 So thank you everybody for coming to Williston's Development Review Board. March 26, 2019 it is the once a year growth management where we determine the coming year's allocation of units to be built or at least approved in in Williston. Before we get started anybody have any anything they'd like to present to the board in advance of the meeting? So there certainly will be there certainly will be time for public comment after each of the presentations of the growth management applications. So if you have something else specifically you want to do so at that time we're going to start off with the overview by the staff and Matt I assume that's you. That'll be me great. So as Scott Riley our chair mentioned this is the annual growth management hearing of the Development Review Board in Williston. This happens once a year. Growth management in Williston is a required component of the residential subdivision and residential development review process. So projects that go through pre-application during a given calendar year are eligible to return for growth management allocation review once a year in the following March which is where we are tonight. Williston limits the number of new dwelling units that can be created through the subdivision process per year and also geographically distributes those units with 56 units a year available in the town's growth center 12 available in the other sewer service area so the village and the residential zone around it and 12 per year in the portion of town that is not served by sewer essentially the agrural zoning district. So the process for the board tonight is to hear this overview and then the staff will review briefly each of the projects and the draft score prepared by the staff. Growth management is a competitive process so there's scoring and there's prioritization and then there's an award of allocation the DRB can consider at the end of the process. So a couple of things about growth management that are changing and or are different this year from years past the select board did recently approve some changes to growth management many of those changes are related to the review criteria and the scoring criteria and none of those changes are actually effective tonight. So the scoring criteria for all of the projects that went through pre-application calendar 2018 are the same as they were when that growth management chapter existed in calendar 2018. New projects that come in for pre-application during calendar 2019 will be subject to a slightly different set of criteria that are part of that new bylaw. There are some changes to growth management that affect any project that either got or will get allocation in Williston and those changes are effective now. Those recent amendments involve timing of unit construction and expiration of allocation. So I'll do those in in order. Under timing you know growth management allocation a dwelling unit is assigned a year a fiscal year in and it can't be built before that fiscal year and projects with multiple units often are assigned units going out across multiple fiscal years out into the future. Under the amended provisions of growth management units are still assigned a given year like that but projects as a whole simply get a minimum start date related to their earliest allocation and once a project begins to build it can build units from any of the years it has received allocation and in order until the project is complete. This was a change adopted by the select board. It essentially allows projects to begin sooner after their approval because there's more units available to build right away and it's likely that following the orderly construction of a project there will be a lull where that project might have some units that were available in future years but they've already been built and the project is done. So timing is more flexible than it used to be under the old rules. The other major change that subject that old projects projects tonight projects in the future will be subject to is related to expiration. So over the years allocation has had an expiration date varying from three to five years from its start date where if you got allocation and you didn't build a house eventually your right to build a house on that created lot simply went away. That can create some really untenable scenarios like lots being platted that no longer have a right to be developed etc. That has been replaced in revised growth management with what we call the slow build provision. So depending on the size of your project if you go out of that five-year window for your allocation you can continue to build units but at a slower pace than you might have been able to originally. And so for small projects a one two or three unit project you get to build one a year. For larger projects you get to build a few more a year but it's intentionally designed that if you had a very large project and you know did not start using your allocation in the five-year window the slow build would be so incredibly slow that an applicant would be far more likely to come back and reapply under the current bylaw and ask for new allocation. So timing of unit construction is a little different. The old schedules and expiration are a little bit different. Those are things that will apply to things to projects that receive allocations tonight but they're not really part of what gets discussed tonight which is the scoring and the draft allocation schedule prepared by the staff. There's one other change that does have some impact to the way the staff is recommending that allocation be awarded this year and it has to do with projects in the agricultural rural residential zoning district where for certain large parcels the town has an open space requirement for many years the town has had a requirement that if you're subdividing more than 10 and a half acres in the ag rural district 75 percent of that acreage is required to be set aside as permanently protected open space at a minimum by designation on the approved final plan. That's been the case for at least 10 years in Williston now. In May of 2018 the select board adopted a change to that rule. The 75 percent rule is still in effect but that open space which could previously be designated sort of you know cross-hatched out or shaded as part of you know some portion of a large remainder lot in the subdivision that open space now is required to be platted as a separate parcel so you can imagine that if you're somebody subdividing a large parcel of land you might have some lots you want to create that you want to build on. You might have your lot that you're being required to create to provide the 75 percent open space and you also might have some leftovers. You might have some land that you don't really want to develop today you're not asking to develop it under whatever applications you make following growth management but you don't want to give up more than 75 percent of the land so you have the requirement to plait open space results in a need for applicants to plait lots that are not currently planned for development but that nevertheless are separate from the other lots in the project so staff has identified two projects like that in rural Williston that are under consideration tonight where applicants have proposed a certain number of lots for development have proposed an open space lot and have some leftover land and what staff is proposing the DRB do is treat those projects as if those lots will eventually be developed assign them allocation understanding that discretionary permit which is the next stage after the stage of review can come in for a phase one where the applicant develops what they wanted to develop all along the remainder lots are left for further review under a different discretionary process so it's um it's a wrinkle created by something that's part of the ag rural zoning district now it means that sometimes applicants or their projects look like they're looking for more units than they might have suggested they were asking for it pre-application that's that's by design and we had a big conversation internally with the staff about what do we do with these remainder lots we could just score the project as if we didn't think they were ever going to be developed but we know they probably will be and there are things about the way projects in ag rural are scored that can be impacted by whether those lots are developed so such as the the relative visibility of the units that might be created in the future it makes more sense to the staff to review the projects as if those lots will be eventually developed score them that way and that way if they do come in for development we're not concerning ourselves with whether that future development undermines the growth management scores that get assigned tonight i'll stop there for a second to answer any clarifying questions because everybody's confused enough without having to go forward big change yeah okay what if what if a oh from us yeah anybody what if what if somebody truly intends not to ever develop they they want to either convey development rights or they just have really no intention of future development they just want open space if somebody wants to just have the open space they can make they can make that land part of their open space lot so you know 75 but they could also just sit on that other lot correct it's not open space it hasn't designated as open space 75 percent of the anything greater than ten and a half acres would be developed but they could have another lot yep which is not planned for development and they maybe it's going to be given to their kids or maybe it's going to be passed on past on correct me it does not have to be developed nope there's so you know we've we've had lots of precedent in williston where discretionary permits that followed from a pre-application and growth management decision were broken into phases so you know essentially what what the drb saw in these two projects could be thought of as a pre-application for a phase one a growth management allocation schedule that covers phase one and what might someday be phase two but then the project can go forward with that phase one discretionary permit and all it means is if we need to come back and re-review development on you know i've got this lot i don't want to develop it today someday i might give it to my kids the development of that lot would return to the drb for discretionary permit review at the time that that kind of development was desired so the the the goal here from the staff's perspective is to handle all of the growth management allocation so we're not creating lots that are effectively without that right to develop that comes from growth management and also making sure that the totality of development that might happen on the parent parcel is reviewed as part of the scoring tonight so you don't want someone to come back to develop one of those remainder someday i'll develop it lots and then their plan is to do something that means you wouldn't have scored the project the way you scored it tonight because essentially the horse is out of the barn on that score after this evening so we thought it better as a staff to recommend the drb anticipate future development even if it might be in some subsequent phase of review sometime off in the future this is a complicated issue to go over tonight so the original 10 or 75 percent open space is based on the original or i should say the amount that's set aside its open space is 75 percent of the original parcel yes so therefore the potentially developed areas will have had a corresponding amount of open space already set aside correct so it's not developing that won't require additional it would not in the case of the ones you'll see tonight those remainder lots are smaller than 10 and a half acres anyhow so would not exactly but i would hate to avoid we need i think you need to make sure that the 75 percent is of the entire parcel but i think that you could take that one step further and just kind of talk this out to so people in the audience kind of hear this another scenario would be if somebody shows up with a 100 acre parcel and i wish to develop it and then the open space would be 75 acres leaving 25 acres to be developed approximately two acres if it's in the air gd a little bit less than two acres piece so you can get 12 12 but if you only wanted to plot out five or something maybe four lots that would leave you with something greater than 10 and a half acres which then could get a later date come back in and be resubdivided and broken up leaving a whole going through the whole additional process yes correct and so the so the proposal tonight would be that if you had that that 10 acres that might get further subdivided you assign one unit to it so that if somebody did want to just put that one house on it you've already reviewed the project as if development was going to happen there so we used to have folks who would look at subdivision design in agro and they would see that big lot you know they'd see the little house lots and they'd see the big lot and they'd see part of that lot shaded out as open space and somebody in the audience or the board would point to that and say but that whole lot's not open space they're just going to come back and develop over there the answer was yes the bylaw is forcing applicants to anticipate all of the potential development and design the subdivision accordingly so we think the staff's recommendation as it relates to growth management follows that precedent and to confirm that staff recommendation is backed up by the vote from the select board yes so it's not a recommendation it's that's now well it's now part of the unified bylaw the bylaw doesn't say so much about what to do with growth management but we have had a practice going back at least the last 10 years that if you create a lot in williston in a residential zone you've got to get allocation for that lot or you've got to call it open space it's just it's cleaner to do that than to create essentially a limbo lot that is that is neither open space nor anticipated to be developed does the score assigned to the development that's being proposed have any bearing on the future score that is given down the road well and they come to subsequently so if let's say somebody has that remainder lot they don't intend to develop it today but but they've gotten the one unit of allocation as staff is proposed here if somebody came back and simply wanted to put one house on that lot they've already got their allocation they can come in for discretionary permit there's a site plan review to develop that lot and that's it if somebody comes back and says well you know i i created that remainder lot but i really want it to be two or three or five lots you go through the whole process pre-application a new growth management allocation score and schedule discretionary permit is there any relation in terms of the scoring though yes so one of the things we would be looking at is the the history of the creation of that lot would be that it came out of this larger lot that also got a score and you wouldn't want anything about the design on that lot that came out of that bigger subdivision to undermine the decision that drb had made before so it's seen as an amendment to that larger subdivision when you come back and do that and it's important for the staff and the drb to always make sure that whatever further subdivision whatever further amendments to that project happened going forward that that original allocation score in that competitive process is still likely to be the score the project would get in words you you can amend things but you don't want to amend something such that everything you promised at growth management you're you're you're taken back that has to be that has to be part of the consideration so you would potentially get credit for things that were developed with the original development say paths without necessarily building additional paths on this smaller piece you might get the the 10 or 20 points for the paths that were from the original project so by by way of example finny crossing project in the growth center has been through 14 or 15 amendments now and some of them have involved shuffling of growth management allocation or requests for additional allocation every time that that project has been scored in those subsequent amendments we've looked at the totality of the project so you know there's a build paths and trails incentive does the project build a path and trail yes does it have to build another new path and trail every time it comes back you know gets credit for what's part of the overall project it's also held to those conditions they're not necessarily asking for additional units of allocation though were they finny was in one case but in the others not and the others there there were just shuffling any amendment so finny got points for paths and trails if a shopping center was proposed at finny that suddenly was going to take a path or trail out of it we would have to remind we would want to remind the board hey this project scored in part based on the provision of this path how are you going to make sure the project still would get that score okay but any other any other questions from board regarding this process this part of the process that's pretty part of anybody any comments or community name name an address please craig samson on 20 roads and drive so my question allowed to address matter right my question then that makes a lot of sense and i understand why it's being done and if that lot is let's say a five point two five acre to the sidewalk that i never want to develop um or i might um what you're saying is is that if that's put to the side it goes to develop the review board in the future but it doesn't have to go back to growth management the following launch as long as it's still only looking for that one unit correct so if i put that five and a