 Welcome. This is our second Striving for Equity workshop. I am Corinne. I'm the person that has been emailing you. And I know many of the names on this call. I'm really excited to see you here. I think this is going to be really helpful. Just I'm going to start with just a few housekeeping things. This, as I said, is our second Striving for Equity workshop. The Striving for Equity project has allowed us to offer support and resources for housing committees and community groups doing advocacy around housing. In addition to our workshops, we have been doing our housing committee drop in, which has been a really exciting social space for housing committee members and other adjacent housing advocates to talk about some of the policies that they're working on, some of the things they're struggling with, what they'd like to see, what they'd like to know more about. And just kind of from a personal perspective, it's been really exciting and has bringing me a lot of hope to see other people, housing committee members kind of teaching each other about the field. That's been really great to see. As a reminder, all of our workshops, not our drop-ins, but our workshops are recorded. We are putting them on our Striving for Equity toolkit website, which I'm going to be putting in the chat right here. I just switched from a Mac to a Windows, so I always get my shortcuts mixed up. So you can find the past recordings and at the end of this workshop on this toolkit, as well as our calendar of events and some other resources that have come up in our workshop. The other thing I just want to turn your attention to is that we have some really exciting opportunities coming up for April. April is Fair Housing Month and the Fair Housing Project loves the opportunity to partner with communities across the state to further our housing education, especially around housing inclusion in the Fair Housing Act. And this year, we have the privilege of partnering with the Human Rights Commission to invite Richard and Leah Rothstein up to Vermont, which is huge to talk about their most recent book, Just Action. So we have a lot of activities that will be kind of coming up in proceeding the event and coming up after the event, including I'm hearing rumors of a book group, all to say that keep your eye on the email. I'm going to be promoting, I'm going to be promoting these events. Just this is me using the wrong shortcut. Again, I'm glad this is recorded so I can relive this. I'm putting our Striving for Equity website in the chat. And then as a reminder, I know I've said this a few times in my emails, please add fhp at cboe.org to your address book. If if you haven't, you might not be receiving some of our newsletters, which come in through MailChimp. So just take a minute at the end of this workshop, perhaps you're multitasking and add us to your address book. With that said, I'm trying to think if I forgot anything, I might just circle back and say once again, I'm Karin, I'm here with the CVOEO Fair Housing Project at Champlain Valley of Economic Opportunity. We have we're welcoming Emily Heyman, the senior planner of the town of Williston for our second Striving for Equity workshop. And so I'm going to turn this mic to you, Emily. Otherwise, I will talk right through this workshop. Thank you, Karin. Thanks for the introduction. Nice to meet everybody. My name is Emily. I started out with the town of Williston in 2017, entry level planning technician. Currently, I'm senior planning senior planner, and also recently, deputy zoning administrator, although I call not sure zoning administration is a promotion or a demotion. It can be fun and challenging. My role is wide ranging for the town. So I staff the Development Review Board, looking at development proposals, helping draft their decisions. I help review administrative permits. So I'm helping citizens from someone who's never gotten a shed permit before or is building their home to working with developers and engineers and professionals on big projects, major developments. So both ends of the spectrum. And also long range planning assisting with the Planning Commission, staffing our Historic and Design Advisory Commission, as well as assisting with the select board as needed. So my role is both current planning with permit review from large to small projects to long range planning with writing and revising the bylaws. Right now we're working on our town plan project and some of our advisory committees. So my presentation presentation today is called Get It Done, Community Engagement for Municipal Decisions. Some of my examples and stories and that I'll share are based on my experience, but also some of my experience with my coworkers. Most projects are the result of a good team effort. So a little bit about the town of Williston, most folks I assume have probably visited our town. We're population a little over 10,000 people. We're 10 minutes to the airport, 20 minutes to downtown Burlington, and we're in Chittenden County. So the fastest growing county in our state with a lot of jobs and employment opportunities and also a great need for housing. Williston seen a lot of change. So like most of Vermont, it has a lot of change. So like most of Vermont, it has an agrarian rural history. In the 1980s, being located on intersection of two state highways and the interstate 89 became a place where development was desirable. We've seen a lot of change over the past 30 years. And we're going through our ugly duckling our suburban retrofit phase. So the building from strip malls, parking lot forward development, single use commercial buildings to trying to retrofit in a downtown walkable pattern, more housing, more mixed use buildings. This suburban retrofit photo is the newly constructed LLB in Williston. The building is pulled to the street. It has