I would suggest is you warn the hearing for that night on this draft and then it'll have some time for discussion among yourselves so that you have an opportunity to talk about the plan further and this as it is is available on the town website for it's already on the town website correct so this would be the draft that you would you would warn this draft to the other thing that I would add is that that is I'm sure you all know is when you have a public hearing you never really know what is going to come forth at the public hearing so taking that first step and just seeing and hearing what it is that that folks come up with because no doubt there will be some other their errors of omission or commission or some things that perhaps people might like to see added or changed in some fashion that they would help to inform you as to what changes might go into the plan this format was very useful with respect to highlighting where the substantive changes were and everything so it makes it much easier to review I will make the motion that we warn public hearing on the plan for our October 15th select board meeting the first public meeting yes so you actually have to want to public hearing for the plan it can be separate so I would including your motion to warn the public hearing at seven o'clock and then you know the select board typically would you don't eat a quorum of the select board to conduct a public hearing and then the select public meeting is just going to happen to coincide the same date as our select board meeting is there a timeline suggested here too as well seven well I think seven o'clock I think we're talking about half an hour at least 45 minutes something like that 45 minutes if you'd like we could we could have maps available I think it would be brief because I think we want as much time as possible for comments I think it'd be quite brief okay consider the motion made is there a second I'll second any further comments or questions earlier well you could do it at 630 but it's up to the board if you that's why you asked about timeline yeah I don't know what if there's any insight as to what might be on the agenda by October 15th okay all right well then we'll just leave it at seven okay well she's been made and seconded all those in favor hi hi hi thank you very much thank you thank you well done you're welcome to keep your home thank you congratulations on your retirement yes thank you okay skipping lefty you're you're swinging at the bat here people that I won't have to use hands microphone I'm gonna give you some bugs right up on the shelf to the left and they need another they need another microphone as it would you heard this is a warm meeting for the Edward for our utility district in case we had three commissioners come as we do tonight so and we're legal it's not a joint meeting we wanted to be on your agenda here to talk about 51 South Main Street and I would say selling property public property is the toughest thing the trustees have had to do in terms of deciding what to do with things so do you have those bills got some information he's gonna hand out to you and I think at our last commissioners meeting we talked about subdividing the property keeping part for parking and then selling the building and a smaller part of the parcel we had one unsolicited proposal for the building I don't think they secured financing and things so we wanted to share this with you knowing the motion that was passed at town meeting and things and whether you know in the future and Steve worked on this force this is the map of a lot what we were considering and we'll probably talk about at our meeting next week is going out with a new RFP subdividing selling the building with point four nine six acres and the municipality of the district utility district keeping this three-tenths of an acre just to your map has two sides to it this is a subdivision that the former village trustees asked staff to to look into whether or not the property could be subdivided so I asked Steve to look into it from a planning perspective and then also come up with a couple of scenarios so the map is the same overlay basically and on one side you see the back parcel is three-tenths of an acre and skip just said the parcel that the building is left on is point four nine six acres the other side the subdivision was a little smaller it was point two two acres and the bigger parcel was you can't read but it's point five seven six I think and the only difference is that of course in the bigger parcel you get a few more parking spaces so that's what the map shows and then the eight and a half by eleven paper that I sent around the trustees also asked if I could work with Dan sweet to try to put some values on these parcels so the scenario one which is the point two two acre subdivision in the back that parcel Dan put a value of 129 600 on and the five seven six to the edge of the right-of-way where the parcel the building is on is 135,000 and then scenario two which is the three-tenths of an acre he's got 131,400 for that parcel and then 133 200 for the point four nine six acre parcel the value does not include the building at all the building in fact maybe a liability but if the building wasn't there is what we looked at the building is really the issue for the utility district right now but that's what these two documents are and we can talk about the rest of the ideas that we already have. I have a question what's the private parcel to CL what was the CL? For some reason Dan he showed what the the value of the parcel would be to the edge of the right-of-way so that would be the four nine six acres on the point three acre parcel the CL is the centerline of the road and you know he said if if you valued it to the centerline of the road it would be potentially a little bit higher that was on the on the other one I wouldn't worry about that middle number at all Jane because the centerline of the road is in the road. What was the value of the four nine six? 133,200 right 133,200 and Steve I think you estimated the point three acre parcel the municipal was going to keep at this time good handle 30 30. The point three was about 30 the point two two was about 20 spaces that would be just the municipal part of the lot and then there was some other analysis with what the building might involve. Did you take into consideration handicap spaces at all which are bigger than regular spaces? The only reason I ask is because Skip had asked a