quarter or so that's you know number of my hat to the side and i'm going to say that's going to have one house on it or do i have to say right now i want to have three houses on it no um so you know we're we're recommending that you say you're going to put one it's automatically allowed one it's allowed one because because generally the baseline is a parcel developable at all or not is judged on can you put a house on it so what we're we're trying to make sure is that we're not creating any parcels that aren't either developable with at least one house or permanently protected open space that everybody agrees is never going to be built on we don't want to create anything that's in between those two statuses okay and then the second half of the question that is this the second half then would be let's say that the remaining 25 percent so since you know i've donated 75 to open space can it be more than one lot created or is it the remaining space is one lot kind of discussion or can i say it depends on how big the it depends on how big the lot is okay and what the standard is for lot development which in out you know in your way in the arzd is just under two acres right well minimum yeah density of 80 000 square feet the outside is a little different but right so you you could come back you're in your example correct five five acres it's got one unit of allocation and you could come to me and say well really that i'd like three houses on those five acres and the ends would be okay well you need to start with pre-application you need to come back to growth management to get your two other units go through discretionary permit if you came and said hey that five acres i want to build one house on it and let's just say that the the siting and design and everything of that one house had not been part of the discretionary permit process that followed the growth management hearing say well that's that's sort of phase two of that project's discretionary permit it's still going to even for one house it's got to come back to the drb and and be fully designed and and run up against the bylaw requirements and the site design requirements right it's either it's not all tonight and then i'll develop it five years down the road two years down the road one went down the road and nobody has to be notified because it was all discussed tonight that's not what it's going to happen right so one of one of the reasons for this um the idea of essentially deferring some of that review to a subsequent phase is that it's it's not free to design development on these lots so somebody who says i just want these two lots right now here's your 75 percent but i've got this other land over here i might want to give to my kids someday but i don't want to make it part of my discretionary permit right now because if i do that i've got to design septic systems and i've got to design driveways and do all these other things so what we're proposing is is we take it through to the growth management stage and then the applicant decides what's going to be their phase one what units units are going to be part of the subsequent hearing process anything that's not part of that hearing process will need to be part of a different hearing process under a separate application and just to clarify and if they were going to put wanted to put more than just that one unit on that site they start all the way back at the beginning with the pre-application regardless of the outcome of tonight everything that's gone to this point and then growth management so you're not saying yeah well rubber stamp it and you're good just do what you want later on that makes sense that that sounds like there's some due diligence done there and some some work to that that makes sense nothing sneaky yeah that's and i'll just say anecdotally from the staff perspective you know we sometimes get people who just call us out of the blue and say i've got this land i want to split it into three lots give one lot to each of my kids but i don't want to develop it can i just come in and do that administratively and for the last decade the answer has been no you need to subdivide pre-application growth management oh but they don't want to build right now we need to assume if we're creating a lot that eventually there's going to be either a house audit or it's going to be an open space lot that's that's the reasoning behind all of this or a piece of progry that parcel so to speak it's going to be this is where it's at it's not well i could take 5.25 here or there or here no they're creating a lot creating a lot it's correct it doesn't doesn't move doesn't move around it doesn't move around creating a lot nothing remember what's left over is open space and the idea in willison's bylaws that open space is established in perpetuity and that open space lot hopefully doesn't move at all we've had occasions rarely where someone's had to adjust a line a little bit um on open space but fundamentally that open space per our bylaws is supposed to be forever and ever the open space is that the um town's land no not by default it's simply designated and the you know making it open space means you can't build houses on it um can't build parking lots on it um things like that at a minimum when open space in willison is designated as part of this process the not being able to do anything on it becomes an element of zoning enforcement so if somebody went out and and built their garage on the open space they would get a notice of zoning violation for me okay can that open space be used with the public or is that open space it's it does not have to be publicly accessible um there's another part of this still privately owned there's another part of this process where applicants sometimes will offer up public trail easements this process incentivizes open space in in terms of actually giving open space to the town if the town deems it a desirable resource or open space that's enforced via third party like having a Vermont land trust easement but the town recognizes in its bylaw here we can't make people do those things we we can't you know shake an applicant down and say you've got to give us three quarters of your right he's right yes this is not this is not the taking of private land I think it's that that topic has come up you know once or twice before that is not what's going on but what it really is is what it really is is designed to provide provide for and maintain the character of Vermont open space right farms and open vistas and clustering of homes and you know and if you're only allowed if you're allowed to develop 25 percent of the land by rights you're going to be clustering your homes around in in a certain area of any given parcel and leaving the remainder remainder open forever last thing we want to see is you know we really is houses spread out everywhere we want to see open open spaces so that that is the idea behind this of any other questions phase one in the phase two amen address please kevin mizuzan 1120 butternut road phase one and phase two good moving on to um discretionary permit part of that process is the inclusion of a environmental survey on on both the development so will that be just on the phase one or does it include phase two because i would think they would would kind of affect each other so we haven't done this before and and some of this is up to how the board wants to see that but we in in places where we have certain map resources we have requirements for habitat disturbance assessments i think that's what you're referring to um i would i would recommend that an applicant having a habitat disturbance assessment done you know have the wildlife biologist who performs that know that this lot's not proposed for development today but it could be eventually and so therefore it's part of the consideration of the impact on resources if that lot needs to shift you know the commitment is to provide open space open space is required to protect certain resources in agrural if if a habitat disturbance assessment came back and said uh well that lot even though you say you know you're gonna you're leaving the possibility of developing it out there someday if it gets developed it's going to have an adverse impact and if it gets shifted a little bit then it won't i would encourage the drb to you know encourage that because even in that phase one there's going to be a plat there's going to be a final plat at the end of the first phase of development review it's going to establish all of the lot lines including the lines of the lots that might not get developed until somewhere in the distant future so in considering resources you know if somebody had one of those lots let's let's pick an obvious example they had that remainder lot entirely in a class two wetland we would we would want to kind of flag that and say you know we you you probably shouldn't do that because it it will end up not being developable down the road and the same thing would be true under the terms of the habitat disturbance assessment if somebody said well this is fine for lots one and two but lot three is um really impactful and and shouldn't be approved then that should be addressed up front as part of that first phase of review thank you yep and any um you want to cover any of the portal housing changes yeah um a few other things um the these are actually not the changes but just a few things about allocation so people often ask us well how do you know how that 80 unit year target is distributed geographically across time how do you know what's still available the answer is and has been for a long time we have a spreadsheet a giant spreadsheet it's part of the drb staff report and identifies what's available what's left to be allocated and so in each allocation year in each of the three geographic regions of town three quarters of the allocation is for for any kind of unit and one quarter of the allocation is only available for the construction of affordable housing so this is housing that's affordable at either 80 100 or 120 of the area median income for the given household size um and we'll and it's only for housing that will be made available perpetually at that level so um the town incentivizes affordable housing both by awarding points and growth management for it and by actually setting aside some of those 80 dwelling units a year just for affordable housing um so sometimes when we talk policy with the slack board about affordable housing say what if we really got 80 units a year what would that look like and we'll listen because the truth is we get somewhere between 50 and 60 years so well if you got 80 a whole quarter of them would be affordable because they're set aside especially for that uh i will touch briefly on i think scott what you alluded to which is there was another change adopted by the slack board which says that if you're building units that will be affordable at or below 80 percent of the area median income this is the most affordable category will listen has those units do not have to receive allocation through this process anymore they can be built essentially for free without going through this process we do not have any projects on the docket tonight that are proposing affordable um at or below the 80 percent verify that and say they don't have to go through growth management they still have to go through pre-app and discretionary permit all the other stuff all the everything else they just don't have to go through the process here here to go through tonight they don't they don't come out of this target so keeping in mind i think growth management involves a limited number of new units that can be created every year those units are not distributed evenly across the town but are geographically divided into three specific areas we we're dividing by year and in each year we're also dividing by affordable versus market and all of that goes into what's available the board also has some rules about not being allowed to give all of the allocation away all the way out into the future and also about not being allowed to give all of the allocation away to any one project so there are whole back provisions related to that but all of that said what what most of tonight's hearing what we're going to spend time doing is one at a time going through the projects going through the answers that the applicants gave to the growth management surveys the surveys are designed to elicit responses related to the items that are incentivized and scored in growth management i think scott the process has normally been that um the project proponents are called up one at a time the staff will give a brief overview of the draft score in the project and then there can be a q and a about each project and then you'll close up your hearing deliberate yep okay now let's do it okay fine let's start with uh it's my right thing we're going to start with north if um if anybody is wondering why did the northridge project withdraw northridge was not asking for new allocation they were asking for a reordering of their allocation schedule and because of the rule change that allows you to simply build in sequence those requests are no longer needed in our system because they can build all of them starting in that first year so they don't need to put it forward that's right northridge will be returning to the board at some point to ask for allocation for it's not received for allocation but this was a reordering that they have withdrawn 20 percent of our work okay very good no northridge next we're going to uh we're going to go right to adams real properties um and um as we uh as we do get going i did note some people walk in the door after we started um if you have not signed in please do so okay i saw three people sign in after if you signed in you haven't please do so uh jason state your name and your address please for the record jason adams 207 boyer circle emily it looks like you huh residential zoning district the applicant proposes six single family units three multi-family units one child care facility and open space the property has an inherent right to build one unit staff recommends an overall proposed score of 31 points going through the applicant's question air the applicant proposes four um five star relief certified homes um which brings the score to two points for conserve energy um for build affordable housing no affordable units are proposed for a proposed score of zero points offer housing choices um six of the units will be um single family dwellings three multi-family units um in one building the single family homes will each be on their own parcel um and then the three units will be um the multi-family units on their own parcel um and they will be um by jason adams or another agency um occupied by a tenant um and the applicant provides a description about the range of home sizes provided um what the buildout could potentially look like um based off of that um for the score for offer housing choice we've proposed 10 points provide neighborhood space um we've offered one point in this category the purpose of neighborhood space is um a building space such as a meeting room fitness center daycare center or another neighborhood space acceptable to the drb in this case the daycare center would be something private for the residents whereas the proposed daycare use is its own individual commercially um parcel um the applicant has proposed um uh cul-de-sac in the middle of the proposed road to be a neighborhood space um with a bench or possible community garden thus our score of one point build paths and trails um the nine units will be served by the town's path and trail system the applicant is proposing 1786 feet of a trail segment and is building that path um to connect um the proposed development to brennan park um the drb did request at pre-application um that the applicant explore a connection between katie lane and brennan park and that has been shown on the applicant's attached site plan and include primitive trail running parallel to mountain view road designed for context um the home the development is near katie lanes and brennan woods neighborhoods um primarily single family home residential dwellings um lot seven proposed off-hand and drive is a single family home um in this case we've provided a score of five points for design for context um build close to services the project scored zero because it's not within the um adequate radius within a focal point either in the growth center or the village zoning district um and for neighborhood design the last category of the eight categories we've proposed three space um three points um because the open space um how it's arranged um to provide function and leads buffering and stormwater management um there is some land that is um not open space but deer entering rendering area on a privately open owned parcel that is proposed um so together staff has come to the conclusion of a proposed score of 31 points this is above the 30 point minimum the applicant is requesting eight units of allocation and we have recommended eight units of allocation however the um schedule you see on your yellow sheet um will be revised because northridge withdrew so we propose four units in fiscal year 2020 and four units in fiscal year 2021 for this project for in 2021 correct four more in 2021 for total six four and then getting rid of getting rid of the two and 22 and the two scratch that whole list on the left side and just four and 20 and four and 21 total of eight total of eight and then the ninth unit is an inherent right to build that's it thank you what do you think jason summarizes it pretty well any questions from you guys question from the board jason what is the there's a 30 foot wide uh easement shown coming out of katie lane was there any way to extend that primitive trail sort of from katie lane to get to brendan woods park yeah we looked into that and our uh and during our habitat assessment um because that's a deer wintering area she