 Is there for changes to the agenda items or are we going to keep the same? Comments, questions from the public, not related to the agenda, you know? Attention grant application. All right. So I don't think we've done any of these since I've been here. So I'm just floating a few for you now. Just to open this up here, sorry. So fall always brings about a few open cycles of grants. There's going to be a few more that come after this. The UPWP one I think usually gets posted late winter. Yeah, around the January 1st-ish I think. That's the one where you can get help from the Regional Planning Commission. It tends to be one of the ones that is well-funded, but usually has a transportation focus. But the two big ones, there are two big ones that have a November deadline. And Zach and I sat down and just sort of brainstormed some ideas of things that we're already working on or we know whether departments are working on. For example, our Department of Public Works. Now I'll tell you I haven't actually sat down with them yet because I wanted to start with you and get some ideas for whether or not any of this looks interesting or feasible or you might say none of it does. So we kicked off a few suggestions here for you. I'll make it a little bit bigger. So the first obvious one are revisions to our form-based codes. Work related to land efficiency and mixed uses. We've identified, I think, an issue that we see where we're not necessarily seeing the non-residential uses pop in in the way that was intended. And it's still early. There's still a fair amount of open space there that has yet to be planned or is in a sort of fluid process. So if form-based code related work, we could refine that a little bit further. But we have said many times that that's where we are looking soon. So revisions to the development regulations related to conservation subdivisions. Something that I don't think we've been very lucky with for a while, but I think the time could be... It's the type of thing you want to plan for in advance, not wait until after. Our rural areas, especially the sort of more rural roads, middle road, east road. The way that those large properties are developed, they're a little density, so you're not going to see a lot of units. But there's not necessarily anything that determines how much of that land gets taken up in yard space, road space, et cetera. I think we've talked a little bit before about... So that's what we would call conservation subdivision where you have guidelines that say you can still have those same number of units, but you can't spread them out across the entire parcel. And so you sort of cluster them a little bit. We're not quite as clustered as you'd see in an urban area, but not so that they're all spread out. If you have a 20 acre parcel out there and you put six units on them, you don't want to take up the entire thing. The biggest reasons are the impacts that you have to sort of the forest blocks and the open space corridors. What we've seen now is a lot of good fill, which is fun. It's almost not the point now that we should be looking to conserve and protect those outside areas. We're going to get developers down to jump over to the CQD. Oh, I agree. I think it fits right into our open spaces being on priority with this. Yeah. So I hear, is there anything we won't build on? I've heard that before. Yeah, and sometimes it's, I think what a conservation subdivision tries to do is to take away a yes-no and talk more about the how. So if you do have a parcel that you've owned or you bought, that you bought because you know that the zoning allows you to have five units, you would still get those five units. You just can't impact 20 acres of land to do it. So that could tie in to sort of, you know, open space planning. So I, you know, I say conservation subdivision here, but this could tie in to sort of the overall open space plan, which we are going to need ahead of our next town plan, the 2027 plan, at least the forest block fragmentation. We don't have that section. The 2019 plan was approved just ahead of that requirement. So we'll have to be adding at the very least a forest block fragmentation plan to that. So two for one there, if you start to look at that, and then you combine it with some zoning or some development regulations. Similar to that, part of the new plan is now an affordability plan. All municipal plans must now have this affordability plan. I've seen a few that have come in with this requirement. They run from a couple paragraphs that take up a half a page to a full chapter in some regulations, depending on how much town wants to put into it. Like a lot of things, you know, the guidelines I think try to be flexible for the municipalities to figure out how much they want to put in there. I think we have a lot of groundwork that's done. So I think that this could be a fun, exciting chapter to write. But it could benefit from some help. And as you'll see with a lot of these, it's not necessarily things. We talk about, you know, grants and outside consultants. It's not because we don't think that you guys