question about the Elm Street lot and you know there's in one sense of the word you can say you know we lost a couple spaces because those handicap spaces seldom get parked in but you have to have them. So it might be a little bit of a space less or that there's the green that's built in for screening and maybe the handicap spot could use part of that area. And if we were to you know sell the product labeled private parcel here we would have to negotiate rights away and things into the back part of the municipal lot there so I think this is the thinking of the commissioners to go out with an RFP proposing this you know we wanted to let the select board know I think in the future you know the need for parking and whether the town is interested I know what the town meeting they approved 37.5 but had conditions on this the spaces of things. I've also asked Bill to get the information for what the trustees did for the Elm Street lot that we did in 99 and 2000 so this information is coming out that you can compare what you might get involved with here. This mic is active but is the plan then for the RFP to go out? Is the plan to go out with an RFP with the building still in its current state? Yes. So that you have a little longer planning on knocking the building down? We were no we were going to get an RFP to see what the cost was we had a unsolicited proposal to use the building we weren't really attending to tear it down we were just looking to get the cost so we didn't feel it was worthwhile to go out for an RFP and have professionals prepare one when we really had no intention of doing I think we set aside fifty thousand. The town village meeting of 2017 you appropriated fifty thousand dollars decided to do it but you decided not to do it. I guess my question is have you considered the idea of flipping what you would keep and what you would sell so I think we're gonna propose the three pence of an acre keeping selling the so-called private parcel. But the idea of keeping that back parcels for parking? Future parking yes not that the district would develop it because we're not in the parking business anymore but that it would be available for the town to decide to purchase now or in the future and things. I guess I don't quite understand why you know you would I I guess my my question is why wouldn't you have the public parking along the property line so that somebody developing this site doesn't have to give you an easement to get through to use a parking lot at the back of the lot. I don't think the lot would be right enough to have parking and then to get access to the back if they were going to keep the building. Okay so you would entertain then having an easement of some sort to allow people to have access to the public parking lot at the back. Yes. Well I was going to be one of my questions under that scenario does that price tag reflect I guess the burden of the right way across that property to gain access to the municipal park what would be perhaps a municipal parking lot in the rear because usually something like that the values. Get out past Dan Sweet. I didn't know. Well if that had been talked about. The ultimate the ultimate decider of what the value of that 0.496 parcel is if if the I mean I presume skip that if you decide to go forward the district would indeed go forward and subdivide the lot and then create a deed for the new lot. I mean the lot to the front of the road and whether Dan has a price on it of 135 or 285. When the trustees go to sell it the highest bidder is going to determine what the price is. He'll know it is right here she will know it is right way. Lefty or Cindy have anything to add to that or. No it is of course something we've dealt with a lot of ways and we're going to look like from anybody developing it like that we probably are going to look at splitting it somehow. Do you recall what the initial. Asking was originally for the first hour of the do you recall what you were looking to get out of it then to a minimum of 200,000. So we are looking for any decision from the select for tonight this is the kind of let you know where. What do we commissioners were headed to let you know I I would recommend that. You do kind of look into it reserving it for future parking is not immediate. I would say. Based on the Elm Street lot. The village spent. I had originally told Bill they were 18 spaces but when I actually counted of their only 16. Handicap space takes up to because you have to have a space for the van to open up so there's really only 4. 14 and 16 minus 2. So 14 real spaces and at those cost it's about 14,000 dollars of space. That we spent to develop them. You're right. And if you factored in the CPI and things that today that was in 2000 so it's now 18 years ago. That cost today would be 20,000 dollars a lot and the total cost would be 34,000. Right and I think it's a little bit apples and oranges because in order to get the spaces on Elm Street. The village had to buy the building that was there and then you have to take the building down. I mean it was burned by the fire department didn't cost a lot to take it down. But there was there was some cost involved in the fact that it wasn't. I've developed what this 3 tenths of an acre parcel. You know if the town did decide to buy that three tenths of an acre parcel it wouldn't have to do anything with the building. It would just buy the land and then build the parking lot. You wouldn't have to worry about building. I was interested in your comment Mark about did you think about flipping it? Yeah I mean it comes down to visibility. I think some of the problems with you know we've done those parking studies in the town or in the village and you know there are quite a there are quite a few parking spaces are actually available to the public but the understanding of which ones are public versus private and the question mark I think to your average consumer even locals don't necessarily know what what's public and what's private and I think potentially say a building gets say this building gets raised and another building goes up and there's going to be a parking lot here to try to explain clearly that there's a parking lot behind whatever is now here I think is a much harder scenario to quickly describe through signage verse if the municipal parking if if the idea is that we would as a town consider to do any kind of parking project here I would think that the public parking lot would be up front and then there