recommended that no activity be in there so we thought we designated half obviously that would increase activity right okay so the only path that you've provided here is right along mountain view road what's the right along mountain view to to connect to connect katie lane into did you explore any i guess because you've got these homes back here the back yeah it was pretty limited was there any discussion with the homeowners association for katie lane to go sort of through their open space or is that no there wasn't does the uh the non motorized easement that's shown adjacent to your lot um further kind of that extension of katie lane does that go anywhere does that connect anything i believe it's on your life there might be some kind of primitive path there and it leads to another development um but the little kind of dog leg off of it that leads right that's short that goes right into the woods i don't believe there's anything there and in the in the uh proposed trails plan that the town had there it didn't show any real connection from katie lane to brendan woods it did show a path from brendan park more or less following our path and sidewalk there which is why we had originally put that so we were we were kind of following the ideal or future trails plan again i'm so i'm not i'm looking at that path over to the park there's two different colors shown on that path is that is there is there any meaning to that or i mean there are there's a there's a text box there and arrows that say a five-foot wide path follows general route a primitive trail as shown on map number 17 of the comprehensive plan and if i if i if i look really close it looks like there's a slightly light darker green line there um should that be the same dark green as the rest of that path like my uh copy's not loading in this room very well i think so one section shows five foot wide concrete sidewalks pointing to the dark green and then that very faint light green and says five foot wide paved path so it might be showing a different chain might go from concrete to a cave different paving and then the color rendering emily excuse me one second any conversations going on in the room while the hearing is going on should take place ma'am any conversation should go on outside thank you go ahead emily so it looks like it's just um a bad color choice okay so there is a path here that's intended from essentially from the the cul-de-sac community space over to brennan woods park yes yeah half of it will be concrete and half of it will be just a petuminous pavement it was supposed actually from the cul-de-sac then you know there's a sidewalk going around that and from there to the park was supposed to be paved um it was it was originally going to just be a primitive path but the public works department said you could not have an unpaved path which is why we paved it or concrete or pavement and it was shown fully paved in the pre-app run dishing i'm pretty sure yeah and that's great i i i i applaud you for putting that path in i think you'll find a lot of traffic on that yeah um i had one question emily under score calculation um you gave you gave me three points for open space being used create next box down permanent protection of open space identified an open space plan will result in an award of one to five additional points on this criterion no points provided in that box line up what was the idea what was the idea there's an awful lot of open space that have been designated it's the difference between designated open space and then having a third party agreement so second box is the open space plan and the extent of her resource being protected for the zero to five and then you can get the additional bonus point if this is only a category in this area where you can get extra points for that permanent protection with a third party easement vermont land trust etc okay that you designated it designating it as open space anyways yeah i mean you don't i'm not saying you have to yeah i truthfully just don't know really anything about it so the process if it came down to it that again as we've stated before this is a competitive process if there was a another project that scored a few points higher than you then it doesn't mean you're designating it as open space anyways it's your retaining ownership of it but you're not going to be able to use it down the road so it's something it's something you know whether it's for this project or in the future you might want to think about and it still could be done it wouldn't affect this point but it still could be done but from the scoring from a scoring perspective it wouldn't you would now because we're working on it as of right now okay all right question further questions from the board no no questions from the audience sir name and address i don't have a copy of the thing in front of me that's easy to read but this this question is primarily directed at that with regard to your earlier conversation about open space the bottom i think it's roughly 17 acres is lot seven plus the deer wintering here could you comment on what is what might be possible to happen to that deer wintering area in the future given the way this project is structured and given the description you gave of open strikes so i'll begin by clarifying this might answer the whole question the requirement to set aside perpetually protected open space and 75 percent is only in the agricultural rural residential zoning district which is this is not this is in the residential zoning district so in the case of a project like this the town still has open space values that are expressed in the scoring and the way Emily went over the draft score but it's not quite the same as the hard and fast requirement that you get in ag rural the reason that we still think about things like wetlands and deer wintering areas is because we also have natural resource protection standards in the bylaw that apply to all development everywhere in town likely when something shows up like that as a deer wintering area there's very little that can happen to it going forward whether it's because of the habitat disturbance assessment which is going to say develop somewhere else stay out of it the finality of the subdivision permit that would ultimately result from a process like this number of reasons even if there's not that absolute set this assignment designated perpetually open space there's a lot of reasons that you wouldn't see further development in the deer wearing area in Williston i was also told kind of informally that i think it's the state fish and wildlife maybe it would cause a lot of problems trying to do anything in there our experiences whenever the agency that resources and state has had the opportunity to enter into any procedures about development we're listening if there's deer wintering area they've advocated very strongly that that area not be impacted by even so much as a primitive trail answer your question yes i have a related question about that same lot so it's unlikely that the deer wintering area would would be a prospect for future development but the shape of lot seven i believe goes all the way from cannon drive roughly over to the katie lane development it's like a what is that a trapezoidal shape the width of the property what would have to be done i'm envisioning the nature of my concern is we're we're probably one of the more effective houses in brennerwoods in proposed development here especially lot seven we're the house 371 right right across the street from lot seven the proposed house on lot seven so we have a concern about um development of that lot and specifically possible future development of the whole space of that lot what would be the scenario which would result in more than one dwelling being replaced in that rather large space there so let's let's assume that this subdivision went through the the full approval process and lot seven was created as shown with the building envelope for the one house as it's shown any any change to that number one would would require you know a re hearing with the development review board the full process pre-application growth management discretionary permit final plans would have to be reviewed as an amendment to this proposal and and as i sort of belabored with the board a little while ago would have to be reviewed against the way this proposal was scored allocated and approved and i would say that given that there are some points being offered potentially adopted by the DRB related to open space the board would be well advised to to leave the open space alone essentially in any subsequent review of this you know there there is an idea here even when we're even when we're in the residential zoning district that we're trying to come up with a plan for the totality of development that might take place going forward on this parcel that there's some feeling of finality coming out of this process that the board the neighbors the applicant all understand that this this is the development that's going to go forward and generally no more that said i never say never and i never say no problem and i never say forever because i just cannot promise those things the whole bylaw could change fundamentally in 25 years and and the conversation would be different that said in addition to the winter area there's a pretty big wetland on that area to the to the south it's a little hard to see in the dark green there's a there's a wetland area it's going to come with a town established 50 foot buffer a lot of reasons not to further develop that portion of the parcel this the this the area outside of the building envelope constituted in space yes i mean i would if i were administering permits for this so let's say somebody built this house and they have this subdivision and building envelope they wanted to build a shed a garage and accessory structure a pool i would as the zoning administrator say that's fine you need to do it inside of this building envelope that's that's part of administering this subdivision going forward i think that you've seen this i think correct you have okay i mean it's it it this is an interesting parcel this is an interesting parcel in that it's a big piece of land um but it is heavily constrained and which is which if if this came in in this zoning district perfectly flat with no wetlands on it and no deer wintering area on it you could put a lot of houses on here by by the bylaw by by what's allowed in the bylaw but because it because it is so heavily constrained with wetlands and um wildlife habitat this is about what you get in terms of um in terms of the areas available to develop to develop now i will also echo matt saying you know obviously you never say never because we've seen things change we all know we all know that um um but those are those are two areas there are those are two areas which while they may change are probably pretty unlikely to change given given this given the what the state wants and what the town wants ma'am it's name i'd like to Kaiser 471 hand and drive i am not in a flooding property but i'm nearby i think it would be a shame to develop this lot seven i think it would really change the character of Brennan Woods i think there would be a disruption to a lifestyle in Brennan Woods with the construction trucks etc i've lived there for 20 years i've worked for Snyder as a salesperson i'm a realtor now i i think it would be a real shame i have no objection to the total project but it would really change things in Brennan Woods and i hope it doesn't happen and i have nothing against Jason but he is the president of our board our homeowners association he lives in Brennan Woods nobody knows what's going on in Brennan Woods with this on lot seven on hand and other than plus telling people and people are upset about it okay all right thank you ma'am chloramachlor 140 140 Barrett Lane which is Brennan Woods well i just have a general question for the board since if and when lot seven gets developed that house will have a direct outlet into hand so it will basically be in Brennan Woods and Brennan Woods has covenants and homeowners association rules and stuff how does the board treat stuff when a property gets put into and developed into an existing neighborhood that already has its own covenants so it's not in Brennan Woods it has it has nothing to do with Brennan Woods there is an easement from Hannah into the property it is on its own parcel it is not now nor will be restricted by any of the covenants in Brennan Woods it is a separate it is a separate piece of property although it sits in the boundaries does not sit in the boundaries of Brennan Woods sits outside the boundaries of Brennan Woods that seems strange to me do you drive into the neighborhood no you're right you absolutely do but Brennan Woods but Brennan Woods is Brennan Woods road is a public road it's not privately owned it was a hand and drive i'm sorry yes hand and drive i have my mistake but it's it's it's public it's publicly owned it was needed to the town of Williston when the when the when the development was built and none of the covenants have anything applied to the public road so they so the public any public every public person entity has access to that road to use it for transit or access to another piece of land which in this case is what lot seven is so that's that's not something the board created yeah that's i wonder if there's any future thought to i know legally it's strange but it's it's also difficult for our homeowners association to have a new piece of property developed that we have no sale or and have no um ability to regulate when the neighbors right next room are going to have regulations on them for size of house the the color of the house the whether you can store boats on your property all of that stuff exists within our neighborhood and this being built which i'm i mean people buy property every right to develop it i'm not against development i just i'm a little concerned about how that plays out yeah it's it's an it's an interesting it's an interesting conundrum i think everybody on the board would probably agree with that um when brennan woods was was developed this easement was put in place so anybody who was in development in in brennan woods back when they bought into into the development this if they dug deep enough now probably nobody ever does right but if they dug deep enough they would have found out that there was an easement into this piece of property um probably pretty similar to if you go to the opposite side of the parcel there's an easement sitting over there as well um uh because of that it it allows access to a another piece of property for future development having nothing to do with brennan woods yeah no and i'm in this up more just kind of trying to explain to you why why it's why it is that way um right not right not wrong it just kind of is i don't think it's an easement because when i was looking at the plot a pre-application the right of way for hand and drive takes over the wrong term kind it was an interesting conundrum when i was looking at the plot when this came in originally there's that triangular pie-shaped piece where hand and drive curves and that whole piece is part of the hand and drive right of way shown on the brennan woods plat so that the big thick dashed line of the edge of jason adam's property that abuts directly onto hand and drive right of way which is the road and some green space next to the road yeah essentially the right of way hand drive is stretched over to meet the property line of the subject parcel here so it has um access on the public road a whole bunch of whole bunch of frontage on the right of way but it but it is the right of way of hand and drive and not open space really within brennan woods which is a very different designation correct it's just part of the right of way of hand and drive as it was um offered indeed in over two ma'am i have three thoughts um first i would like to second rindi's thoughts that um this would be a disruption into an existing neighborhood people bought into an existing neighborhood being having been told over years and years and years there was a finished neighborhood nothing could be built there um my second thought is i would like to echo lauren's thoughts that why they're not be a legal basis um taking into account the um um established neighborhood with a home in association and the impact on that but inserting a house that is not part of that association however the legal situation may be i think there is a lot of good um reason to think about that from a community or existing neighborhood perspective to be a good neighbor to have that um uh be taken part in that neighborhood in that association to be part of those standards we understand that from a building perspective that is important and the house looks that way it's also important that people behave that way um and um to um that way um give some consideration and thought and weight to that to encourage that behavior and um my um uh also being called associations are playing an important role to keep a neighborhood like this up to standards which is important from a value perspective and in the end the income to the town of williston rather than to ally a borough like this to be inserted um to that possibly has a negative impact on the existing houses in the neighborhood so i would encourage you to think about that um my third thought is the uh specifically the impact on us the houses directly across the street from us and because of that tiny sliver that about directly onto hand and drive i'm going to be looking at cars coming in and out of that driveway and i did not pay $400,000 to look at a driveway the board seems to understand the value of open space and looking at nature and get nice views and uh to pay that much money to look at a driveway is just not my idea of a good view so i would encourage you to think about that too and is there another way that can be encouraged