or the staff are not incapable of doing it. Sometimes it's just getting an extra set of hands when the time is tight. Somebody to lead those meetings so that you are able to participate or watch rather than be the leader at a public meeting. So that's really the advantage of pursuing these grants and consultant work. Road standards, suited design type. This is especially form-based code, but it could seed out of that as well. It's something we hear continually. I don't know all of the history of how our road types came to be. I believe right now, Zach knows a little bit more about this than I do. But they're tied to expected traffic volumes, is that right? A general planning concern when you do that is that sometimes roads are high volume, but you still want them to be compact and slow. And so volume doesn't always translate exactly to the type of road design that you want to see. So for example, in our growth center, with the density that's there, naturally the number of cars, the volume of cars is going to be high. So when you plug that into a set of standards that are based on that, you end up with super wide roads, which kind of contradicts what you might be looking for in an urban area. So this could be an opportunity that says, let's look at something other than just volumes. It would require quite a bit of collaboration with our Department of Public Works. We don't want to be stepping on any toes, and they've certainly got their own needs. We talk about plowing and servicing and parking. But there's some real opportunity there, I think, to better align our road types with our design types. So that's something we could look at. Again, this is one that I'm planning on soon to run by other departments, but I wanted to see if you're even interested in it first before I did that. Planning or construction of infrastructure within the growth center. This one's very specific because one of the grants that's listed here very specifically says you can apply for actual money to build infrastructure within a growth center or designated area. I won't say too much on that because our public works director might be watching this and wanting to throw stuff at me. I don't know if he has any interest in this, so I don't want to speak for him. As you probably know, it's very public that the town is looking at increasing our public sewer infrastructure within the growth center. So we will have to be upgrading force mains and transmission lines and maybe even other holding tanks. All that infrastructure that's got to get sewer to or from the growth center to the treatment facility. Our capacity to treat it at the facility is defined and capable, but you've got to get it there. Getting it there isn't just downhill. It was downhill then back up. And that infrastructure that currently exists mostly along Roosevelt Highway is not big enough. The pump stations aren't sized for a full build out of the growth center. Neither are the sewer lines that are in the ground. So there is a schedule for upgrading those. The select board in its capacity as the sewer commission approved a plan for basically constructing that with a payback from the landowners in that area. So anyone who would benefit from it would pay it back, but they're not necessarily the ones who are putting the money in up front. There's going to be I think a wide variety of ways to do that and stagger that and bless our public works director for having figured that out quite as good as he did. So there's the potential there to actually fund some of that infrastructure through one of these grants. And then six, of course, if you guys are like, how did you forget this? We really want to do this. I'm going to throw some other ideas at me. I know you covered a lot of it, so it looks good to me. How much do you want to go after? I think some of this work we're just going to be doing anyway. So any funding and some of these, the matches aren't bad because that's something we always have to be aware of. If they give you 20,000, but you have to have 20,000 to match it. The grants start to get a little bit tied, but some of them allow you to account for staff time towards that match. So you can start to add up some of that. So that's the point of this we haven't gotten to yet. I haven't worked out numbers. You're about to see if you can pick the numbers also. Yeah. And some of these grants will also assign points based on whether or not you meet certain targets of them. So some of these ideas will fall with probably more probability of being funded than some of the other ones because they hit certain target goals. And I did, I think, put some of the goals in here. You can see in here, because some of them change every year. So like municipal planning grant, for example, they do a list of priorities each year. So these for this year are related to flood recovery. I don't think that's an item, an area where we have much work to do. Housing, pretty much everything up there can can get put into that housing bucket. Physical improvements within a designated area. We just talked about that climate related capital