a 10 foot wide multi-use and the Cisco truck is using the bike pedestrian path for loading. So we're seeing that sometimes challenges over trying to make it a walkable place, but the rest of the world is trying to evolve to it. The Cisco truck now knows to use the parking lot on the other side. So our agenda for today's meeting, I'm going to go over some of the tools in my toolbox, why I use them and several case studies explaining some of my tips and tricks. So it's in my toolbox. Some things are free, like Google, Google Forms, Google Survey. I do recorded PowerPoint sometimes. I'm not a video editor by any means. Mentimeter for surveying, target project journals, which is basically a Google form and some note cards I'll go into in the future, infographics, decision templates, and my words of wisdom. My focus here is that my tools that I try to use are either free or included in my existing Microsoft package or something that's not crazy expensive, worth municipalities or nonprofits with limited budget. So we need to be judicious with what we use. So why have a toolbox? Time and attention are our most precious resources and it's important to keep decision makers focused on facts, not on emotions. And in general, after about two hours of a meeting or things going past 9pm at night, it can be really hard to think clearly, make good decisions, especially when you're in nitty gritty of working on a bylaw amendment or drafting a development decision. So it's important to use our time efficiently. And our boards and committees, when you add it all up, for example, a planning commission that meets two times a month, 12 months a year, that's about 48 hours. So you have throughout an entire year, very little meeting time, and you need to allocate it judiciously. And those 48 hours a year can easily divert it to random tangents. We're working on big concepts and big ideas. People have a lot of passions. It's a lot of yes and solutions. So how do we keep random tangents from taking over? So the first example is the Williston Energy Plan. This was adopted in September of 2020, so a little while ago. And it was an amendment to our comprehensive plan, doing our required energy plan. So there's things that we were required to do by the state for substantial deference. And then our energy committee and our planning commission went above and beyond. It had major focus areas from transportation and land use, recycling, agriculture. So broad-ranging focus, a lot of places where tangents and passions could take over. So how did we address that? I constructed a pre-meeting survey. So I took all of the statements in the energy plan and had our planning commission do a survey. You either agree with it as written or you give a recommendation for to change it. You'll notice that no is not an option. And this is Google Forms, which is free. I looked at the responses and then was able to determine from the planning commission where is their consensus, where is their friction. The topics where no one had any feedback or everybody was in agreement. We're not even going to talk about that in the public meeting or we'll talk about it very briefly at the end. Where there are places of friction or a lot of feedback, we're going to prioritize talking about those town plan goals and policies first. Some of that was just nuanced language changes rather than creating a program, exploring a tiered program. So using the feedback from that survey to broaden language and present something to the planning commission in their meeting. So we're not spiraling out in the meeting. Here's another example where increase allowable density. That was a really hot button issue. Our goal here is to get an energy plan and get our substantial benefits deference through. So we just change the wording to in the future reevaluate density. A big takeaway from energy plan. So all of that feedback from the survey was there is a missing link. Often times municipalities, we have very little control over state or national influences that are affecting our town. So we added a third pathway to our energy plan to monitor state and federal policies. Proactively participate in legislative process. For example, ideas would be thrown out like, hey, why don't we put a local option sales tax on gas? It's like, well, municipalities don't have the authority to do that. And we didn't want our commissioners to feel like their ideas were wrong or being ignored, but just recognize that there's a greater context to what a municipal government can and can't do. And here's how we can take that pathway forward and address those concerns. So for energy plan, I use Google Forms and I created decision templates. So our planning commission would be talking not about do you want to change the language in this yes or no, but what language do you want to change and what words do you want to use. So we're having a much higher focused conversation in that limited meeting time. Second example was part of our form based code project. So in fall of 2022, Williston adopted a form based code after a very lengthy public process and we did hire an outside consultant to help us draft the form based code, but we as staff did a lot of shepherding it through our planning commission, some of our public outreach and engagement. And I'm really going to focus on after we had done our community engagement, our public surveys, that kind of thing. I'm going to focus on getting the planning commission working through the draft and transmitting something to the select board for approval. So we had a lot going on in form based code. We're developing whole new design standards and maybe one night we're talking about architectural standards, but someone read the parking chapter and has a lot of questions and comments on the parking chapter. So we had a park at journal