to be managed to not have that drastic impact of an existing house in that neighborhood okay all right like can i just add i i believe in my uh questionnaire i did state that i will keep that look i think i said a colonial house to to blend in with the neighborhood to some degree so there was that consideration i don't know how yeah obviously there's variations most of the houses in the neighborhood are there's maybe four variations but there are a few that are a little different so there is some play i think in there but generally this the i stated in my application that i'll keep it a colonial house to at least blend in and try to be as good of a neighbor i guess is possible may i ask will you be um are there trees i'm assuming there are trees all in front of this property so um it it appears from you're rendering in this photo that the house will be set back similar to the house that would be the next closest on the same side of the road yeah um so is your intention i mean you have a quite a a deep lot there is your intention to construct the house relatively similar in terms of setbacks as the other houses in front of woods yeah and so will you be clearing the entire front of the house for that construction or is there an intention or will there be an intention to leave some of that you know some of the wooded area as is consistent with i know brendan woods has some of those houses set back a little bit further with developed and grown trees in their front yards in that area yeah let me just add one i had part of that is their building envelope that's been designated for for that house yeah it's show right there it's show it's on it's dashed it's quite deep it's large to the left yep this this is actually all part of that lot too but this is the envelope right here okay i guess i guess it was there any consideration given to maybe making it set back further and having a bit of a longer drive way so that the impact visually might be reduced to an offended neighbor there wasn't really i mean to be honest we were trying our thoughts were to make it blend in as best as possible which would be keeping it similar to the other 174 houses on that you know on those streets in that neighborhood yeah and so again that then that sort of leads me to my second part of the last question which is those houses were developed in the 80s i presume or i'm sorry 90s and through that early 2000s five-year build out right so they're about a 20 year growth on trees and other things that have occurred since then but i think that i don't think there was a ton of clear cutting in that area well a lot of the growth in here and i'm not an expert on this by any means but it there's not a lot of at some point this was cleared this yeah this strip that remains white on that plan so you have a lot of smaller there's more shrubbery trees shrubbery stuff like that um the history of that i i don't know why that was done but it's the woods the deer wintering area is heavily wooded the other part that's in lighter green on your plan that has kind of a stream going through it is pretty pretty wooded so there is a definite gap that's that strip that remains white at some point something was done there it's pretty clear that there's open area and then it's wooded i like i said i've lived in brunand woods for 20 years and i worked for this nighters and i sold the last phase of brunand woods 22 houses including the model house there are eight house styles per the act 250 permit eight you can change the elevation slightly but there's eight house styles you can change the color of the siding there's a few porch styles you can't they have the freeze board across the top you can't put mantles i mean but you could not make any changes or it would invalidate the act 250 but there are some without the freeze board and like though i think it's maybe two or three down from the bradshaws that like the garage it's a lot longer it's like a story to half kind of like a salt it's it's totally it looks totally different um so that's the one that kind of like that's one of an example of now is it a colonial is it probably the floor plan inside similar the same jason they just okay i drive by it pretty frequently too um there is one that stands out right there and there are variations like i drive by one every day that has a full two a full story above the garage where most of them are nothing or a half story so there are slight they have bonus rooms right but this is one has a full story so i'm just saying there are variations no i do i do drive by through the neighborhood every day so may i ask one more follow-up question in terms of some of some of what i've heard um from the neighbors is that there is some interest in if this lot were to be developed to make it subject to the covenants um has there been any consideration of that because there would obviously be benefits like to a potential buyer to be able to use the pool facilities for example or you know there'd be some benefits as well as detriments to something like that i had brought up at the last meeting that i believe that the association pays for sidewalks to be cleared during the winter this would obviously get the benefit of that without having to contribute to though to that um so there are a couple of things that perhaps could be impacted by this lot or could they could benefit from or be impacted from has there been any consideration to that and discussion perhaps with the board it sounds like you're involved at the board yeah we had a meeting back in december um it's basically been a waiting period i mean i'm not committing to anything specific of how it's gonna go because you know we've been in a waiting pattern for a few months now and although things have changed but if if i couldn't build you know a house for two years say because of the growth management process my thought would be totally different than if i could have built eight in the first year which now you can so going into this there there hasn't been a i've basically been telling everyone we're waiting for this meeting waiting for prices on the infrastructure and then i have to go from there right well in terms of my own review of this i might um you know i might score um the design for context a little you know a little bit differently if i knew that lot seven was proposed to be you know some somehow subject to the declaration and bylaws of front and woods um and were to be subject to some of the you know so so again that could impact at least and in the meeting with the i believe it was just the board there um there was discussion about it and i can't remember if it was possibly selling part of that wood area that there was some pushback on or adding another house to the thing if there was a push but there was debate if it would work or in some people there were some things that some ideas people had somewhere against somewhere for someone neutral so and the folks that are here seem to be in favor of it but there may be right but i've also gotten calls about people in brendan woods looking to buy a house in this development so i mean you got 174 people there's no side there's no sidewalk on that side of uh hand and drive on this property yeah there is there is not part of the brendan wood project there is a sidewalk there paul yeah right yeah it's kind of i walk out and the plowing's only been done for one year on this walk and there was it's going to be kind of a see how it goes thing there's a sidewalk there just um so joe i'm glad you brought this back to the concept of the the score and and whatnot because that's really what we're here to talk about tonight not discretionary permit issues but um to the extent that you're getting a maximum score for design for context that probably will hold you to a certain level of performance at dp at least in in my mind as a as a board member so that's the maximum you can get yeah so well like i said i you know i i showed the house on the site plan to kind of mirror what's in that neighborhood for that one specifically i said in the application to keep it a colonial style um and as you can i say it's going to be one of four i mean they might not even make the color side i don't i don't want to pigeonhole myself either to saying it's going to be one of four colors to find out two of those colors don't exist anymore uh you know i mean that's true but on the end this is a maximum score which tells me you're doing as much as you can to make this uh in the context of right in its own context yeah and and again you you've got 31 points here you need 30 you don't have a lot of spares i understand that yeah so 11.8.6 design for context the exact bylaw language says proposed residential subdivisions should provide a scale of housing height bulk that is compatible with the surrounding uses this does not mean that the density or mix of housing forms must be identical or very similar it means that the overall character of the proposed residential subdivision will complement neighboring uses and then we asked the applicant to describe on how they're going to meet that requirement in this case it's a single family dwelling accessed off a public road in a neighborhood of single family dwellings which is more of the greater form um of the neighborhood being proposed but we've taken testimony tonight that says the there's a plan to use the vinyl siding of a similar no i did not say that you didn't know i specifically said i wasn't going to pigeonhole myself to say is specific to that this could be metal siding shingles it did this happen at this time colonial right i don't mean there's not a lot hearing him saying there's not a single slope to the same color vinyl siding so okay that tells me that there'll be some color vinyl siding but there's a there's such a difference of what this exists like i just i i interpret i see more than eight styles of home yes they're all they're as a base of four or eight i don't know how many houses in this neighborhood but there are definite variations on these some have dormers some have smaller dormers some have wider dormers some have three car garages some have two car garages some have a bonus room above one at least one has a full story above i know one house doesn't have a freeze board um because i specifically well for whatever reason i noticed these things before this project because i live in the neighborhood um so and if you read the bylaws of bren wood's um i think personally the design standards are it's it's not very specific we hadn't we had someone apply to uh what did they do they made us a deck a screen porch and they wanted to put metal side metal roofing on just the and the the wording in the bylaws said the primary uh roof material has to be asphalt shingle so i see uh a bump out of the house the main house uh front porch all asphalt and then one little shed or one little screen porch have metal i say the primary is asphalt shingles and i brought this up to the board when we went through this they all said no it's always been asphalt shingles i said okay that's fine but i'm just saying there's a lot of interpretation in those rules um i could probably pull them up and read it but it's basically vinyl siding wood framed primarily asphalt shingles um and and there's probably a few more but it's i don't want to be held to uh a lot higher a lot more specific standards than the whole neighborhood so this was all filled by one person so of course he's going to use the same materials if the board would like to review the design for context that emily read again i think the board should do that because it seems like we're getting way off the base on um on this okay so i'd like to remind the board of that if you'd like to look at that further i suggest you do that um we're not here to talk about vinyl siding i don't i did not hear that i you know i thought i did so what i heard was colonial which could be hardy plank wood vinyl that could be any one of those things uh in a similar style i i would throw the question and i i did i thought i had heard that so and i just want to make sure that we all understand what's being represented and as we know the questionnaire is an important piece here and and his answers to those are and in what is represented now we need to hold them to that well we need to hold to to the bible as well yes sure sorry to delay with this point but when i hear the definition of design for context to me it means and this this will touch on something that jill mentioned and something christine mentioned and something randy mentioned and something laura mentioned i i hear a lot more than colonial house style or house styles i i hear um assimilation into the neighborhood and surrounding and for me and us and those in brennan woods that means something for us in particular that means something slightly different talk about brennan woods for brennan woods i'm also on the board brennan woods and we have struggled with issues of folks um adhering to the bylaws of brennan woods and the last thing my wife and i would want is something across the street from us directly opposite us that does not have to adhere to the bylaws of brennan woods by some quirk of accident of easement or right of way onto the road that is that that we thought we were buying into a closed neighborhood essentially five years ago when we bought into specific to us we also as my wife mentioned paid for something we're looking at okay that we thought was unchanging that's context it has trees it has open space this is what we look across at to your point we look across some there's a mixture of mature trees and as jason noted more scrub stuff but to see all that disappear certainly will affect our quality of life and our character and we've expressed this to jason too um so to me this is this all fits into context i don't see how a a maximum to be given to this for context by the way i just i didn't premeditate this i just heard this discussion with this maximum score without taking into account the fact that lot seven opens into front song however you want to call it on an established neighborhood that's been established for 20 years and to me it means a lot more than the house being a colonial and having vinyl signing okay thank you other comments one more thought that goes along the same lines is um there has been a certain fear if there's a house that's not subject to the bylaws of the neighborhood people running businesses out of things like that um right now the association has a way to deal with that however successful they are dealing with that but at least they have a way to deal with that if there's a house in the neighborhood that is not subject to those rules we might have a business with lots of lawnmowing equipment going in and out all day long the town has those rules too yeah well we're having we're having difficulty with them in brennan woods right now yes so um we brought up the attention of the town Laura she's gone she's gone she's gone yeah so just just just to to voice out where all these concerns are coming from and we have voiced all of these concerns to jason directly and um just as he's able to um to signal um the um commitment to build a house that looks like it's fitting in i would also love to hear um a signal to that um he could commit to making such a home um part of the neighborhood in whatever way that can be done i'm sure there's ways if people are willing to i will tell you that that would have to be worked out between you and jason that is not something this board has the power to do i realize that we cannot impose that that that type of restriction on a separate piece of property if you want to work it out with him you can do that you can do that i think well and and by way of scoring at least from my perspective as only one member of this board that would be something that i would consider as part of scoring this particular criteria may i ask one more staff question do we consider the daycare center um when evaluating this you can consider this part of the project if there's um anything that that particular impacts i think what emily went over was the question of whether that counts toward the provision of neighborhood space so in the residential zoning district we have projects that provide things like a pool a clubhouse a you know common space that might even be a building or facility that's not really what we understood this daycare to be it's it's to be a you know private business certainly available to somebody living in the neighborhood also available to anybody else who seek your child care so we're not recommending a score that understands that to be a neighborhood space component that scores points in growth management no but i was talking about just in in terms of the context of the neighborhood designed for context so that would be the only sort of commercial facility surrounded by yep so um child daycare is the only commercial use other than small home business that's allowed in this zoning district um it's it's allowed in part of the town's fulfillment of its uh statutory requirements that come out of the state planning enabling legislation that say you need to accommodate child care in your town should generally attempt to accommodate anywhere you allow people to live um so i would not as a staff person as your staff person support a finding that providing that in a residential neighborhood was out of context i would also just say i as i as it's been said i do live in the neighborhood there was absolutely consideration of that when this was designed if you remember from our last meeting for the sewer for all everything but lot seven i have to gravity do a pump station and then pump it directional bore under wetlands all to tie into hand in if i was looking to do the smartest thing quite frankly i would put as many houses on that white strip on lot seven is possible and gravity all my sewer and it would cut a huge cost i do live in this neighborhood i didn't want i don't want to see eight