programs and plans. The town does have a climate action plan with and a capital improvement plan. I don't know how much of it aside from the solar permitting is there. I don't think that's necessarily an area that we're looking at in our list for this year, but it is possible. Family plans, I've said it a hundred times, I think, you know, dense and compact can often be very age friendly. Innovative and statewide projects that serve as a replicable model. So some of I think what we're talking about doing here don't necessarily exist in some other communities. So the great thing about being a town the size of Pultchester is you can do it. Hopefully you do it well, you do it right. And then other towns are like, why I don't have to pay $20,000 to do this. I'm just going to copy and paste. And that's perfectly legal, by the way. And actually we all do it. It's a good thing to do. Don't reinvent the wheel if you don't need to. So it's great that they give extra points for that because it allows the money that they provide to go further because it helps more towns. Bylaw Modernization Grant Program is basically just like it says. They have money to help you bring your bylaws more in line with the state planning goals. So housing, land development, pedestrian oriented development, affordability. Those are all the state goals and anything that you're doing there sort of falls in line there. But especially housing, everyone's talking about housing right now. And I think that anything that you do, anytime we're talking about the growth center and we're talking about housing, I think it's going to hit on some of the targets for these grants. Better Connections Grant Program. I haven't specifically looked at this one very closely because it's not due until later. We're trying to stagger our time a little bit. But you can read about it here. The match is nice and low, which is very nice. You don't have to save a lot of money in the budget to do a lot of that. So we'll probably come back to you there. I think a lot of these, again, they talk about the same goals. Better Connections is what it sounds like though. This one's more focused on those actual connections and how you get people from one place to another. So they're not necessarily traffic planning, but how do you do some of the things that make it easier to get around? And you can see in here traffic coming, parking, wayfinding, redevelopment, housing, stormwater management, all kinds of those things that we're always working on anyway. And I think we're definitely ripe for that with our growth center. Maybe even some other areas. This might be an area where our DPW wants to weigh in as well because it's very related to sort of transit. They have a list of priority connections that's already been developed, that's been developed for years. I imagine maybe even the Planning Commission worked on it at some point. And that list is ready to go. It's probably worth reprioritizing at some point. And then I just gave you this whole grant program. I hope you didn't feel pressured to read it. It's long, but they write it very well. I think it's useful. So any ideas, you know, if you want to narrow them down at all or just say, Kathy would like them all, figure out which ones are most likely to get funded. What we would probably do, if you saw my notes on timing, so you have your first October meeting, we'd probably give you a more formal proposal with not a full application, but bulleted items for each one with pretty much what looks like it'll be a proposal. The same text and narrative that we would submit for an application. Your motion at that point would be to recommend whatever it is to the Select Board for approval. And they would sign off on an actual grant application. Do you need to talk to Public Works before you tell this? Yes. That might kind of define, further define which ones to go after, but they all sound good to me, so. They all sound good? I like the idea of this conservation with revision, I think, the cornflakes color is very true. So there you go. I mean, a lot of work to do. You want to grow center and grow, and then try to hold back at least a little bit of food off of each other. I think, you know, from what I can see, you can look at the aerial photographs across town. There's definitely a few I've spotted where I'm like, boy, that's a really long driveway or road that bisects and otherwise really beautiful forested area. And it's a shame it's just this one driveway or roadway that just totally cuts it, which can be really detrimental to certain wildlife. And it's just if you just put your house instead of a half mile away from the road, even a couple hundred feet, it doesn't have to be sitting right up on the road like you are on Main Street, I think would have made all the difference. But thankfully there's not a ton of those. I think there's still a lot of time. I shouldn't say that. I'll say that now they'll all come in tomorrow. But it's not too late. She agrees. I think that's good direction. So we'll try to get together with Public Works ASAP, get some feels from them