would be a right away in the parking lot of a pass through in that parking lot to develop whatever residential first floor commercial whatever they want to do to me makes more sense from a parking perspective as a business owner as a developer that's you're right to have parking out in the front and have the building in the back rather than having constant traffic through your yard to get to that back building would certainly be a preference well it's not only they're gonna park back there but then now they're walking back to get to Main Street depending on what the building is I could see that as potentially devaluing the options because if it's residential that gets built there if we're trying to say there's public parking space back here and people are going to their cars late I don't know just a scenario that I think creates a little bit more of a better for me I feel like the flip of the plate again you go the other way then and we consider this as a town to purchase we would be responsible for raising the building that's why I ask that question right right now what you're talking about Mark is quite visible if you look at that parking lot most any day now there's very few cars parked out there in back of it whether it's because people don't realize they can get out there a while I don't know but it's very few times that there's anybody in that parking lot this last month or so there's a big sign there it's just not being used I think the fact that the building is not used may contribute a little to that because people have kind of sort of dropped off the radar screen as a usable functioning space and I think if you had an active business in this building or some activity there that would potentially change that I guess I understand where you're coming from Mark and I had the same question about just getting an easement to get to that public lot in the back would be something you have to deal with but I would say I think it's by putting a parking lot out by the street you would be changing this one you're eroding the character of Main Street by removing the potential for a historic building a building that maybe we're going to take down a historic building but something that would have that character it would also has the walk-in business that's very appealing for somebody to just for pedestrian walk-in right from the street or anybody trying to rent out space or restaurant or anything else like you're you have an active successful restaurant right on Main Street versus putting it at the back of the lot that's kind of a disadvantage too I think so I think that I can understand where you're coming from but by cutting up the lot it would remove the some of the creativity or flexibility for somebody to develop this which we saw in that the developer that you had come in here on December January which had a very attractive the person that you were they met with a few times I don't remember his name Chris what was his last name Parsons I mean he had a to me a very attractive development which was using the building at the front and was willing he was able to shoe shoe horn and quite a bit of parking on the side in the back but I don't know whether you know somebody else purchasing this and having less land would be constrained I guess you that time would tell well if they made us an offer that we couldn't refuse they might have the whole thing you know but there was no guarantee you'd get any public parking out of it that's the risk and I think you know the parking study said we had a good balance as long as we continue to have some public parking because we have such successful businesses downtown and places that are the parking needs to be within a five minute walk whatever you know when this is a segue to the next item Steve by doing this split on this lot what are their coverage roles in this zoning there's some downtown commercial zoning district and there's no minimum lawn size you can actually fill a hundred percent of the lot with the building because many buildings up especially where your building is covered entire parcel the Stinson graves building that would be easy to fill a lot like a lot you can but but I came up with this layout based on Carson's design for reconstructing the existing building but I think that he may want to provide a lot of flexibility I would agree with Jane that as a developer it's a lot more attractive to have her appeal of the building especially if you're gonna do any kind of you know more commercial use of the building but I think when you look at these two options you pretty much took Chris Parsons plan we reduced I think you took out some of the seats in a restaurant right and that provided enough space for municipal parking so he could still do pretty much what he proposed and have the municipal parking in the back with some small reduction and you'd have office space instead of restaurants space is how does an easement by necessity work in terms of how it gets to find through the other lot well the zoning requires a 50 foot easement but the developer 50 wide 50 feet wide to access development but the developer can approve a narrow easement but the layout I did and you know we are really not talking about a specific site right here tonight but we'd use the style in the parking for the front building to access the rear so easement would essentially be over that aisle through the through the parking to access the rear it's done very very confidently in urban areas so that's the only village commercial downtown commercial yeah so anyway we wanted to let you know where we were and that I wouldn't expect anything to happen and if you decide to do something maybe it comes up at the next town meeting I don't know that we would be you know anything would have happened before then anyway in terms of you know it's been a slow process here I think we would ask Bill to have a draft of this two-part RIT for our meeting next week to kind of look at if that's possible no to to parcel that subdividing you know that's what we talked about at the last I think going out and I think we're looking at the three tenths of an acre there and kind of decide you know going out do it we've had a number of people that have told lefty they're interested in making an offer but they have a hard time putting the words on paper to come up with something so we haven't heard from anybody except the one unsolicited and Chris Parsons you know since the other so your RFP would be to to what to