condos there either i put one house in a neighborhood of 174 houses i made it look as similar on a site plan as you can similar setbacks um i stated it was going to be a colonial um i just mind my intention is not to disrupt the neighborhood at all and i think i've done that by just by drafting this plan this way i mean it i'm i'm costing myself a lot of money by doing this how would potential traffic impact through brennan woods be scored it would not one one house one one house no no the daycare the earlier commentary that happened back in the meeting in october one participant raised the issue of additional through traffic coming through brennan woods drive onto hannon and exiting out the south end of our neighborhood being caused by the existence of the daycare up there and my engineer is doing a traffic study i was kind of under the impression that would be for the permit for the daycare which is why it wasn't included it's not done yet that's why it's not included but it is being it is being done um in response to that comment so thanks for coming for the daycare for permit which is separate than the growth management right so it will be it will be it'll be discussed in open hearing and there the fees for that daycare could and i don't know if it's all traffic fees or what but there is some fee for that and it could be anywhere between fifty and a hundred thousand dollars seven hundred dollars of vehicle trip right depending on the number of kids there so basically one trip per child served seven hundred dollars a trip so i'll just clarify a little bit traffic study was requested by the development review board as part of pre application review that's the time that that's required to be submitted is discretionary permit which is the step that's coming up um traffic impact study looks at both the number of evening peak hour trips that would be generated because that's the number we use to assess the traffic impact fee it would also assess if there were any improvements to uh not a new road hand and drive us to any of the impacted roads if there are any improvements to those roads warranted by the additional trips generated by daycare so we have a big traffic generator uh it's going to generate a certain number of trips but it may also warrant the installation of a left turn lane on an existing road or the need for an intersection to have a traffic signal instead of a stop sign those are the kinds of things that a traffic impact study would address that the drb would then be able to consider as part of their review okay but i think the thought was that traffic would be more because of the daycare than yeah one to nine homes you know a house generates 1.01 pm peak hour trips per house was there any consideration for the um for anything other than a um bench in the space in the center of the cul-de-sac there was um i mentioned a community garden if if the kind of demand is there for people i also don't want to just put something there and have it sit yeah growing weeds it's it's quite a large space it's going to be obviously a quiet road um the grass i did mention in my application the grass will be mowed regularly so whether formally or informal it's a playing field for kids and again this isn't a busy road so it's relatively safe we did extend a crosswalk from the path from the park along you know that multicolored green path we did add a crosswalk there to tie right in so someone can walk directly from brennan park to that area to play with their friends um crossing a road once but it will be in a crosswalk um again it's it's kind of the you know what do you commit to and then i thought a bench would be good so people could sit there if if there was something that would be a community garden is good a play area is fine in terms of like a swing set or something like that that's it's been considered in my head but nothing i wanted to fully commit to yeah because you've got the community garden literally right next door right but if you only had to deal with you know five or eight other people that's maybe easier any other questions from the board one more time like everybody to get a chance some people hold back so i will tend to ask that question an awful lot okay we're going to uh move on from dp 1911 adams subdivision thank you okay next up is um a poor project outside of the service area brown ale lomarch 43 54 south brown ale road come if you would state your name and your address please jelomarch 43 54 south brown ale road great thank you brandy brown ale and jelomarch proposing five lot subdivision of a 51.3 parcel located at 43 the 54 south brown ale and the drcd the applicant proposes three single family dwellings one open space parcel and one future development parcel the property has inherent right to build one dwelling unit the applicant is proposing a fifth parcel that is not part of the 75 open space parcel and does does have development potential but they're not requesting allocation at this time the parcel lot five is 5.25 acres has frontage access on south brown ale road and is shown as four lots crossed out with black marker on the site plan staff has scored this project assuming future development of lot five with landscaping the development on lot five could be made minimally visible from south brown ale road scoring the project on the assumption that lot five will not be developed would result in a higher score and an overall score above 30 points however that score could be challenged and jeopardize the potential for development so i'll just go through the scores so the applicant is not proposing five-star or lead certified dwelling units the applicant is not proposing to build any affordable housing for score the applicant is proposing a trail easement and will work with the conservation commission to determine a desired alignment there's they have about 4 000 feet of existing trails on the property some of which will be utilized as part of the easement and so what we considered in the proposed score of eight is that they're not just granting an easement there the easement will actually have some built trails on it so that's a little bit above just the easement for design for context the applicant is proposing two single family dwellings on individual parcels neighboring properties are single family residences on private lots and the proposed score is five um for conserved open space conserved open space um the proposed score zero uh although the applicant is setting aside 75 percent of designated open space um none of that the open space will not be dedicated to the town uh nor will it be um dedicated the conservation easement um and it will not be dedicated to another public agency but simply designated as open space so they get um zero and then lastly minimize visual impact the proposed score is 10 the houses on the the proposed houses on rosewood driver will be obscured by trees and forested area uh proposed lot yeah okay so proposed lot locations are obscured by terrain vegetation from south brandl road um so um the overall score is 23 and um it's which is below the 30 point minimum um per williston development bylaw 11.2.2.2 this project is eligible for the four units of exemption if the board chooses to grant um this project the exemptions staff is recommending the following allocation schedule of three units in f y 2020 thank you melinda ma'am what would you like to add i you don't really even understand what she was i thought we had 30 points we don't even have 30 points that's my question i don't know i thought that we were doing so could you go through again excuse me one second could you go through again the um your your description and analysis of the of the crossed out development and how it impacts the scoring of the other buildings yeah so because that um um that that leftover land that um that we as we discussed um it would be our recommendation to have you know to go through growth management as if that will be developed at some point in the future um that brings the score for the minimize visual impact down um i think or if that um without that lot um being developed in the future sometime it would it would probably have gotten a maximum score of 20 points for that um so that's that's basically so matt this is what you were trying to trying to cover for shadowing this a little bit yeah um so you know one of the things we talked about in coming up with a draft score for this project was well um the the two lots off of rosewood in the staff's opinion qualify to be scored as if the new development on the property would be invisible so that's 20 points and so this category the two the two duplexes correct um so so the the way this category works is you either get zero points because everything will be totally visible you get 10 points because the project will be minimally visible the new development on the project will be minimally visible or you get 20 points because the new development will be invisible and so we talked a little bit about the um the implications of we want to assume that in the the um marker x doubt lot we want to assume at least one house is going to be built there and assigned in a unit because it is being left on the table as developable land and then the question comes well do you still score the whole project as invisible and if you do that then the future development any future development that came to before the board for discretionary permit on that x doubt lot would have to come with a design that would render it invisible in other words it would have to come with a design with a um very large amount of screening around that unit to make it invisible from any public right of way and so the staff said well in assessing this project we think the more accurate draft score is to score the overall project as minimally visible not box the development into that x doubt lot into what might be an impossible situation but then recommend the drb use its discretion on this project and award three of its available exemption units such that the project could move forward because we feel that would create fewer problems in the future for any development review that happens on that subject parcel um you could score it as if everything's invisible everything that's on the table and going to be going forward with discretionary permit as far as we know is invisible but you're you're kicking a hand down the road in terms of what the actual design on that lot five would have to look like it's kind of closer to gaming the system that you'd well that you'd be for you what you don't want to someone to come back and say gosh i don't know what that drb was thinking in 2019 how could i have ever made this invisible better to anticipate that it's not scored appropriately but then what staff is advising is you know this project um has been through a couple of iterations has come back to the board with with a trail that wasn't present when it was under review last year uh for the time being has reduced the unit count and deferred some of the review until a later date um staff's recommending the board use its discretion to granted allocation such that it it can move forward it's up to up to the make sense a little bit what i'm hearing though is if i take those four lots off then i'd be better off so i feel like i'm being forced to do that that's what it feels like to me well you're not being for it you're not being you're actually not getting allocation no no no no no no you're not yeah nobody's getting allocation oh we don't get allocation until we vote right i know but i need that i need the 30 points and i i know i'm not going to get 30 points if i leave those lots that we want to give our children on the table that's correct you you you're in a better position with 30 points but the board has discretion to award allocation uh to a certain number of building units that don't meet the 30 and what has been proposed by staff that this board has to ratify if we elect to use those discretionary that discretionary option the the staff has recommended that we give you an allocation even with 23 points so so i so proceed with if you don't understand where you're at in this keep asking questions well i don't want you to i don't want you to concede something that you don't have to that i mean 23 points i just you know was that doesn't mean this we're going to adopt what staff has recommended okay okay any reason why you're not building building does um energy efficient housing well i wasn't we're not exactly building it all we want to do is sell a couple of lots that's all we want to do okay so the people that actually come in to build these might be required to build they'd be required to build i that's i mean it's a design requirement these days anyways it's close i i i i will admit that in the past the board and the staff have kind of glossed over this and said well of course everybody's going to build five-star you have to efficiency from out regulations etc a little little bit of research into that and and this criterion is changing next year to more appropriately match the efficiency Vermont standards um it's close i i would be inclined to use some administrative discretion and say if you're filing an rbs you're probably really close to old 10 years old and plus energy star but this uh i'm reading 11.9.1 here and it says it must apply with the with rbs the presidential building energy rbs there's efficiency vermont and then there's the stretch code five-star understand but what is it that that gets you points five-star five-star so rbs is the basement that everyone has to do with the stretch code requirements which overlap with the lead or not the lead so to get the points you need to meet the stretch code pretty similar yeah but the filing your rbs doesn't get you points in this category everybody has to file their rbs it's a couple levels up from that but you you understand that if you we're talking three houses that you're three three houses that we're building here that's part of this we're not building them we that are you're looking for allocation to to build whoever built them would build them at the at the could be asked to build them at the higher so at 80 to 99 percent which would mean all three would need to be built to the standards the energy efficiency standards which by the way have a lot of long-term benefits to somebody who's going to house would get you an additional eight points so you know you see what I'm saying it's and this is what what p was talking about is that there are ways here to get additional points you just mandate that these guys are gonna do it happen you gotta go that way I didn't know if we were oh if we could do that do you know what I mean I knew and nobody came to me and said you have to do this this way you know nobody you're the one doing the permitting you can you can do that it's your land you can assign you can assign that requirement yeah I guess that's part of my confusion it's like you know I'm from rural Vermont you know you want to sell a parcel of land you sell a parcel of land and then he's done you know so I'm just like okay so the way this would work is if you were to sell a lot and it was a permitted lot you would be selling the conditions that are associated with the permit to the buyer so they would be assuming those those conditions and if you were to agree to build to adhere to the five-star energy then that would be anybody who would buy that lot would have to adhere to that when they built it that's the way that would work yeah they when they came and asked me to inspect it I would say can you show me your documentation that you've met what was committed to at growth management so it's it's really you as the applicant committing to it as a scoring criteria in growth management but me in my office as the administrators of zoning checking up and making sure that a builder follows that so most people do that anyway what do you contemplate for this what do you contemplate and like what I don't know what the houses look like in the area oh I have it well we have a log home we have a log home and I don't know how to describe the other houses on that road but I mean we don't have a plan in terms of what these houses are going to look like we were just going to we just want to sell land that's all it's do you know and then you know the people that bought the land would build their own house so I wasn't going to design it for them or don't even have to do that if it's committed to it growth management it becomes a condition of approval that I as zoning administrator enforce I get to be the bad guy she can tell you that they're going to build to the top of the line and you can say that oh then that means that she gets 10 points yes well that's where that would be the staff the staff recommendation on this one is quite clear it's the percentage of the units that will be built either to five-star leave and that's it there's there's very little interpretation if any to be made in this category right it's also important that you understand that if you're committing to that then there may be a market impact for you right somebody may buy it that wants to put it they can't put a lot they can't put a double why they may want to buy it with just aluminum so I don't think people would want to do that so so you should take pause before you make any commitment to that because I want to make sure that you understand if you're considering that what you are committing to and if you're at all confused on that we'll go over it again I I don't think that I'm confused on I mean I I agree with you know building an energy efficient home I didn't know I had the right to say to somebody when I'm going to sell them the land it's your land now who am I to say that you have to build a certain type of house do you know what I mean I mean did you listen to the last hearing I'm picking on you no you know and I yeah I did actually listen to the last hearing but you know I mean the whole discussion nobody when we