on what they'd be interested in. The road part will be all about them. I mean, they have the public, they have the painting, capital fund deal, things going on. So like I said, a lot of stuff is already sidewalked infrastructure, as a timeline. Yeah. I'm hoping I can talk them into the road standards part though. Number four. I'm hoping. Maybe not everywhere, but a few places. We haven't even gotten to that part. Okay. I think that's good on this. I don't need a motion today. Sounds good. It's not working. All right. Back to the agenda. So yes, potential items for inclusion and supplement 46. All right. I'm not going to drag you through everything because we did a lot of that last time, but let's talk about some things. Oh, look, let's start with patios. So for anyone tuning in from home and as a reminder, in case you forgot what we did seven days ago, we talked about whether or not an exemption for accurate patios, a certain size of them, not requiring a permit is appropriate. I think I heard from everyone that there was some support for something of some size where it just, yeah, if you want to do it, you don't need a permit for it. Where we left off was, okay, what is that size? So I think there was some discussion of, boy, let's keep it small. And then some others that are bigger. I'm not putting names to the statements. 120 was in there, I think is a draft for you to respond to. It must have come from somewhere. I don't know where 120 came from. Perhaps it came from other towns. I think it might have. Small towns. So for example, in Williston, you don't need a permit for a shed that's under 120 square feet. So 120 I know is a magic. No, maybe that's where it came from. But that's a shed, not a patio. Yeah, I didn't need a permit for mine. No. Yeah, just barely. So question is, is a patio considered part of the footprint of the building if it's at grade? So that's a great question. So I can let Zach talk a little bit more about this because there's two words I think that'll come into play. There's footprint. And then sometimes when we do development review, there's building envelope. Yeah. Is that a good? So generally we'd consider a patio like an accessory structure. It wouldn't be counted towards a primary structures ground floor area because it's detached from the structure. It's not integral to the structure. It's outside of the envelope of that structure. That being said, I think a part of this regulation still requires that these exempt structures such as the 120 square foot patios still need to comply with the accessory structure setbacks. So they would need to be 10 feet from property lines still. But they could be right up against a primary structure. If we're saying no permits required, how does that get verified that it's not in the setbacks, I guess? So I think the same way that other things do that you don't need a permit for, where if we notice them and you were supposed to get a permit or you were supposed to do certain things and you didn't, you'd be in violation. What Zach was just talking about reminded me that we use specific language in here, and I think I even fixed it in one or two places where we talk about in some places accessory structure and accessory building. And I always, when I first looked at this, I thought they were interchangeable. But they are very specifically, the language is very specifically used. And there are some things that are regulated as an accessory structure that are different than an accessory building. So for example, that 50% that we talked about before, that is for buildings, not for structures. So something like a patio is viewed as an accessory structure, but not a building. Swimming pools, tennis courts. Anything not used for storage, habitation or something else. So I think there might be a few red lines on that in here. I did look at Winooski. It's our neighbor. I was surprised. They had, if you had a patio at grade, patio, you don't need a permit at all. It's only if you have a patio larger than 300 feet, I think it had to be above grade, you would need a permit. So they're saying if you have a patio that's raised like a deck, so it has a foundation wall and everything else, that would require a permit. But they were saying, do you think it's at grade? You don't need a permit. I was surprised. I believe speaking from memory, that patios are also exempt in South Burlington, except that they must adhere to a coverage limitation, just like anything else. So you don't need a permit, but you are expected that that patio does not cover more than whatever the percentage you're allowed in that zoning district. Yeah, I remember looking at that too. I did. Yeah. Their patio said it had to be made of pavers, concrete or brick. I would add stone to that. Place directly on the ground does not require a permit. However, the addition of the patio may not see the overall coverage permitted for the given zone district. So let's see, what do we have here? Hardscape surfaces at grade. So I don't know if there's anything you read in here that's more clear or you liked better. Ground level. Ground