where if something came up either during a meeting or one of our planning commission members sent us a question or comment, rather than just checking it off in our heads, we had a shared Google doc to keep track of ideas and then respond to them. Oftentimes there would be ideas or questions brought up that we couldn't, we don't have the authority as a municipality to include in our zoning or weren't going to be addressed in the form based code by law package, but we didn't want to forget about them. So we used the park at journal to show that the planning commissioners were being heard responding to them with facts and data where appropriate and keep track. So after the planning commission reviewed their first draft of the code and was ready to warn a public hearing, they held a hearing and there were about 10 things that they felt like we want to tweak before we get send this on to the select board. And each one of these 10 things could have probably been a meeting of its own and we needed to be really efficient with our timeline to move this project forward to the select board. So we broke it down into these 12 or these 10 topic areas and did a PowerPoint video which is not going to win any, you know, Grammys or Oscars or whatever, but it helps convey to the planning commission and it made it possible for us as staff to remind them of all their process, what the code says, what the facts are around the issue that they're topic that they're concerned about, and we would talk over PowerPoint slides and then they would be able to watch it or listen to it on their own time. An example was building height, building height in the different form-based code area. So we summarized what they, all the building heights were proposed to be, how it corresponds to the regulating map of the form-based code, reminded them of the testimony that they heard throughout the public hearing process, an excerpt of what the existing building heights are in the bylaw. Some of my graphic design in this era is not super great, but it works, and reminding them about their public process, what did the vision plan say about affordable housing and height, building heights, energy and environment, taxes, and going back to the energy plan, so our energy plan has some standards for the bylaw as well. And then we brought this to a Mentimeter survey question. So rather than having the Planning Commission members dialogue on a yes or no, we gave them discrete options and then had them pull, and it kept everybody's answers, everybody's voices weighted equally in this format. What happened when we did the straw poll is we did a first round of voting, the Commission discussed it a little bit more, and then they did a second round and a final poll after working out any questions that they had, and this gave us really good direction moving forward, or if we're changing something in the code, we as staff have clear direction for the draft that will then be transmitted to the select board. A second example from form-based code was there as a property, currently being developed, some of you may know this is where Community Bank and Junior's Pizza are located in Williston. We reminded them of all of the facts and data that went into developing the regulating plan like existing right-of-ways, state roads, conservation areas, wetlands, easements, and utility lines. We hot linked to the relevant testimony so they could easily access the comments they heard during the public hearing. We reviewed the permit history for the property, some facts about the acreage, showed them the map overlaid on old wetlands data. I actually did this in PowerPoint. I have no photoshop experience at all. I've created all of this stuff in PowerPoint and notes, and then brought them to the question. So we gave them all these facts in really quick little PowerPoint slides with some voiceover recording, and then asked them, based on all this information, do you want to change the regulating plan map yes or no, or do you have another idea? We did a straw poll again, and they decided to, initially the vote was 3-3, and then they decided to keep it as is after another discussion. So doing that initial poll gives them the opportunity, okay we generally know where our seven-member board, well in this case six attended the meeting. We know where the folks are feeling, and we can have our jumping off point for discussion there. Next example is the development review board process. So staffing the DRB is a big task in Williston. We have a lot of meetings with big agenda items. This for example was the annex, which is going to be about 243 dwelling units into apartment building. So it's a pretty large development for town. And the staff report is a template that I designed based off of an APA article for designing staff reports. So during this process we get citizen comment letters, where a lot of times the comment letters are beyond the development review board scope of authority, sometimes beyond the scope of a municipal bylaw. So when I get comment letters where there's questions and concerns about traffic, this one even goes on to say that they would prefer it if DRB would deny a project or hold off on deciding until you know you can do more about traffic, that kind of thing. So when I read a citizen letter, I'm like oh my gosh everything's connected. There's so much here to share about so much information that can help this person understand the decisions and policies that go behind development review. And it can be easy to get frustrated with or overwhelmed by citizen comments, but I always remind myself that people want to be helped, heard, or hugged. And we're not actually hugging people, but we're trying to be polite and empathetic in our words. So I looked at this comment letter and I'm thinking about what are the principles and standards