bought the land to build our house nobody came to us and said you have to build this type of house and you have to build it this way and I just so that's where my confusion I think lies it's it's really as simple as it's a permitted lot there are conditions that come with the permit and to the buyer please understand what those conditions are and if you were to agree tonight that it would be a five five star energy rating that would be a condition for somebody who bought that land and wanted to build a house if you don't want to agree to that then then the score would we'll have to evaluate it but I mean I think it was going to it's going to remain a zero for that category do you do you have any questions or concerns about any of the other proposed scores no I didn't actually get I don't have the scores so I how would I know like what our house we built our own house we're still building it and I'll wrapping it up here but how do I even know that ours is five star I mean what what what is five star you have to have a certain type of furnace or but at this point at this point you that's a question that's a question not really relevant to this process no I understand that but I mean I feel a little okay you know so here I am you don't you can if you want to build your house it's five star that's up to you at this point you're not required no I understand that okay I guess I you know I I've got this home and maybe it's only let's say three stars okay but I'm going to make with the people that are buying the property next to me have to do a five star home so I don't know what ours is and I know what is the best thing I think you could probably do is ask either you're the builder yeah it's get on we had somebody build the four walls put the roof on do the windows in the doors the rest is us we've been doing this for two years so I say here's the best one that we can sell you well they have a certain our value but I don't know if that's five so generally when we look at energy standards what there will be is a list of criteria for the our value of the insulation floor walls roof that's the rbes form that I'm struggling with the rbes contains very similar criteria so it's each each of those levels of energy efficiency is a little bit different in our in our latest and greatest we talk about things like the high performance standard coming from efficiency vermont and and there's even a blower door test that is done at the end to determine the efficiency of your air sealing so all of all of these different levels of certification have slightly different but somewhat similar requirements some of them require a furnace of a certain efficiency and you know what we see when people are trying to meet a standard of energy efficiency is it's like a checklist and when you're when you're at the beginning figuring out you know what you're going to build for a brand new house those trade offs and decisions aren't nearly as hard to make as someone who's you know doing a retrofit so I'm picturing let's say that this project was committed to five star and somebody came to get a permit from my office and they said to one of my staff what's this mean we would pull that list up and we would say well what does five star mean it means you know this r value in the roof it means this level of appliance efficiency for a furnace it means your windows need to be at least so good it may mean there needs to be a blower door test with a certain rating at the end we would just we would look we would literally google it and pull it up and say you should be prepared as the builder of this house to be able to show the staff prior to us issuing a certificate of compliance that you've met all the things on this checklist even if it's just the builder literally saying yep yep I did that and and that's that's the way zoning enforcement works so I'm not an expert in energy efficiency I'm not going to be able to go crawl in your attic and tell you what the r value of your insulation is necessarily we're relying on the person who builds the house to make reasonable representations honest representations to us that they follow those criteria and as much as anything it would be about us informing them at the outset and we you know that's just that's part of any number of permits that we issue so the commitments made tonight become part of the conditions of approval of the discretionary permit they become part of the final plan set they become part of that package of here's what was approved in this project that we would hand off to any perspective builder buyer realtor you know what's my buyer in for if they buy this lot in the brown alomar subdivision well they need to meet these setbacks here's the lot here's the building envelope here's the efficiency standard that was committed to and then people make an informed decision but I guess what I would say from my experience is this is this is not like having an affordable housing covenant on a project where someone's limited to you know how much they can sell the house for this is what you got to build at the risk of confusing this more there are four four four allegation units here is that right correct one the inherent that was with this property to begin with plus the two new houses yeah plus the future development parcel yes which has already been openly discussed as being multiple potential lots in the future could be could be the the inherent one is the one I assume which is under construction right now that if they were to say 100% here to get the 10 points for conservation of energy would all of those would have to comply with that I would say that the three units that are being requested now would have to comply with it not necessarily the one that's currently under construction right because I think that's good news for this yeah we don't we don't reach back to that inherent the okay the second piece though is that this would be committing that future parcel to this these points which means regardless of how many lots you divided that into that point kind of like the little ball of mercury that's on the table right I would I would say yes so 100% of the units requested are going to meet five star if you come back and say well that one I'd like to take that lot and have it be four they should all be committing to that same standard at that time to honor the original score and if you went for the 50% now then or 60 or whatever it is you know that would it would all have to kind of be looked at in in total there yeah so I'm just trying to make sure we all understand including the applicant that there's it's important to understand what you're committing to well the up check is the fact that homes are being built better today than they were 20 years ago in terms of energy efficiency right I mean it does open up some questions about the original issue because this is this is the last year you're going to see five star mentioned as a scoring right but and again and that actually highlights my point because in five years the what what we're holding them to now may not exist as an energy efficiency standard that's correct I mean that's you know in the new criteria we're targeting efficiency for my high performance standard that could change next year and we're left with lots of room for interpretation going forward to this yeah are you saying that you know so five star now we agree to the five star now and in 15 years or 20 years when my kids are ever able to afford to buy anything build anything in Chintending County what if it's even higher than that where they're only going to be held to the five star the only standard that this system can hold you to is the one that was committed to at this hearing yeah hopefully that'll still be available to find hopefully and somebody may have to go into the wayback machine and as erect a code that nobody's had to follow in 20 years and say well geez is it going to meet this and probably it will because as you said the standards getting cheaper and easier to do they don't tend to go the other way but so that's in our favor of enforcing this stuff so um the design for context can you give me a little more detail on why that's five points as opposed to well ten uh again yeah back to that the x yeah x the x right so we don't want to give it the very highest score which would which in my view doing that would unreasonably box in the future development to to something that might be very difficult to administer in the future rather a middle of the road score that assumes there's going to be houses on that lot or those lots like other houses in the neighborhood um but but let's not give it ten points and then and then have to try to figure that out a few years from now just just what that 100 percent compliance with that rather um flexible scoring criteria it is i have a question will you be building the trail easement or how will you be doing as part of we are working with the so determine alignment yeah so um there they've agreed to dedicate an easement for a trail for a primitive path and but that easement will encompass some of their existing built trails but we're not going to require them to build out all of that all of the trails even though so it says under that criteria it says with the developer building all onsite segments that start typically um we've given points for landowners who are willing to dedicate an easement um we've given partial points in that category not full points i would say that in in the matter of primitive trails um the dedication of the easement is most of what needs to happen after that we send an intern out with a gps and some signs and as they say we make the trail by walking hard part is the hard part is getting it so compared to a bike path or a sidewalk section that really truly has to be constructed and there's a town specification and there's all those kinds of things um you know i suppose if somebody was offering us a primitive trail that involves significant construction work so as to be usable like a big bridge something like that um a more informed conversation with the applicant about well is this really going to be a trail we can use or not um but in in this case we have an offer to make publicly available some segments of trail that are already out there um and then otherwise connect them with easements that the town would have a right to go in and identify put on our maps add signage to things like that we have any questions from the audience ma'am so so the bylaw establishes the ability for the drb to allocate up to four units every year to projects that do not meet the 30 point minimum score and because of the things that are incentivized in growth management it's not always 100 possible for a project to make a 30 point score or it may be very difficult for a project to make a 30 point minimum score um growth management highly incentivizes the provision of perpetually affordable housing but that that really comes with some strings attached somebody who's doing that is taking on a significant financial burden the bylaw in the ag rural part of town highly highly incentivizes third party conservation easements and or the donation of land to the town but the land has to be land the town's interested in having or the easement has to be an easement that someone like vermont land trust is interested in having and uh we the the exemption is sort of a recognition that there are other parties besides the applicant in the town that have to be interested in some of these things for these points to be accessible to the applicant so broadly the reason there's an exemption available is because not all projects and especially small projects with a with a small number of units generally have some difficulty getting to 30 points some of them have difficulty getting anywhere near 30 points so this is a project you know with with a commitment to the energy efficiency it does get to 30 points or it could get to 30 points there there may be some other ways in which to do it as I said you know not proposing development on that remainder lot five could change the score as well but all of that has to be taken in balance with that as it is the town is asking that three quarters of the property be set aside as open space that's a that's a baseline requirement as far as I know that remains the most stringent open space requirement for subdivisions that exists in the entire state of vermont no other community asks for so much as williston does and so when you're saying to somebody we want you to set aside 75 percent of your land and then we want you to try to get to 30 points and here's all these things we incentivize a reality the town experiences is that not everybody makes it not everybody makes it all the way to 30 and then it's up to the board to decide whether they want to use their discretion or not or whether they think there's something the applicant could or or should be committing to that would elevate the score above the minimum does that help you don't have any reason just yes so there's a no no standard lies like there's no standard pretty much is that am I understand correctly well there is a standard okay so what there is a there is a standard and the standards are laid out and what we are talking about um with the with the scoring but what matt has said is that the board has has the option of um assigning up to four units for development units for allocation units to any project total of four um at any given year that we have we have our own discretionary use of them okay so forget the standards we can assign four units to anything that's that's given to the board yeah that's so that's that's it um but yes there are standards we can't assign five six seven eight nine but we do have we are given the right uh or the board the d or b is given the right to assign four to uh to a project that we we the board through deliberation determines is worthy or not it could be two projects absolutely it could be our three or four yeah one unit per yeah or or none at all to be clear if this applicant were proposing five development units she didn't meet the minimum score for of 30 and we only have four to allocate that's as much as you could that's as much as we could do but we could still allocate her the four yes so partial allocation is allowed um and that's true whether someone meets the minimum or not d rb can attempt to make an equitable distribution of units when there's more being requested than are available um i'll just read very briefly the exemption and it simply says the d rb may after having evaluated and ranked all proposed residential subdivisions as provided in this chapter allocate as many as four dwelling units each fiscal year to proposed minor residential subdivisions regardless of their score on the evaluation standards established in wdb 116 117 or 118 so it just says may allocate regardless of score um what is the definition of minor subdivision um minor doesn't really have a lot of meaning in our bylaw anymore uh there was a time when there were major and minor subdivisions and i and i think the threshold was um somewhere between five and ten units depending on the on the um thing but it's it was not related to the size of the parent parcel or where it was or anything like that um there's there's no definition in chapter 46 of this bylaw of a minor subdivision anymore so you know what what we have tried to do as staff is give the d rb as much evidence about every project as we can in their consideration of whether or not to make that allocation but you know a year ago or about a year ago um these applicants were calling the staff saying the d rb didn't give us any of the four exemption units why and the answer was because they didn't have to they gave them to somebody else why did they give them to somebody else because they decided to um there's a there's a small amount of essentially flexibility afforded the board regardless of score um recognizing that not all projects have the same opportunity to score the same because of their context the land that they're coming out of um etc it also avoids takings so if this were a system that literally rendered some parcels of land in town undevelopable the town would be in a position of needing to compensate those landowners for having taken all of their valuable property rights that's the other answer i just want to just make sure there's a clarification here and there's three pieces to what i'm about to say so i'll just practice this so really there's a loophole for the development review board to at their discretion take into consideration at the suggestion of the staff to we don't have the 30 but we're not looking for seven like a year or two ago we're just looking for four so therefore it goes into what the law is our bylaws of what you're allowed to say yay or negative does that make sense to you whether we like it or not is irrelevant okay you have that right you have that discretion that's why we're here tonight that's why we're here last fall why we're here the fall before it's why last march this wasn't here it's here now because we're at the four or less negative discretion did i pretty much summarize that correctly i i would categorize it as a provision instead of a loophole bureaucratically sure i understood we could change the statement completely if my question to you is are you willing to commit to the five star for the properties that you want to sell sure now the question i have done in the staff is if she's going to do that does that give her the 10 points that goes on this form yes or no if if they if that were a commitment that were made we would be recommending you score the project accordingly so in other words the project would change from 23 to 33 correct assuming i'm reading the criteria correctly yes in other words then 100 percent of all units certified 10 points sure so in other words nothing out of her pocket on you'll get another question is nothing out of her pocket tonight other than to say yeah when the builders