level. I put at grade. Is that different? Would you prefer ground level? Yeah, at grade. You like at grade better? Yeah. Okay. I've got it here. I can make it bigger so you can see it. So I put such as patios made of gravel or stone materials. Where are we? Sorry. A lot of red there. Right here. There we are. Okay. That makes it easier to read. I'm reading that definition again. Which one? The one of how a patio was defined. You said brick. The one made of pavers. Yeah. Made of pavers, concrete, brick. And I would add four stone. Place directly on the ground. That was basically the definition of the patio. It just says it does not require a permit. Okay. Place directly on the ground. Yeah. And when you say just at grade. Do most people understand them to be the same thing you think? I think so. Yeah. I think when it says directly. Place directly on the ground. Yeah. I think so. But yeah. I sort of live and see this all day. So would you like to add the word brick specifically? I do have stone already. Right. You just said hard skate surfaces at grade. Such a materials made of gravel. Hard skate cover all that. Papers. Not hard skate. Yeah. I think you're just giving people an idea of what they, what we mean by hard skate. So gravel, you know, some people may not consider that as hard skate. I think somebody asked about cement last time. Well concrete. There's concrete pavers that people like to use. What about a poured concrete? Are you okay with that? I think that this would allow that. Are you guys good with that? I think I mean my reading of it, you know, hard skate surfaces would allow that. You're saying that would not be a firm. Right. And you think it should be larger. I'm on board with the new ski actually now so. I will go with larger. I honestly did not know we need that. I'm not sure how we, it's the same thing. How do you regulate or enforce it? I just, I guess it makes sense. I think we do a fair amount of them, would you say? Yeah. We definitely do a fair amount of, we should have good amount of permits for patios. You know. So what is the norm with that one? And is it a cumulative? If you have a front patio and a back rear yard patio, does that, both of them have to be under 100? I think that's how it's written here. Yeah, for the exemption here. That would be up to you. But yeah, we tend to see them. We see a range of them I think. Yeah, we see, I mean, I think we see a two, you know, from what I've seen, you get two sizes. I think you get a small landing patio. That's might be 50 square feet. Or you get something larger, part of larger landscaping and hardscaping project. Somebody putting a path around their house, kind of leading into a larger hot tub pad or something. Project like that's a lot larger than 120 square feet. So would you add a sidewalk? Currently, yeah. And I'll tell you the other thing about them, and I think that that's part of why we're proposing some exemption here. What we see a lot of is, this is not a thing that a lot of people think they even need a permit for. And so you see a lot of them after the fact. You see people who put them in, you know, genuinely, respectfully had no idea. Some people probably know and just don't do it anyway. But I think most people that we speak to where we see these, they had no idea. So now they have to come in and get a permit. And they have to pay an after the fact fee. It's an area that causes a lot of tension. It's usually when they're trying to sell a home, so they're already extra stressed. They're upset with our staff. And they don't understand why they even need a permit. And so I just wanted to toss it out there in case, I think when we see these things where a lot of people just genuinely never expect to need a permit, that sets off sort of a little, just a little bell for me to say, there must be a reason that that many people think. Most people think, I need a permit for a shed. People don't think about it, but a lot of people do. Or I need a permit for a deck or I'm putting in a pool. Those people call us. We don't get a ton of people calling us and saying, I'm thinking about putting in some gravel around my hot tub. Do I need a permit? I don't even think it occurs to them. Genuinely, good people. I'm kind of leaning towards Rich. That's kind of small. You've got to imagine a bigger fire pit there. It's not to scale. No, I almost wrote on it, not to scale. I mean, if you multiply that by three, you kind of get close to what Rich wants. And that seems huge to me. Down to 240, at least, it's still put the grill on there. Yeah, you've got a seating area, a place for a dining table and a grill. A couple of kids can ride their tricycles around. So again, it's not that you can't build anything bigger. It's a permit. And I think that part of the idea of having some small limit is that I think it'll free up a lot of those people who just genuinely had no idea when they put down a little pad under their picnic table or something. Now, get that part. But I think if you, myself, anyways, if you go a little bigger anyway, so the average person coming in, I don't think