that go behind traffic studies? Why does Williston have zoning districts? The whole CERC alternative highway and the CERC highway that canceled in 2011 and its impacts on traffic in the region. Building homes together data, county and local transportation plan, demographic data, due process that applicants are supposed to have their applications reviewed in a timely manner. This is a quasi judicial proceeding reviewing an application. My staff report template helps to address some of these citizens concerns. It's a roadmap for the Development Review Board and professional developers and engineers who do this time and time again, but it's also designed for the first time reader. Someone who's never participated in a development review process. They can understand what's happening, the zoning district, the standards of the bylaw that will apply, what the recommended action is for the DRB. So they're not shocked when they find out that the development got approved. For each chapter of the bylaw, I have a discussion for the DRB and the applicant they see at the top standard complies as proposed for the rest of the chapter. It's discussing state highway standards where VTRAN supersedes local review for their interstate highways. Looking at, there was a lot of concerns with this application about it connecting through an existing neighborhood. So I brought in that subdivision plot from the 90s for a budding neighborhood. I discussed what is and is not considered in a traffic study. I linked to the town's traffic calming policy of when speed humps or other traffic calming measures are considered on existing road. I excerpted the bylaw. So someone who's never approached our bylaw before, they can see the standards right here. And also for the DRB, they have a quick reference as well if a question comes up in the hearing. This application, I got a lot, or the DRB received a lot of comment letters. When that happens, sometimes I write a memo. It's depersonalized. I address it to the development review board, not the individuals. And I respond to a lot of those reoccurring questions and concerns. I always start by summarizing what the DRB's role is and is not. They administer the bylaws. They don't write or revise them. And then I provide links to relevant background information. So there were some misconceptions in the public comment about prior approvals. I provide links to those older development reviews. I provide a lot of information about state roads, towns, policies on plowing. I even go as far as to link to the metropolitan transportation plan and other regional planning documents just to help provide citizens with as much information as possible. Even though I can't address all of their concerns, the DRB can't resolve all of their concerns. There's a lot of existing information out there that can help understand the topic area that they're concerned about. Glazer specific plan. So this was a unique zoning process in Williston's bylaw. There's a Williston observer article out that got repeated in Vermont Digger all about it. That came out the other day. It's a process similar to a plan development or planned plan unit development review, but it's legislative where a developer is working with the planning commission on bylaw amendments to support a specific proposal. Long story short, it's complicated. This is my flow chart to help break down all the various steps that go through the specific plan process. This is confusing to me. It's definitely confusing to the average citizen. So I was trying to break it down in a way where folks could understand what's happening along the way and also help the planning commission feel confident that they are following all the rules and procedures to this rarely used zoning process that's codified in the bylaws. Any time a big project goes through the process, any time a big project or residential development especially is proposed, you know that there's going to be a lot of citizen interest. This one especially because a horse farm is leasing the land for some of their pasture in Hayfield. So when that type of thing happens where I know that there's going to be a lot of public comment, rather than just asking for folks to submit comment letters, I like to do it in a different way. So I can break down, I can get an idea, are people going to be coming to the community meeting? How many should I be expecting in person and on Zoom? And then I break down the questions. So what are your comments or concerns about the residential development? About the open space. So this project was proposing open space donation to the town. Do you have questions about the public comment process that is codified in the bylaw or any other questions? So helping break down what kind of input I'll be hearing from people. And then I'm able to analyze and update an FAQ based on that. So I got 76 survey responses. And I like the survey method for public comment because it gives people time to calmly articulate their ideas and concerns before a public meeting. And I think when emotion and when emotion and fear of the unknown is tied up in these kinds of things, being able to work through them before being in an in-person meeting really helps things go more smoothly. Setting boundaries with imagery. So throughout those 76 survey responses and five comment letters, there was a repeated theme. Why can't this parcel be developed in its entirety or conserved in its entirety? Could it be developed for more units if this doesn't happen? At the end of the day, the planning commission was going to be having a very narrow focus in their community meeting. And so I wanted to remind people that tonight we're in the specific plan community meeting. We're going to talk about this railroad track on the left. And there's all these other railroad tracks like conventional