sell this wall with the building and have somebody else yes give you a proposal for development on it do you need to approve that with whatever they're gonna put are you just gonna sell it well we would like to know what they plan to do and we're gonna have to go to a public vote and the public is gonna want to know what are you proposing to put there and things and yeah I mean that's the that's the big challenge when you sell municipal property is that you know the the public owns it and it's not like you or I just deciding to put our parcel up for sale the people are good I mean it was very clear when Dan Johnson came in you know he made a good proposal the trustees thought it was a good proposal it was put in two proposals actually but when it came to the public they didn't like what he was proposing to do there so they decided not to sell it and that's the challenges you've got to get over the hump of getting the public to approve the sale now when you know what they're gonna do with it is kind of hard and parcel of it when you say the public in this case you mean the water and sewer it's the same voters as used to be that the district boundaries are the same and it's the same we're a change in name only and got rid of all of our municipal obligations and so parking is now handed off to you folks and things so and you decided not to tear the building down because well we had a proposal where they wanted to reuse it for one you know and you're gonna spend we think it's worth just as much with the building there as it is without the building and the village would spend 50,000 and we're probably not gonna get it back so so anything dad no I guess it's pretty well clear on it I'll say I'll say one more thing on this and I don't know how it'll fall but I think it's gonna be exactly what you're talking about I think there's a lot of people that want this to potentially just be an open park but I'm sure the town plan addresses it which I haven't gotten into but the idea of density growing out of the downtown and each one of these lots are very important when it comes to the future of this town and I fear the development concerns that we saw with Dan Johnson's project is gonna reemerge with anything that happens to this property just because it does touch a significant number of residential customers and I don't know how to make sure that that is considered I think this the thing that I would hate to see is that we don't have an opportunity to to address the demand concerns when it comes to housing and affordability and I think a large format residential project is a potential use for this lot and I and I fear that that's not gonna happen because there's a lot of people that will band together and fight that from whether it's air rights son whatever I think it's just a I don't know how to word that going forward but I do have concerns that will kick this can down the road for more years and we're not getting you know income from a tax perspective and there's people in this town looking for housing yada yada yada so I would hope that there is someone to make that fight during this whole scenario because I just think that you know we could potentially be in a scenario where we have more housing for people well one one novel way to get it I understand exactly what you're saying and the problem is is it's the utility district that owns it sure and if the town if the utility district and the town could work out a deal where the parcel is owned by the town and whether it's by an outright for two hundred and sixty four thousand dollars or come up with some kind of agreement that you know you'll the town will pay something and the utility district will take something less than the full value and it becomes town ownership then everybody in town the town plan you can make those decisions we're in a situation now especially with the utility district skip just mentioned it the the new charter the utility district has leaves them with the authority to run a water and sewer system and to and to make decisions with regard to property that they own and really the decisions that they have are either we're going to continue to hold them and and do something that will ultimately benefit the utility district or we're going to dispose of it they they can't I don't think it's in their authority any longer they couldn't build the parking lot there if they wanted to they couldn't decide to lease the property to somebody to build something like they have very restricted powers compared to what they have and is it just residential customers on this utility that have voting rights and do they have to be yeah does that have to be there yeah same list as before yeah so so you know green mountain coffee roasters or Ben and Jerry's doesn't get a vote and even though you own property by district you don't live there anymore so you don't get it so I mean the Ben and Jerry's and the coffee roasters wouldn't get a vote if the town didn't either you know it's voters are really whether or not who or you own property but that's the other option is to figure out a way to transfer this property into ownership of the town and the town can study all those kind of things and make some decisions I think and you can correct me if I'm wrong commissioners but I think this proposal stems out of the fact that the parking study was done it indicates that there is a need for parking and your right chain it said there's no real need right now and Mark said it segues into the next one as long as the TD Bank is there and available but that's kind of the limbo now so I think the commissioners are proposing this three-tenths of the acre be carved off and whether the town wants to buy it and do something with it now to develop parking or they'll just hold onto it until ten years down the road and says we really need parking a lot will buy it from you know they're not going to develop it as a parking lot I don't think they can't right that's we can't spend the money to do that so so would you like to discuss TD pardon I said would you like to discuss the TD Bank north of you well I'm gonna close the utility commissioners because this item was me coming to you and it certainly is related and lefty and Cindy are welcome to stay in things living on Elm Street I know pretty much what parking is like downtown every day and there's a lot of this summer was pretty busy I would say and I think we were pretty fortunate TD Bank let that parking lot continue to be used