it's going to build probably in the 240. I mean, if you have a condo, maybe you can throw something down. The average house, though, 240. I mean, if you're not doing a deck, you're doing a patio, if you're doing a pool, there's no doubt you're going to have some serious patio in front of you. Did you have to get a permit for the pool? Exactly. I need to do my permit, right? Yeah, I think most people, when they get a pool, they'll just include that. But a lot of people don't tell us that they're more likely what happens is they get their permit for the pool. They don't tell us they're doing anything else around it. They get their pool. We go out to inspect them. We're like, hey, you didn't tell us about this giant patio you put around it or the stone. And then it's, oh, I need another permit. Now you want me to get another permit. But actually, I'm reading this here. Should we add pathways? That's what I was thinking. I think you could use up another hundred and twenty feet if you have a long pathway leading up to it or something. I think 120 is too small, too. Okay, so I've heard that from all three of you. We're going to add pathways to the definition. Size? Somewhere between 120 and everything. Sure. I like how Winooski said 300. 300? Winooski's smaller than we are. I know, 300, they have no longer enough to fit for them. Yeah, they could have a whole backyard. Yeah, a whole backyard. To be fair, houses in Winooski don't have septic systems in their backyard. True. It's true. We all just get stung with that. Well, I think I wonder if that's why concrete is left out of some of the definitions just because it's a little harder to break into than... South Burlington. A laid out stone. Yeah, they don't have septic systems either. Are they specific on for concrete or concrete? I wrote down made of pavers, concrete, brick. Yeah. And I think that part, in all fairness, I think that part of the reason that so much gets regulated in cultures is because of our history with septic systems. We're trying to protect people from themselves. Yeah. Which is valiant and sometimes foolish. You know, so somebody who's putting down poured concrete over their septic system. Yeah, it just works so well. You can take two approaches there, you can say, boy, that's really bad, or you can say, well, that stinks to be you, but it's not the town's problem. And so how much do you want to look out for those folks who are doing that? And so I think... South Burlington has sewer. Yeah. Manuski has sewer. But patios, I think, if you find that your system or part of it is under it, a lot of these materials, you're not breaking the bank to get at them under these things. Gravel or nice, you know, field stone, pretty easy to move. So I don't think that they're a permanent barrier if you do need to get to your system. Yes. Whereas I think if somebody, we see these deck permits now that come in for 20, 30, 40, 50 thousand dollars for a deck, you put that over your system, you're going to take a sawzall to it, you're going to be sad. Yeah. I think that's a lot different than the patio you put down, which is... Now what we're doing is asking people to pay for a permit, right? And then they have to be inspected to get your certificate of occupancy. Yeah, and I think the idea with bigger ones is the bigger you are, to infringe on the other regulations. So 120, probably not going to running or even 200 or 300, you're probably not running into coverage issues. You're probably able to get that 300 feet in without getting 10 feet to your property lines. But you start to get very big. You probably need somebody to remind you that you've messed up on the other pieces. I think that's one reason I would consider not going with a total free for all. Okay. Do we have to come up with a number? I'd go for 240 then. Rebecca was going with 300. I would go 300, but I'm compromising. I don't know. I would go 300, but I get it. 300 is half that square. Exactly. Some houses, that would be their back porch, their back deck. We're not talking about decks, but we're talking about pathways as well. Yeah. The pathways add up. Yeah, quickly. 300. Especially against 40, 20. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. It's 80 right there. Rebecca threw out 300. Rebecca threw out 300. Rebecca threw out 300. I would go with 300. You guys like 300? You could be 300. And you keep the part about taking cumulatively? Yes. Yeah. And that's just patio. Decks are another thing. Yeah. Decks are another thing. Okay. Good job Flamingo. So do we cover deck repairs? You know, we don't specifically in here. I can tell you our department policy generally is, if you'd already permitted it and you're just doing maintenance, you don't need a permit. You're not changing it or anything. Yeah. What happens more often though is you get the people who, maybe it wasn't them. Maybe it was, you know, with the rate of turnover of homes, somebody, two property owners ago, put that deck on illegally. And now somebody calls and they want to fix it and large it, change it up to the nice treks quality stuff. And we're like, never