development or land conservation that are still theoretically possible. But tonight the focus is the applicant applied for specific plan and that's what the planning commission is talking about this evening to help people break down all the various potentials on with this land and where the planning commission's focus was going to be. My fourth example is a eclectic mix of infographics that I've come up with over time. This was one that I used for the Glaser specific plan. So the density would have allowed 218 homes, 109 units are proposed. I think I created this either with just with PowerPoint and maybe Excel for the grids. So keep it simple. Infographics are they can seem challenging and overwhelming. So keep it simple and also the Coco Chanel saying like when you go out for the day, look in the mirror and take one thing off. So it's an iterative process. You're going to design something and you'll need to simplify it. Here's one that I created to help folks understand the roles and process with development standards. So planning commission proposes the rules select board approves them the DRB administers them and then how the town plan informs what the zoning bylaws will stay and how it's administered through the DRB. I think I created this one in PowerPoint. So really simple kind of dorky looking, but it gets the job done. And I really do think it has had an impact with citizens who are just for the first time approaching a bylaw amendment process or development review process understanding how the various entities and town policy documents work together. I use Canva. It is free. You get a little bit more capability with the paid version, which is fairly cheap. Which meeting would you prefer to go to? The one on the left or the one on the right? They're both the same meeting. So if something is really important and you want to have people interested in it just a little bit of effort on some graphic design and using a pre template even in PowerPoint can go a long way. We had another process where there was a development of a citizen driven bylaw request to reduce or change the amount of open space that our bylaw would require to be set aside in a subdivision. And throughout that process we were hearing a lot about traffic and schools and sewer and police and emergency services. So we were hearing a lot of concerns but those concerns wouldn't be addressed by the bylaw amendment that the citizens were asking for. So we were trying to break down what would a minimum percentage open space standard have on XYZ factor. This one came out of our 15 year growth center report. So looking at the new dwellings that were created in different parts of town and through this iterative process of working through the data Williston's growth center is 5% of the land area and 70% of the new homes. So by working through this growth report and analyzing the data I was able to come up with this really quick bullet point that explains a lot of information about the town that this very small center is where most of the new homes are taking place in town. I can't take credit for this graphic for the data that went behind it but I wanted to share it as well one of my coworkers worked on this showing that simple projections how many units would be built in the future. We hear a lot of concerns about sprawl and that the pace of growth is really fast but what our data is showing is that most of our homes are going to be in a consolidated area and the rural part of town is going to see very few homes by 2030. This it shows school milestones compared to Williston K-8 enrollment numbers. I haven't actually used this table in a public meeting but it is helpful. I have used the story behind it. We often hear with development that it is going to have an impact on school population and we looked at the data of number of homes that have been built in Williston. This is from the census to the number of school children both existing and projected out to 2030 and that there is a difference and also recently there is a discussion that the school might have to cut teachers because the student-teacher ratio is changing with declining enrollment. I created this in Excel and then made it look a little bit prettier in PowerPoint. This is a visualization I also created in PowerPoint. Open space and density I think that is something that citizens often struggle with understanding where you have a parcel and then if it is an open space subdivision it is going to appear denser but it is still the same overall land area so helping folks understand density and development standards with a simple graphic that you can make for free in PowerPoint. One of my mantras is let's get in the car kids. On the weekends I also teach skiing to children so this philosophy comes in mind there as well but it also works with adults and citizen committees so you are framing the questions to get the desired discussion not trying to lead anybody to certain answers or outcomes do you want to get in the car is going to be a yes no answer and a grumpy kid might say no can you get in the car seat on your own or do you need my help gives options but then you can have a more informed discussion so framing your questions and framing your discussions rather than should new houses be built present some data we know that there is a need for housing in our community and our town plan says that we should provide housing for all people in our community so where is the best place to do that and where is not the best place to put new houses in a conversation based on facts and based on data in your town plan or other documents about your topic area so for example we would turn to not only our town plan the regional planning commission documents for Chittenden County we could look at building homes together so there is a lot of resources you