with almost no restrictions and there were many nights that parking lot was full and I mean full there's probably 15 more cars in there than there were sort of marked spaces of fire lanes full the drive-through was full they were on the lawn and everything so that TD Bank lot was more than used this summer and if we were to lose it I think you know these businesses would suffer one of the biggest need of parking is the beer seller store to living on Elm Street there's some days there's you know out of state cars or the majority on there and they're all going to the beer seller and getting their beer and walking back and things so it's not just the restaurants and that Elm Street lot is full day in day out with people there so and I know I supported the select board looking into purchasing that when it happened and I mean when it came up for sale unfortunately we weren't able to do that and this new owner I've kind of heard he's has property in store or something but then I heard you know the sign went back up in the bank parking lot if you want to lease it you call you know the TD Bank folks and I thought well maybe it's falling through and then there was the new owner did his due diligence and did some contamination studies and things that found there is some contamination there from past uses it I've talked to the folks and the information is online it's not too serious they may have to remove some soils or it may be just a posting in the land records that there is contamination there so is it a the perspective new owner the property hasn't transferred yet right it's gonna it's but the perspective owner yeah and I Alyssa has been in touch with them and she can fill in kind of gaps I haven't talked to anybody except the folks from the state and Alyssa but that I wouldn't my point is that's pretty important to the downtown and I would encourage the select board to authorize Bill or direct him and maybe member of the select board and our debut to begin discussions with the new owner before he you know does something and closes off the importance of the town I don't think this is gonna happen for free I know the parking study said we should get some agreement or arrangements even if it's just after hours parking I think you know we should follow up with the Northfield Bank as well because that bank parking lot after hours is pretty full and things so I think stressing to this new owner you know open up to the needs of the importance of it and begin the discussion before he's got something that we're gonna close it off and it was right that we were looking at the future parking and before this is sold off and in something else it's available so I know Alyssa you can fill in any gaps I've left out about the this future owner I have never met him I don't know who he is and suggests maybe extending hello he was gonna stop and I guess the information I have now to start with is that the party is currently and still owned by TD Bank the closing which was originally anticipated at the end of August will now hopefully be at the end of this month still in process I have talked to the prospective owner who's hoping to purchase it by that point the sign in the window is on that new potential owners behalf anyone can call it it went to be to commercial out of Burlington I have spoken with that real estate agent I guess I would say just the biggest obviously as economic development director in town I would love to find a great use for the community that supports the existing businesses potential for new businesses other community needs all those types of things I'd say from the development and parking perspective the biggest consideration is there is parking requirements for certain things you saw from Steve's proposal the swing from office use to restaurant requires really different amounts of parking so obviously having what's currently configured as parking on your property allows flexibility and that if oh I need 15 spaces to get this permanent and they're sitting right there that's easy to do I think Mark can probably speak to me we don't have the spaces on your property and you all have discretion for that now as the slacker but the point is just the story I've heard is until they have confirmed the tenants which we're working on and it's an ongoing process but it's not done yet particularly as they don't get on the property I think they're hesitant to commit to anything until they know what their own needs would be for tenants so that's all fairly big but just to be involved in the conversation and you know the importance of it and what might be worked out later on and stuff so that's what I wanted to stress I know lefty sees some of the parking on Elm Street on an all few nice thing about that it goes back to your earlier comment 51 South Maine is empty and people are parking on top of each other one block away it's like okay signage and signs are only good for people that read so that doesn't pertain to having a driver's license and it wasn't like that while the bank still operated and things I think people respected that there was I know a year ago there was more use of 51 I think there's a lot of I mean I looked at the bank this morning at 10 o'clock when I walked back by and they were already 15 cars at 10 o'clock in the morning and the restaurants weren't open so it looks like employees have graduated graduated back to parking there because the bank is no longer in business so we're just fortunate the bank didn't drag some Jersey barriers in there and block it off yes custom wide any immediate thoughts from the board members about all of this as a whole as far as the municipal water districts portion TD bank north I guess I mean I would say I agree with Mark and then some comments from Bill kind of underlined it that this couldn't drag on for a long time with 51 South Bain Street and it's just a shame because you know we have a pretty bad downtown and we need that space for it you know both parking and some kind of useful possibly mixed-use apartments where it seems like you're kind of in a row because it's taking so long to it's complicated and stand but yeah I'm gonna use myself just because I feel like I'm too tight into this a little bit so those more comfortable with the deadline yeah I don't I don't know if we're gonna have the opportunity to buy that parcel I think I think we're just wearing a new hat and I think we're gonna have to figure out as a select board parking and I don't know Steve I