got a permit in the first place. So now you need one. Well, I'm doing his maintenance. Well, how do you charge it? The permit's just a flat fee, right? Yeah. It's not per square footage. For a regular deck. Yeah. It starts to get into square footage if you start to make it more of a room. Yeah. It's a building structure. We have stickers we should give her. Precisely. Okay. But if you were going to add on to your deck, you'd need a permit. Yes. Okay. You're going to add steps onto your deck. Would you need a permit? Like all new steps that weren't there before? Yeah. I don't know. We do make an exemption for like landings and stairways. Only you've extended out. Then you have to get a permit. Yeah. Then you have to. Yeah. So we do have something in there that says like five by five or something. Four by five. So there is something in there that, yeah. If you want to, if you want to put a new set of back steps right off your back door that weren't there before you put in a slider, you can do that five by five or whatever. Yeah. That doesn't get you much. Yeah. Especially you have to. The idea is you get some sort of steps. But I think in practice we try to be as reasonable as we can unless the regulations very specifically say we can't. If they're very clear to say you must do X, Y, and Z. We do X, Y, and Z but. So the only other question I have on patios would be do we cover impervious surfaces or what coverage? I think what we say, let me go back here. Following are not considered or regulated as accessories structures and assets should not be building and zoning permits. I can probably reference that here. I thought we did, but I guess I missed that. Yeah. So we could add it up in this first paragraph where we say continues to meet or not exceed. Yeah. Allowable lot coverages. So there'd be no changes there and I think you guys have affirmed that. And I think also assumed that there's a building envelope that's been designated on a site plan. They would have to stay within that building envelope. Just as a note, the definition of building envelope is specific in the regulations to the primary structure. Oh. And a septic system. So you don't have to be in the building envelope for. Not in the definitions of these regulations. You just have to meet the setbacks. Yeah. Yeah, I guess. I have to noodle on that on a bit. Offline. Don't worry. Not out loud. Maybe a good thing. Maybe not be. Should I go back up to my list of updates here? A lot of touch screen. Let's bear with me. Fence exemptions. You talked about how to regulate fences between six and eight feet. So let's go look at that one. 2.10B. Do you think I put anything in? Oh, I don't think I did because you guys said you wanted to think about it. That's the one you want to go 10 feet back. Just if you go over the. Six. Six. So you get a six foot fence. No problem. Anywhere you want. You start to get higher than that. Maybe six isn't the right number, but. Start to get higher than that. I'm okay with the six. I left online at vinyl fences. And, you know, they range from like two or three feet, four feet, six feet. So that's the height of the panels. Would you can't really count because wouldn't be as tall as you want it. So those are standard heights. So I kind of agree with the, if it's. Any fence that's four feet or under. Kind of meets the pool. Enclosure or just a little enclosure fence. I agree. You don't really should need a permit for that. Six feet becomes more of a privacy. Fence. So yeah. Anything over six feet. It's pretty daunting. I mean, an eight foot fence. Most houses have an eight foot ceiling. That's an eight foot fence. That's a tall fence. But the question is, do you want to have that, force that fence to be back 10 feet? All right. One foot off the line. So right now if you, if you want any foot fence or anything taller than six. Six and a half feet. Seven, eight feet. You have to go to the DRB and ask them for approval. I don't think we see a lot of it, but what caught my attention here is that the approval that's listed was through conditional use review, which I think is not a very good standard to apply to fences. Additional use review talks a lot about, well you guys know I've made the speech before, but almost nothing in there is ever going to make you deny a fence. And so it's really just a paperwork exercise that uses up a lot of time and money to get that conditional use. No, I'm not saying that there's never a case where conditional use might not have application on an eight foot fence, but the majority of applications I think, there's just no standard under conditional use that would ever apply to a fence. So my first thought was, okay, let's get rid of that. And then let's see if we can not send people to the DRB. So the advantage of this language is, you don't have to go to the DRB. You can save that time and money, but in exchange you have to do this pushback thing. Is there maybe something else? Because I'm hearing that, you know, something over six can be start to be daunting. So your options, I think at this point, are to either continue to