could look at and then frame questions based on data that already exists we did a survey once where we framed a question so you have 100 homes where would you put them in town so we are not asking do you want more homes in town we know that the data says that Williston is going to keep having development pressure so where would you like to put them in town and what we found was that and what we were able to show citizens was that their preferences lined up with existing policy that the majority of homes would go in the growth center some in our remaining sewer service area and very few homes out in the rural part of town remind decision makers of prior input so these excerpts come from our form based code adoption process where we kept track of how many people visit our website and email subscribers how many hours did the planning commission put into the process how many survey responses and map comments did we get how many people attended the meeting so reminding decision makers of all of the pre the efforts that went into something before it ends up at that final adoption hearing and thanking them as well thanking those citizens and participants who gave their time and hours even from a couple minutes taking a survey to a planning commission meeting that went over time thanking everybody for their work in that process my last example is Williston 2050 so this is our headline tag name for writing our next comprehensive plan I can't take credit for the logo here we had an iterative process with leadership Champlain where they worked on some colors and that logo my boss created that font I think it's just called bumper sticker font and the resilient livable equitable came out of iterative staff conversations about what would a cool tagline be for Williston 2050 and playing around with some chat GPT examples this was from 4th of July some of the creativity comes from practice getting out and talking with citizens in person this was like the first time I think the planning office had ever had a table at the 4th of July talking to citizens about projects and at this time it was right before the form based code was having a hearing with the select board so it was a really important time to do outreach and it helped get the creative juices flowing talking with people trying out new ideas and it was definitely a precursor to thinking about our Williston 2050 engagement so we had teaser activities last summer we did our in person and online big events in the fall our survey just closed on Monday and we're getting ready to write our town plan this hangs in my boss's office do the thing and keep going so trial and error iterative process is what can lead you to cool things basically this is our website we built it with Google sites our leadership Champlain people picked a couple colors and we ran with that color pellet we tried to keep fonts consistent reused the logo these are power point icons I'm not a graphic designer but it's just pick a couple things colors and fonts and run with it this is our Williston 2050 fabric of a new town plan I can't take credit for it it was designed by my boss but it definitely was the result of everybody in our office brainstorming ideas cool ways of visualizing things sharing examples of other communities or articles in the planning related world cool infographics and designs looking at other town plans and brainstorming these are the 12 elements that state law says a town plan needs to talk about and then the top are core values so how can Williston be livable, resilient, equitable in the future in 2020-50 and beyond so we made it a game we printed it on a banner at Staples got some sticky balls off Amazon this was also from July 4th folks could throw a sticky ball at the fabric and see where it landed how can transportation be beautiful how can education be affordable just spitball and what comes to mind when you think about that topic area and that adjective we also did postcards from the future so folks could fill out a postcard you're writing from the year 2050 back to the present day so you get that space time travel imagination going it's fun with kids, it's fun for adults and this was, you know, we designed it I think in Canva or PowerPoint following those simple colors from the beginning we did have a consultant that is working on our Willis in 2050 however we did most of our community round table design and facilitation on our own so provided food, small facilitated groups the main event was advertised as an hour and a half and then we had a little bit of buffer time on the beginning end and we had five topic areas at these events so your facilitated group you had 15 minutes per topic area keeping things quick keeps people efficient and brief as part of the activity we gave folks an alter ego card so there was one where it's like I'm a six-year-old kid and I like to ride my bike but the streets are too busy so getting people to answer the questions and prompts as themselves but also their alter ego and I think adults found this to be fun because you the ones that got like a kid or a teenager were like oh I'm 16 and I just got my driver's license and could play around with it and then we used park it card so going back to that original park it system we used with our planning commission we brought this to our in-person events 15 minute format per topic is really fast especially even if you have a small group you have a lot of voices so if someone had a question or an idea or thought that it gets your heart pounding and you want to be able to share it but it's not really relevant to that quick conversation your group is having you park it and we got a lot of these as part of our process this one on the right is I think a good example of what we experienced was a slow down growth but at the end it says increase affordable housing