know years ago like right right now years ago I've done it as a business I wanted to make a modification I would go to the DRB they would typically never stop over a requested project and they would send you over to the trustees and as far as I know the trustees never said no due to parking it with there was a blessing that happened and I think as we've grown as a downtown before I got here and even since I've been here I've seen the growth of downtown I think it's really good there's a ton of jobs that have been created from it I think it keeps the community strong but parking is something that I think we've we've luckily been able to use a lot of private parking for for the municipal good I guess you could say I know that my customers park in the TD Bank parking lot I know my customers park behind the building next to me I'm in constant communication with that owner whether or not I should be financially in support of his parking lot and part of me says yeah maybe I don't know what we need to do to address that concern I have heard that he may turn it into just paid parking and maybe that's a solution that might force more people to go down to 51 if they know it's free if those parking spaces are still available but that new owner could he's a wealthy owner and he could according to our rules go lot line a lot line and only build parking required to support whatever he builds and then he or she builds in the new project so that could just go away and I think that we're we're fortunate to have grown as much as we have with the use of that lot but I don't know what we could do moving forward I think an idea would be to reach out and say if you're gonna go through the effort and cost of putting in arms and then have some kind of enforcement officer for your parking lot and the headache surrounding I lost my ticket I lost whatever I don't know I think that's I don't know what that P&L looks like but I think maybe we could if we're willing to as a select board take on that public-private partnership of can we offer your lot up to the public as a public parking lot but you still own it and we're leasing it from you if there's a number that makes sense that they don't put the barricades in they don't put in the pay stations and we avoid having to go out and spend a significant amount of money on buying a lot maybe having to pay it I mean that's it that's a huge cost I mean we saw years ago as $14,000 of parking space so maybe there's a number that makes sense even financially to offer it up to a private landowner like the TD Bank owner and say hey here's what we'd be willing to pay as a town or is there a number that you would be interested in that we could kind of preserve what how it's currently set up and avoid some of maybe that spillover into the residential neighborhoods around I mean I guess I think the overarching thing too is that we just need to put parking on the list of to-dos I think the police thing came up a couple years ago and now I think we have to really make sure that parking is a is a regular conversation on this board so a couple things that I see being an issue even if the piece of property that the water district offered up was purchased by the town best case scenario the way the way the parking spaces kind of number out here if the reconstruction project goes through we will basically wash what we're losing and what we're gaining correct somewhere within reason they're saying 30 spaces on the 3 acres or 0.0 0.3 acres and I think last count we were going to lose somewhere in that right yeah yeah on main street yeah yeah yeah yeah the other issue is what's the public the what are the voters going to say well we if this gets brought to them what about the other businesses like Ari Fishman you know the Zenburn the Grange hall that have all been through parking issues how do you how do you address an issue like that where we're helping some and not others and then let alone the fact that taxpayers have got to get on board with just offering to purchase space here in the village to help businesses that aren't even theirs you understand and I know the importance of that but not everybody's going to see that same thing so there's some other issues here outside of just approaching the owner of TD and you know swinging a deal with these guys if it were to go in that direction that I could see happening here so yeah it's it's going to be an uphill battle with with all of this parking issue I guess I I don't know how other towns have dealt with it I know Montpelier got rid of the parking requirements for development but they also have I believe some municipal parking to downtown Burlington has municipal parking garages as far as I know so I think I totally agree with you I think it's it's going to it could be a hot button issue of people saying you know why why do I need to pay for that and and maybe there is a scenario that it could be an assessment on I mean I'm I'm about to say that maybe I should pay for it but how do I like how do we do it to make I mean there might be a scenario I know my grandmother owned a piece of property in Naperville Illinois and they ended up putting some kind of assessment on all the properties and it helped pay for a parking garage I'm not saying we build a parking garage but maybe there is a scenario that levels that playing field a little bit I will say that there are a lot of people that maybe don't have businesses downtown but they support my business and other businesses and they have the same parking headaches and it could potentially be a lot worse with 50 I mean with TD especially potentially going off the the use red so I think some people would actually probably be understanding of that especially if it's not highly impactful to them I guess it would come down to what's the cost and then we have that conversation and I and I I totally agree with you on that I think there is some balance it says that we also still just need a healthy vibrant downtown I I moved here because I saw the growth happening I decided on a business because I saw the growth of the downtown I think it's really important part of us as a community and not only living here but tourism as well yeah he has completed the Hubbard farm large culvert replacement just before you get the new workers house now that was completed the first week I was away that's come in $60,000 price tag there we did have a $40,000 grant we're in the process of finalizing the paperwork of the state will be so