actually do something they gotta meet your criteria it's it's a commitment that would be enforced through the permitting process and would be imposed on whomever owned those properties going into the future and future development and future development on future development yes and like i said and that would then eliminate your comment of the provision okay so i believe he had two more comments my second one which is perfect absolutely perfect thank you sir because my second thing was is that why not just commit sure a developer whoever's going to build it is going to have to follow the five star okay but it really only benefits the environment anyway and with that said we might not have five star in five years let me just answer let me just answer that and you'll get a chance to keep on going absolutely the board speaking for the board i think that i can safely say that the board would prefer to see that okay i think we would prefer to see the project score as high as possible and we'll leave it at that and you have the provision to say we prefer it but there's an exception okay and and and i'm not against that i'm asking that yes that you do consider that because i mean my goodness we just sat for an hour and a half here and about the sighting this and that and you thought i would go off i was waiting i'm not going to just really hopefully get our surprise to you i just have those three points and and this gentleman right here got the second one and uh matt's over there ducking so i'm ready to buy land in willison and develop because i want to stand in front of you all or sit in front of you all and and develop it so that's where i go you have a third point my third point was simply this is that in the past meetings and i can't make the third point i won't dredge up all the past meetings if you look in the notes and you look at the requests i mean if crying out loud something just a traffic study in the last review i have asked that a traffic study be done i have begged that a traffic study be done the town of williston will not pick up and drop off our kids at our road because they deem it too dangerous okay so if something is simple i'm ready to say you know she doesn't have the 30 points but hey you know as long as there's some things in there and then the town of willison the fire department mentioned you notice i'm not saying anything about class two or three wetlands the town of willison fire department the police department deferred to the fire department the road needs to be wide enough to get our fire apparatus up to ems you cannot you can't get two cars past each other let alone emergency vehicles and if you're gonna allow more houses on the road then i'm asking you per the recommendation i don't this wasn't my recommendation so if anything i like my nice little narrow street and it's nice and private but it's matt can you read the standard i can i can or you can recite it off your head memory thank you um a residential driveway serving five or fewer units has to be 12 feet wide four feet clear on either side uh with a with an adequate sub base which is specified in our bylaw i assume to prevent it from falling apart um but it's 12 feet wide four feet clear either side fire department often comments as to uh what they feel they need for space to turn around at the end of a driveway like that um those comments are often made at pre-application they're often reiterated during discretionary permit and the drb's practice is frequently if not all the time to adopt the fire department recommendations as conditions of approval for final plan so i you know i i mean i will tell you that in on the administrative side on a shared driveway in the last few months um i had to go back to the fire chief and ask about the location of a shed that a homeowner wanted to place and ensure that it wasn't impinging upon the turnaround for their apparatus because that condition was imposed as part of subdivision approval that's how it works um that's how it would work in terms of the review and any conditions imposed on this project or any other one in town so and i just thought of another thing and that was mentioned at the beginning that answers that question is this two units or is this i heard single family to mirror the other homes on the road two duplexes two duplexes right now two single families and then on that i asked that question up front you said it i didn't correct you i apologize we ran right over in sky that's two single families you said five well i asked that question for the width of the road now do we not do we not count the people in south uh burlington on this road count because right now it looks like there's four uh those those people are in shelburn oh shelburn or whatever so absolutely not in that case no no we are we are in communication and have been as it relates to this project with the planner in shelburn about any recommendations they want to make as well well the reason i asked the question is because you said five well there there's looks like there's already four existing guys there we're adding two more so that's the only reply that's six right not all in williston that's what i'm asking so in other words we don't count the shelburn or south burlington or whoever people that happen to tie it tie into this thing we will coordinate with shelburn and we will seek whatever answer satisfies the drb in their review of the project at the time of subdivision design so you know for example if you were the board asks me to ask our land use attorney how we ought to look at that um if you want me to consult with the public works director the fire chief um how should our bylaw be applied when some of what's happening is in the town that's not subject to our bylaw well i think i asked this way back when we first started yep okay so that that's the question i have is so that if we're talking five or less they don't ask me 12 feet but if the people that sort of are in the other town suddenly say that they want to be part of this uh venture then that means that we're not talking five anymore we're talking six i mean i will say we've had we've had some scenarios in recent memory um a house in williston that's the service both six or seven house on a driveway that comes in from st george but i think that um isn't at least one of these access is it not access directly from 116 no no i'm not worried about that i'm talking about the people that actually have access to this uh road to this road there's one in shelbin that's right below us then there's us and then there's the hard residents on the left and then the two proposed out back so technically williston will only notice or see four as on a private road so you're up to five so you got your shelbin one all i ask is that especially with the traffic coming and going and that hill right there is ferocious coming up around that escalator you know where i'm talking about and for people the the buses won't pick up and drop off so all i'm asking if and when you do say yes to this you know get the extra 10 points put the five star in and five star now means the best so in 20 years it doesn't matter if we have five star or not it should be the best the highest number one number two is just make sure that what our own town has asked for is that 12 wide four on either side clear because there's there's a lot of ledge and trees up there so some changes are going to have to be made so just put those stipulations in there so that it is done does that surprise you that's that stipulation would be in there anyways as a road standard as long as it's definitely followed to the letter of the law that's nothing's right nothing's and if they want to turn around at the end there's going to be some clearing required assuming that the board that the board goes you know goes with the fire departments yeah recommend it right you heard Matt say it norm you know 99 percent of the time we the board does but not always okay okay any other points any other points other questions from the audience ma'am one more so question for staff is so for instance this if I sound like this could approve tonight so what if they got approved right then divide different lots either them or whoever come into the bill in the future is that individual lot when they apply a permit does there any cases or like just sounds like you will go through is there anyone however encounter the problem along the way they end up cannot build on the law the only the only thing that I would say about that would be not that somebody couldn't build on the lot but there will be conditions imposed on further development on the lot that any any builder would have to meet so for example if somebody said well if they came to me and said I want to build on that lot but I don't want to do that energy efficiency stuff I would say well then I can't give you a permit to build on that lot I would say that once a buildable lot is created under the standards of the day that say it's buildable if the rules all change tomorrow and suddenly that lot was smaller than we would allow or otherwise not conforming there are provisions in our bylaw that say you can still build on a non conforming lot it's what most people would refer to as grandfathering so when once you create that buildable lot and it's got allocation anybody who can meet the conditions of subdivision approval and the provisions of the bylaw as as far as they can will be able to build on that block so I'm trying to imagine for you a scenario where the lot becomes completely unbuildable but our bylaw itself has some provisions to prevent that because we really don't want to change the rules and render something unbuildable because again then we've then we've essentially taken it we we would have to buy it it's very unlikely that something the town would do would render a created lot completely unbuildable and if it did that owner would be entitled to compensation you know if we decided tomorrow that the setback to route 116 was 2000 feet and this whole lot was in that setback and therefore no longer buildable we would have taken the ability for somebody to get a return off of that lot and constitutionally we would be required to compensate for that so we avoid that by saying if we change the rules and it means that your property would not be buildable your property is still going to be buildable and we have a whole chapter in our bylaw that addresses that situation otherwise we would be in trouble other questions now sir now you were talking about easements for the trails now is that the public can they use those yes trails so where would the parking be if people decide to come up from the public so we don't always create parking for trails we create parking when the town has the ability the number one the land the permitting ability to do so the capacity to manage it but we've had trail easements in the past that we've had for a very long time before actually going and creating parking because that tends to be a design challenge so for example sucker brokalo off of route 2a we had those trail alignments we had easements we had we had land we had rights over in that area for a very long time before the town had the ability to do anything related to parking and in that case some some bridge construction that was required to make those work so it might be as simple as identifying those trails on a map identifying them with signs in the field but not identifying parking in that case there is parking allowed along the side of any public road that's not otherwise posted as long as you're off the travel right of way the hard part the hard part here is is believe it or not is not I don't from my my opinion the hard part is actually not the parking it's stringing together the easements so it's so the the only time that the town ever gets a chance to gain an easement across the property is when it comes up in front of the town for a development request um this this could go for decades before anybody actually um started through hiking on it maybe that's not the right term but or connecting or connected absolutely so it's so what the town tries to do is piece together the puzzle and I believe we've got a chart around somewhere to town plan map has a list if you ever wanted to stop in take a look at it you can see where all the little easements that the town has on all the different parcels they start to fit together and they don't all fit together there's one here and one here and one here and one here but as but as the as the development requests come in they add to it very slowly and really that's that's what that's what's trying to be achieved here so eventually the puzzles are going to be put together eventually eventually and and that's not entirely true in that the town can affirmatively go out and buy pieces and and acquire those rights from others so let's say they got 85 percent of connectivity on something they might then allocate some funds in order to get to acquire the other 15 percent so it's not just when that's correct when development occurs but it could be an initiation of the town so points are a lot for giving easements which is public people have the right public has the right to park and public road roads what is not it is a private road so therefore they could not park on roads with however south brinnell yep public public road so points were given could we give a few more points to get it more guaranteed up past the 30 if it were said it could come through my property not mine but the property that's being trying to develop would there you know wouldn't you take that into great consideration to say hey wow you know you're giving this you're giving this public easement and you can park along our road off of south brinnell because there's only one spot where you can really park there and the cops already take it so you know wouldn't that be i'm trying to be nice here yeah the the scoring criteria is pretty specific to trails um i you know i would say you know there's there's some flexibility for the board if somebody had a really great facility they were going to be able to offer up um you know i encourage the board to think about that when they consider their point awards but really this is just about getting getting those bits and pieces together so that we can start to connect them and i will say you know from the town's perspective um what i was saying about you know we don't necessarily develop parking we don't necessarily develop trailhead facilities that encourage the highest intensity of use of every piece of the trail system because sometimes that part of the trail system is just not ready for that um you know so there are there are times when we're ready to develop a parking area in a trailhead and and signs that really you know encourage people and you know if it's a long segment of trail that connects somewhere that starts to make sense but sometimes you know i scott alluded to on our map there's just a piece of trail uh trail easement we own that we don't even go out to develop because it just doesn't go anywhere yet and in fact it might dead end into a piece of private property that we don't want to encourage people to end up on for lack of a better term we want to make sure that we're um you know being respectful of all of those property owners whose property we're we're crossing and and being near so could could the board give more points for a more enhanced facility sure but i would also say that at the growth management hearing it's not the best place in the world to start trying to design those facilities but rather rather go with what appears feasible right so if this easement which is going to be offered south rinnell is really the only road in that right now those drop offs on the side are pretty so i'm just trying to encourage safety any other questions from the audience any questions from the board i guess i'm still just not 100 clear on whether or not you are going to commit to the five star yes five star so yes you are committing to the five square okay and yes that means the score is now 33 it could be you'll be delivered you'll be deliberating on that okay but that would not be the staff to recommend yes okay we would propose 10 points in that category if all three of those units are going to meet five star okay anything else no sure thank you thank you for coming thank you okay that was dp 19-03 brown alemarch next up is dp 19 before we do get into this anybody want to take a break anybody everybody okay really do next up is dp 19-05 brisket subdivision hi there name and address please andriana tollo to dole consulting engineers 478 black park road great welcome michael and jessica brissette request um just to provide a 10.74 acre parcel into two residential lots and one open space lot at 495 porta wood drive in the agricultural rural residential zoning district the parcel is currently developed with one single family requesting one additional unit to build the second home in the category of conserve energy the proposed score is zero they're not proposing five star or lead certification they're not proposing affordable housing so another score of zero they're not proposing to build any paths or trails or give any easements in design for context we gave the project the full 10 points proposing additional single family dwelling in a neighborhood of single family dwellings on individual parcels conserve open space the application does have that 75 open space parcel but they don't get points because they're not doing a third party easement or dedication to the town and the last category minimize visual impact they received the full 20 points for invisible development because um this project is not visible from a public road the nearest public road is old creamery road porterwood drive is private i'm maintained by the wilson fire district based off of that 10 plus 20 the project receives the minimum score of 30 points and therefore staff recommends one unit of allocation in fiscal year 2019 thank