so the just the position that I think people are feeling and all our communities are trying to work through so to conclude some words of wisdom that I had in the back of my mind through all these examples is really embrace the iterative process these infographics and quick facts are the result of trial and error explaining things multiple time bad first drafts some of my PowerPoint slides even today I'm like too many thoughts and working with teammates I'm always happy to answer citizen questions on the phone or in email and talk through folks multiple times the more you try to understand an idea yourself and simplify it the better you become at telling a story in a really simple way without being dishonest because sometimes if you sometimes if you try to distill information you cut out important facts that are important to the story so distilling things in a manner that keeps everything truthful also maintain trust stay neutral and show respect so those are pillars of facilitation and when a citizen comes to me with a comment or concern sometimes often it's because that has been violated in the past institutional memory can include past hurts that linger so where are you rebuilding relationships within a community and how can you rebuild it with every interaction whether it's email phone or in person for example our historic preservation process many years decades ago was pretty tough on homeowners where I'll have citizens that come in and yeah I had such an awful time and I felt so berated trying to put a little porch on my historic home back in the 90s that I've never wanted to come to the town again to do anything again and I'm like well I hear that now I have to recognize okay this person that felt this had this bad experience before I was maybe even on the planet and how can I help them understand that the process would be different today and that if they wanted to do now they want to change the siding on their home well the development standards are different and the committee operates different than it did back in the 90s. I remember that people have come before me and I'm always working to help build trust stay neutral and show respect to my community members another word of wisdom and my strategy is acknowledge don't ignore you don't need an answer to everything you really just need to know how to search for things we're dealing in our communities with big issues housing affordability homelessness climate change failing infrastructure it's like these are really big topics I don't have the answers to all of them but I know how to search the web and search to see what other communities what other resources are out there that can provide facts and provide information to help fill in the gaps and provide links to other resources so we don't have to go reinventing the wheel we can just help curate to whoever is asking the question and be polite and firm but firm with boundaries so an example during our form-based code process there was a citizen that was really concerned about the new zoning standards and future development on the impact of co-utility lines and the electrical grid which are something beyond the scope of form-based code and beyond the scope of where municipalities have authority through zoning but I recognize that this person is really interested and really passionate so I explained through state law how zoning is superseded for utilities I linked to state and utility companies planning for a resilient grid a lot of resources out there on the state website and then I also explained I understand that you have these concerns but they won't be addressed in this by law package because we're working on development and design standards that apply to essentially private development and these utilities are a different entity and you know with those examples with other companies it's like here's or the state public services planning processes like here's where you can direct your questions and comments and have more of an impact lastly some reading and resources this article recently came out five conflict resolution tips to design better meetings and it's like oh this is a lot of the things that I've been doing it's really helpful I linked to a Vermont digger article about open meeting law so just make sure that if you're using collaborative documents that you're maintaining open meeting law requirements a lot of it is you know decisions and policy conversations should be happening that public meeting so that planning commission survey the survey results were filtering to me I was basing my agenda off of them and then everything is made publicly accessible so anyone from the public can see all those survey results reaching for higher ground is an old book but a good one and lastly a planner's guide to meeting facilitation technically it costs money but I think if you Google it you can find a copy out there and with that thank you let me know if you guys have any questions thanks so much Emily yeah so folks that have questions you can go ahead and either put it in the chat if that's what you prefer or you can use the raise hands feature which is at the bottom of your screen I always feel like it's a different place for me it isn't a different place for me because I'm the host but if you can't find your raise hands feature you can just put in the chat that you'd like to ask your question out loud or of course anyone can put your question in the chat but while I'm letting you all kind of think it over Emily I feel like you addressed this pretty well in your presentation which is why I invited you in to talk speak with us but I'm just thinking about when like the in the kind of groups of vocal folks there's sometimes folks that just are not gonna you know they're really like stuck on an idea and they're not gonna come around to a yes and they might