how many of those bigger stuff are going to become consecutively year after year got the road's going to be to be done Loomis Hill is going to need to be done blush Hill is going to need to be done barns Hills going to need to be done so you got big chunks of 800 to a million somewhere not range year after year for the next five six years you know so those are going to all start piling on top of each other so instead of one 10-year payment you're going to have six or seven 10-year payments all happening at the same time so what are those numbers going to do for our minutes do we really plan on taking on all those projects in the next 10 years I mean that's what I mean a few years ago about just borrowing $25 million and deal with the whole thing and get it over with I mean we're going to be at that point once we start overlapping these payments but I think the the idea of overlapping is that you're spreading out and you're you're allowing the roads to because they're all not going to age at the same rate and if you if you do one re-up like that I don't know if that really gets you that much farther ahead I don't I think some of these roads do have years ahead of them I think that that would be not financially responsible to just pull the trigger and do it right away have you been up barns Hill lately all the way to the top maple Street and take a ride up there I've been up I've been up Loomis and I agree that that road needs to be done and I'm sure there's other roads and similar yeah that's what I'm saying so condition but those are all going to pile on top of you at some point in your municipal tax rate because of it right so this suggestion that I'm saying is that we we consider this project mostly for a potential tax roll move that gets more income and hopefully ties up money for the shortest amount of time and we recover as much as possible that's my whole idea behind the 51 South Main Street decision or idea that I'm putting forward I totally agree with you that we also have to look at those costs moving forward but if if this project just gets kicked down for five more years from the utility district we've gained nothing I get it not to say that we have this derelict you know the building is gonna it's not derelict but it's useless useless property it's a waste for our downtown which is better than that we have you know all kinds of interest in and activity in our downtown to have this Lancet idol is so not to Mark's point I mean if you spend two hundred thousand dollars and you financed it with a five-year note so that's what forty thousand dollars a year that's right forty thousand dollars a year and then if it's five percent then five percent of forty thousand is another two thousand dollars a year so it's a penny right in five years you would pay back two hundred thousand dollars plus a few pennies of interest and you'd be done with it and if somebody developed three and a half million dollar project on there they would be they would be paying fifteen thousand seven hundred fifty dollars a year in municipal taxes so for five years your net your net expense is going to be forty four thousand and that's going to decline the interest will decline you're going to spend forty four thousand you got to take in almost sixteen thousand but that's if you were going to give it to him for free but we're not saying give it to him for free I'm just saying just the two hundred thousand dollars to buy I know you're not going to get to him for free so you're selling but just on the raw numbers even if you were gonna give it to him for free right in six or seven years you'd be ahead right because you're going to be getting that fifteen thousand sixteen thousand dollars of taxes a year forever and your payment to pay that two hundred thousand dollars is gonna go away after five years and if you sold it to him if you spent 200 and then you flipped it and you sold it for hundred and sixty five you're thirty five thousand you wouldn't even have to borrow so you know it's not a losing proposition the losing proposition is to leave it sitting the way it is do an absolutely nothing and and people can't even fight it for money. That's based on two hundred thousand but they're asking two sixty well you're the appraisal that you show here shows two sixty four. That's all they just got that from us. That's what Vance we said that those parcels would be worth if they were independent parcels you know. Do you think they would take two hundred thousand? You seem to imply that tonight that's partially why I brought it up. Well then they'd be done. Now here's a question can we put an RFP out even if we don't own it. Could we actually set up the deal before we were to ever consider the movement of any money. You'd have to have a purchase in sales. I don't know if anyone would I mean for example if we put an RFP out and Chris Parsons or someone like him put it. I mean I think they did have somebody spending too much money on a proposal if we don't even own it but I know it's just a question. Well we've already seen a proposal for the project. Maybe you could have could you negotiate with somebody who'd already put a proposal in it seemed like it had a lot of promise. We'd have to do we'd have to do an independent RFP on our own once. Yeah. Once we had the property but for right now I wouldn't expend a whole lot of energy trying to seek out RFPs when we don't even have. Well it's just I mean the scary scenario is we buy it and no one wants it right. Or we buy it and Chris Parsons isn't there anymore and we don't get the three and a half million dollar bill. And so like those are the scary so I was wondering if you could actually like I don't know what like talk through you know who knows. Yeah I think you could talk. I think you could talk to anybody. Yeah I'm not sure an RFP would be the right way but if you wanted to talk to a developer we'll leave their names on it. If you wanted to talk to a developer and say we're interested in a public product partnership would like to you know pursue buying a parcel and then selling it to you and negotiating parking you know that's kind of where the public element comes in. I think you could do that and talk to him about it. You wouldn't be able to. I don't think you could sign any kind of binding. Sure I understand that. But I think you could talk to a developer about that and say we have a need for parking and we have an idea of a parcel that might be available and so on and so