you andrea would you like to add to that i thought all sounds good um milley agree with the 20 points and the 10 points um this project doesn't have a lot of room to score more points i think the only place that could potentially score points is the conserve energy category um i do have some questions about if since it seems as though this project will now be the lowest scoring project of the three um if that affects the allocation in any way i think the answer to that is maybe however i also think the also the answer to that is we have more allocation units than we are actually handing out and have requests for correct right so you you have units available to allocate in fiscal 19 which is the year we're already in um and in fiscal 20 which is the year that starts on july 1st um and in for everything that's already been allocated plus everything that's requested this year there's room in both of those fiscal years to to allocate to the projects that have requested so there's a two-part answer to your question the first question the first answer is when i said maybe it depends on if the board agrees with the staff's scoring of the project right the second the second answer is the one we just gave we just gave is that there are allocable units available exceeding the amount that have been requested today so it's so it's really the 30 points that is the importance here it's not the 32 or a 33 or a 34 when compared to the 30 it's about the allocation availability and if which there's plenty for this one and then all below 30 then it becomes it would need it for us to use one of our discretionary units i also just want to confirm that there is no future potential for development quite correct with this lot this is this is the maximum potential that it has yeah it's a pretty cut down by both steep slopes and wetlands on the site i think the maximum units was 2.23 which would round okay so two would be the next yep third allocation question to the board any more questions for the board um no i guess i would just like to stress that i don't believe that build affordable housing paths or trails um or conserve open space are necessarily viable areas to receive points on this project the project could potentially receive points on conserve energy but i would take into mind that it is within a mobile home park and they are looking to probably put another mobile home there so the options for a five-star lead mobile home are quite limited as well but other than that we'll we'll keep the proposal as is okay okay and they get the five-star reading from the propane industry okay thank you for coming next up is dp19-09 howard butternut road okay i don't even have a lost track that's kevner are you doing this just for fun or what are you sitting around sticking around just for fun yeah oh you're doing with them all i'm sorry i thought you were there he watches the neighbor he watches the train bears down the hill let's see just here on a zoological survey got it okay sir if you would state your name and your address please gary howard 697 butternut road thank you gary matt i'm doing this one so this is a proposed five lot subdivision of 121 acres of land on butternut road east of 846 butternut road west of 1120 butternut road we're in an agricultural rural residential zoning district uh there's an inherent right to build one dwelling unit that comes with the property and there is no dwelling on the property today this is another one of the projects i alluded to in the beginning where there are lots proposed for more imminent development there is perpetually protected open space proposed and there are two for lack of a better term remained or lots proposed for potential future development and as in the other case staff is recommending one unit of allocation be awarded to each of those as part of this process and the project be considered and scored based on an assumption that those lots will eventually be developed so for this project in the criteria of conserving energy the applicant has marked it as not proposed for any units therefore no points are proposed to be awarded for energy efficiency no affordable housing is proposed so no points are proposed to be awarded for affordable housing the applicant is proposing a trail easement and to provide that as part of the discretionary permit review process staff is recommending five points so the score here is five to ten points if a easement is provided depending on the length of the path or segment so if you're providing any trail easement at all the minimum score is five so five doesn't represent halfway it represents the minimum score if you're providing a trail at all and just want to provide that context there we're not exactly sure what the length of that segment will be yet in design for context the applicant's proposing single family dwellings on large lot large acre parcels similar to other density on butternut road out of a maximum score of 10 staff recommended a score of eight and on conserve open space there is 75 percent perpetually protected open space in compliance with the bylaw being proposed but no third party protection or donation to the town therefore no points are recommended in the open space category in terms of minimize visual impact um staff is proposing that this project be scored as invisible development 20 points and i will note that that draft score is based on development happening on all of the lots that might someday be developed including lots four and five the board if you were to want to inquire more deeply on this score i think your inquiry would be well focused on lot four which does have frontage on butternut road but is a large lot with some potential to be developed in such a way that a house or other development might still be invisible from butternut road that is the assumption that's baked into that maximum score right now so something to think about future condition that says lot for any future development on lot four must be completely screened from butternut correct so must be situated on that lot and so number one you couldn't put it you know 50 feet off of butternut road and reasonably expect it to be invisible it would it would have to be located near the rear of that lot so i'm i'm going to something that you you're fine with oh yeah oh yeah there's no way i mean butternut road brook vertical hundred and twenty foot bank feels behind that i mean no so yeah if you if you look at the topo lines they can't see it um there's there's some things at play that staff believes makes it reasonable for the drb to find that development on that lot could be could be invisible uh the drb at whatever point in the future where discretionary permit was reviewed to develop that lot may need to consider some conditions to ensure that as as part of the upcoming development review although we might not see a driveway or septic engineering on that lot staff might recommend that the drb have the applicant propose a building envelope on that lot that would inform that finding of invisibility staff make has notes to that effect for the future dp we won't forget i know you won't but but it's it's as i said you know there's there's some thinking for the board to do about what tasks it might be creating for itself in the future when distantly future development might come back for discretionary permit review and i'll stop there thank you yes i've learned a lot tonight one of the things i i had i really had one of the things i didn't realize was that i could control somebody else's building i was selling lots i i had no idea that i had control over the energy efficiency of the houses that are being built um like that would you like to add that in yes i i would very much sure so the land but i can also tell them how they feel while we would not we would not demand it for you of you we would certainly encourage it of you yeah and i can't see any reason these are relative they're intelligent people they should understand the efficiency of building a house to a certain set of standards that make it efficient are you under contract no uh just for the land i am on it for the land yes you're under contract to sell the land yes so 100 percent yeah yeah i can't see yet i have another question as well these two lots that i'm trying to requisition or for my son um is there a time frame on those i heard way back in the very beginning this evening i hear something mentioned about running out of time and i just didn't have a straight my head where they fit so assuming each of those lots were assigned a unit of allocation the the normal window in which they could build would run for five years from the date of the fiscal year uh on which they started should those lots not be permitted within that initial five-year window one of those lots i believe per year could be built after that so you build one one year you build one the next that's the slow build provision in williston that now replaces outright expiration of units okay so i don't have to worry about them expiring only about when they're going to be built it it might alter the timing of when a permit could be issued for one of those units but you would not end up in the situation of owning a separate lot of land that was otherwise buildable but for the expiration of growth management that's what the select board amended the rules in the same situation i heard the lady two ladies ago saying you know i've got kids that who knows when they're going to be financially able to build there and i didn't want to have it determined i didn't want to set them into something that would terminate the process because they're ways out yet i'm i'm the last staff person in willison planning who experienced the joys of expiration and and reassignment of allocation over the last 10 years um some of the drb members who are here for that can attest to its complexity and challenge this the slow build provision adopted by select board serves serves the town well and and eliminates that it's like for me to bridge yeah question could he end up building the bridge one year and then build the house the following year in a slow build we've we've we've split permits before um to handle infrastructure needs um in in terms of growth management what matters is when you permit the house yeah so what i'm trying to say is they could be like for example they could be building lot five and building the bridge on lot four in the same year and then building lot four's house the following year right yeah we do we do infrastructure permits we do all sorts of things that sort of separate out the development activities it sounds like lot four needs a lot of infrastructure yeah yeah no it's not that it's not that it's not that no it's just that's if you look at the map that's just the way it lays out i mean i i didn't have much choice i'd prefer not trying to find my way up that 130 foot bank i would prefer that a lot but that's not going to be my matt could you a little clarification on the slow build then that are you saying that after the five years they have to build a house each year no no but if you go out of that schedule you are placed on a slower schedule which means you can't build it as quickly right and and in fact that's the way the system used to work about until about 20 years ago and once in a while we would get a permit application for a very old subdivision in williston like hinds estates or over lake view and ken and i would look at it go what's the growth management dispensation didn't this expire we go back to that version of growth management and lo and behold there was a thing that said you build this many units per year and if you fall out of that schedule you can only build three units a year for every year after that and the administration of that was so easy and the impact on the town was so minor that when we went back to the select board about what are we going to do with this expiration provisions here why don't we do it the way we used to do it that actually worked pretty well any questions from the audience sounds like you're all here for it yes hi my name is kevin missus on 11 21 or not row first and foremost i i'd like to thank the staff for their their patience as as this process evolves and this this development is quite fluid we're learning more and more each time we come here so much appreciation to the staff for their clarification around rules and the bylaws and such even in the staff notes you know i appreciate the comments around how things will change from pre application to growth management to discretionary permitting there's there's a lot that we need to learn to the board with the comments that i shared with you a lot of them are just simply comments on the process that we're in now my partner jesse came before the free application process and shared his concerns with with gary and with the board around the well that we have a right of way to as well as the driveway and gary very kindly provided us with the wastewater and the well plans to that so which i think just goes to show that there's there's an open conversation around this and there has been from the get go and we appreciate that and then finally you know in sharing my comments with you in the written form prior to the meeting a lot of that was just to to be engaged in the process because this is going to drastically change that part of the butternut road by adding additional homes to it my comment earlier uh my question earlier about habitat um pardon me i've forgotten the term already habitat assessment um you know as we go forward with that what that's going to do based on the discretionary permitting of all of the new parcels because initially there were just two plus the open space is a concern of mine and i know that this is not the time to say it but because there is a question and criteria around open space in the contiguous open space to adjacent parcels is a concern of mine simply because of the potential impact to not only my dwelling but the the environment around it and the habitat around it there's a significant impact there if a wildlife corridor is not kept um so again i just wanted to say thank you to the board to the staff and certainly mr howard for including us in the process oh kevin i owe you with awful more than that uh anyway um i i yeah i was i was unneighborly okay kevin and he seems to have accepted my apologies but just good it's all good it's all good yeah so one summary question did you say that you are going to ask for the five-star stuff for points yes oh okay that's just want to confirm yes okay okay with the staff change their recommendation then on that so if 100 percent of the units are proposed to meet five-star relief the recommended score would be ten okay one more time anything else okay thank you for coming when do we find out that o'clock or three who do you want to talk to i know call me at five of eight but okay so it is uh 10 57 is that about 10 57 and the development review board for the town of williston on march 26th is out of deliberation on growth management um do i have a uh do i have a motion for the uh other sewer service area allocation yes as authorized by chapter 11 of the wilson development bylaw i john hemel garn moved at the wilson development review board having reviewed all of the submitted growth management questionnaires and accompanying materials including the recommendations for the town staff and having heard and duly considered the testimony presented at the public hearing of march 26 2019 make the following allocation of dwelling units within the growth target established by chapter five of the wilson comprehensive plan within the town's other sewer service area as shown in table four above established by the development review board on march 26 2019 we will be providing allocation in this area for uh the adams subdivision dp 19 dash 11 which achieved a score of 31 they will be getting four units in f y 2020 and four units in f y 2021 okay that's the that's it for that's it for the that sewer service allocation uh do i have a second i'll second pete seconds any further discussion no further discussion all in favor i i five till with the ui five i is no nays motion carries do i have a motion for uh wdb 11.9 outside sewer service area allocation yes as authorized by chapter 11 of the wilson development bylaw i john hemel garn moved at the wilson development review board having reviewed all of the submitted growth management questionnaires and accompanying materials including the recommendations of the town staff and having heard and duly considered the testimony presented at the public hearing of march 26 2019 make the following allocation of dwelling units within the growth target established by chapter five of the wilson comprehensive plan outside of the town's sewer service area as shown in table four above established by the development review board on march 26 2019 we will be providing allocation for the following projects uh dp 19 day 0 3 brown ala marsh which scored 33 points dp 19 day 0 5 percent subdivision which scored 30 points and dp 19 day 0 9 howard subdivision which scored 33 points that allocation will be as follows f y 2019 preset 1 howard 3 f y 2020 uh brown ala marsh 3 howard 1 okay and those documents will be turned into staff have evidence of our scoring and allocation of the units to the fiscal years uh do i have a uh second i'll second pete seconds any further discussion no further discussion all in favor hi hi five eyes milne's motion carries all right that's great um no because that's what they had originally so we didn't make any changes to it yep well that's a good question um do i have a motion to approve the minutes of march 12 2019 i'll bake that motion jill makes the motion do i have a second i second on seconds it any further discussion all in favor hi i'm going to abstain i wasn't present four eyes one abstention motion carries uh do i have a motion to adjourn the meeting at 11 0 5 so moved thanks everybody that was good