be maybe the loudest voice in the room and I wonder if you can speak to how you direct someone with that kind of intention yeah so ideally I've had time to you know chat with them one on one outside of a public meeting where I can understand where their questions or concerns are if it's a planning commission member or a board member fortunately we're really lucky that most our board members are pretty even keeled but I would how do I frame this I always go back to you know the policy documents you know at the end of the day we're working on town plan goals we're working on a bigger community vision and try to frame it in that broader framework and remind folks that a lot of these concerns and questions it's usually yes and solutions there's usually many things that need to be done in order to have an impact it's not gonna be a one size fits all solution and that there's often times no right answer and kind of remind them that we as communities are working with the tools that we have to affect a change that there's always especially with a bylaw amendment there's time to course correct in the future and try to remind them of the bigger context and go back to what are the guiding principle documents that the town has via a town plan regional planning goals and remind of the bigger picture that's at play thank you yeah that's really helpful I was just checking to see do you have an example for the decision template oh that's do you have an example for the decision plan templates um yeah so with the planning commission it would be you know outlining a couple of options of what the bylaw tax would be for them to choose from with the development review board we're drafting out you know findings conditions and conclusions for them to have a specific question on one I'm happy to help or if you want to reach out to me directly I can link you link you to some decision templates that we've given our committees I'll let SJ had to pop off who asked the question but I'll make sure I convey that information do we have other lingering questions any comments big takeaways you want to share with us thanks Emily I really loved your presentation I got to see your boss Matt present at the Katma transportation summit in the fall and it's just what you're doing will listen is really cool cool stuff I think particularly as you're envisioning kind of trying to retrofit the suburban development pattern into a kind of renovated village concept and like the information you provided on I think getting the community and on board with it is is awesome and it's like it's really inspiring to see but I'm also curious about how you manage to get interested property owners and developers to kind of also get on board with this new plan I know that in particular developers or property owners who are used to the sort of suburban development pattern think that you need to have a box store look like a box store and and are not interested in having like street forward buildings versus like big parking lots so yeah just if you have any tips or just thoughts on that getting yeah well form based code was our prior zoning was an iterative walkable standard so it wasn't what we didn't really go from 0 to 60 we probably went from like 20 to 60 the development community was already somewhat familiar with trying to pull buildings to the street form based code definitely kicked it up a notch working with developers working with anybody I really try to be build trust by being straight up about the development standards and how they're going to apply so whether I'm answering a citizen question about getting a backyard permit shed or how I think the DRB conditions are going to fall on a certain type of development proposal I'm giving them all the answers I can about the bylaw like if the Lorac speaks for the trees then I'm speaking for the bylaw and I'm trying to be as clear and straight forward and fill that trust with the development community where it's like hey if you propose that thing to the DRB it's not going to go so hot so you should change it to come more into compliance so really building trust with the development community about how the bylaw standards are interpreted and then like when you have when you have the trust with your community I think then you can help build the interest in okay we're going to transition to something that's going to be a little bit different it's going to be more challenging but we're trying to achieve a certain vision. Willison has a lot of cumbersome parts of its zoning bylaw so I think it's been easier to get our development review community on board because they see the benefit of a simplified permit process more allowed density more allowed building height so they do see that there is a benefit to them as well and the benefit to the community as whole it's like we need more mixed use buildings we need more housing yeah. I just want to say anyone who needs to leave feel free to leave when you need to if there are lingering questions feel free to send them to my email seont.cvoo.org you probably have it because I've promoted this workshop and I just want to say again thank you Emily this was an incredible workshop I knew it would be and it has so many helpful pieces that I have brought up kind of in conversation with people working in all different realms of advocacy and the housing world and so I'm glad that we now have this workshop as a permanent resource to share with people yeah thank you so much for having me I dropped my email in the chat and I shared my contact info as well I encourage folks to reach out to me anytime I'm happy to share my tools and tips and tricks and resources and help if you're struggling with an idea and you want some feedback reach out I'm always here to help our neighboring Vermont community groups similar and thanks everyone for joining