forth. So I think you could add that conversation in advance. A little while ago when I said you have to get it through the public twice is you're going to have to get the town to agree to buy it and you're going to have the e-fund district have to agree to sell it. Maybe our economic development director might be interested in that conversation. The mess that went on when they had Dan's project with the public information stuff and everything else and everybody was in an uproar over it and scuttled that project and that's the same prospect that we're looking to take on. I partially disagree with that because they didn't have to go out to public vote. You don't have to. They can sell the parcel. They can enter into a purchase and sell agreement with anybody right now. The pitch is that if they sold it without allowing the public to vote, the voters in the district can petition a village meeting or a district meeting to negate the offer. So why is that a similar scenario if it were in R? Why invite the public side? And I'm not saying we try to do anything that the public is not in support of but I didn't hear a lot of people because the Chris Parson project was pretty I mean I know I keep referring to that but that's the most recent thing I know that really went public. I mean I didn't hear a lot of I feel like that one was addressing more the concerns of neighbors and community folks. I think the people that saw the presentation was pretty well satisfied with this. I think you know Johnson's proposal was a very... Fill the air rights and you know it went to the maximum as far as the height of anything else and the public just didn't like it and Chris's idea was a little bit more in keeping with what's there now. Anne you wanted to say something? Yeah I agree with what Bluthky said about nobody using 51.7 but that's only been within the last month. During the summer practically every day a lot was at least half full and then after five o'clock it would frequently be full. Three quarters and on weekends it was constantly filled and people would walk between my house to get you know over to the restaurants you know best the fire station and the rescue. So 51 is what's being used and I think maybe it's because everybody's got back to school or something. As soon as full foliage that'll fill up again. So it has been useful as far as parking goes. I still think one of your biggest uphill climbs is going to be getting the voters on board with a purchase for the purpose. I have to think that a lot of people you know it's been seven years since Irene. I think a lot of people want to see something happen in that lot and something positive. It's a waste. I support you, I support you what you're saying Bill. I think we should, the town should try to buy this lot and flip it and have some control and come up with an attractive project. I wouldn't present it if I didn't think that there was a financially responsible decision behind it and I think that's where I think that would need to be in the forefront of laying out exactly why we would even consider it and the financial model behind it and why we think it makes sense for the community. I think a lot of people would be scared when you say let's go spend 200,000 but if you lay out why and we can get to a scenario where it's 10 or $15,000 per year that comes back to the community because of that. And we might have to eat some of that up front to gain it in the back end. I think a lot of people would understand that and be in support of it. Plus assuring that you would have municipal parking going forward. If you could put out a logical platform in front of the voters you might get your support to invite on it. If it's there you would be sure. So what would be some next steps? I think we can all just sit on it for once our next meeting. I mean, I don't think we need to make any decisions tonight. I don't think we should make any decisions tonight. We'll make a motion to adjourn. No. Never mind. I think that's the first time I've been denied the motion. The last item on the agenda for me is to traffic signal maintenance agreement between the state. Agency of transportation in the town of Waterbury for Waterbury FEG CFO 13-413. So in order for them to go out to bid as Jane suggested, there's a maintenance agreement. And what this maintenance agreement basically says is that beginning at 0.062 miles east of the roundabout. So where the Main Street project starts to a distance of 0.968 miles to the other end. The state will oversee the installation through this contract of a number of traffic signal devices and signs. So there'll be the traffic light at Park Row, the traffic light at Bank Hill. And then all the signs, which will be to the most up-to-date MBTCD standards. And this maintenance agreement says that the town will agree to maintain those facilities once they're built going forward. Now, when the traffic lights were initially put in back in the early to mid-80s, the select board worked out an agreement, or maybe it was the trustees, it was before I was here, so I don't remember. But the state maintained the traffic lights. They were responsible for it. And over the last couple of years, we have taken over more and more responsibility to it. We still deal with the state folks who do the maintenance. But once this project is done, they want to say, you know, we're done with it. And if you don't agree, I mean, part of the agreement is that you'll maintain the signs, and that you'll keep them up to the MBTCD standards. And if you take getting signed down without first getting the permission of the trails and Federal Highway, you'll have to pay them back for the sign. And for the most part, if you ask them permission, they would say, no, you can't take it down because by the standards, you need to have the signs that they're putting up. So anyway, it's pro forma, I think. I've read it. There's nothing in here that concerns me. So I would ask somebody to make a motion to authorize me to sign this on behalf of the town. Yeah, I was going to ask you if it was a motion to authorize the sign or a motion to approve. So it's a motion to authorize the sign then. So moved. I'll second that. By authorizing me to sign it, you're approving it too. I did have a question. What the hell was it? Right along there, I was going to ask it. I forget. No. All those in favor then. Hi. I'll make a motion there. I'll make a motion to adjourn. No, you can. Yes, second. Second. I'll second.