send them to the DRB and let them evaluate based on some criteria, have some sort of setback, or just allow it as of right with a permit, but with no standards. I don't think those are great options, so I'm sorry. No. Well, I think the advantage of this is that an eight foot fence is daunting. So you would need to permit all fences. Over four feet. Six feet, you don't have to prove anything other than that you've got it on your own property. And I think what we talked about last time is that eight feet, if you live out on East Road and you're putting in up a little panel near your barn, it probably doesn't affect anyone, but it meets that setback. So it makes it possible. You start to put that eight foot fence on your quarter acre lot where your neighbor's garden is growing right at the edge. Does it start to have an impact? So it is, it's context sensitive, but it's very hard to write a regulation that is context sensitive. Anything's not permitted sits on the line. I'm okay with it. You can't sit on the line because it's DRV. So they can get to that. I'm okay with it. Nobody wants to give away 10 feet. That's what I've got. No, I think you're right. I mean, I think human nature. You're exactly right. You moved that in. I see this. There's a house across the street from me. They put in a small fence at an angle because of the way that the street lights come. And now whenever the neighbor's property management comes to Moe, they go right up to that fence. And I, and I think what makes you think that the property does that jiggity jog? Like, but they, it's human nature. Find the fence. That must be the property line. And it's, they do, they do that. And I always, they just mowed an extra couple hundred, I don't know, 500 square feet that they shouldn't have mowed because the fence was there. So I think you're, you're spot on. You put it in 10 feet. You start to functionally lose those 10 feet. Yeah. Yeah. I put, I put shrubs three feet from our property line. And after we did that, our neighbor put like holly bushes on the other side on our property. Uh-huh. Cause we were three feet away thinking, okay, if we ever do put a fence in, the shrubs will be in front of the fence. And now we have his little, they actually have dead and gone now with the holly, but it was like, just ask. He also tore up our underground electric fence when we had a dog. Oh no. He ripped that up. He couldn't figure out what it was. Okay, dude. Um, I, I, I, this is the amusement, I guess. There's Vermont statues on fences. Are you going to talk about fence viewers next? Huh? Well, a fence people, I don't even know what they do. So it's title 24, chapter 109, fences and fence viewers. Okay. This, this must go way back. The first sentence says, fences four and one half feet high in good repair and so constructed as to prevent the escape of sheep. And any natural barrier equivalent to such fence shall be deemed sufficient except fences on sides of highways that the owners of land are not bound to make and maintain. That goes on. I just thought that was amusing to prevent the escape of sheep. Oh, and they call out four and a half feet. Four and a half feet. Yeah, I don't. Maybe a sheep can jump more and more. Somebody did the study. Maybe they did. Maybe it's a four inch fence. I don't know. Off the ground a little bit. I don't know. Get you four and a half feet. And then the other one that caught me. This is more like their definition of a spike fence. You know, being neighborly. Unnecessary fence. Maintenance prohibited penalty. There's a penalty in this state. Oh my gosh, I can't wait to hear this. A person shall not erect or maintain an unnecessary fence or other structure for the purpose of annoying the owners of adjoining property by construct obstructing their view or depriving them of light or air. A person who violates the provision of this section shall be fined not more than $100. There is no way that is defensible in court. Your honor, I'd like to speak to their motives. I mean, that's just two paragraphs from the whole fence statue, but I was amused. Oh, that's hilarious. I've never read that. Thank you for sharing that. For the purpose of annoying. Someone could do that. Never. Moved in. There was nothing behind us. And then we fought up against the new skis. So we put in a new development there. And the way the properties go, why is big and there's a little smaller. So part one of persons is here. And the next person is here. They have two different fences. I'm like, they look like match. It would not look so bad. But I've got a wooden fence here, one of those bright white ones here. And then a skew. So I actually change their edges. In the state regs, it said that both property owners are responsible for putting it in and maintaining it. So they had equally share putting a fence on your property line. Fascinating. And what's the fence viewer's role? Well, so that's, I'm glad that you asked. Because I pulled it out. We took it out of the charter. I was in the charter until we took it out. You took it out? The charter changed you. I took it out. So, I mean the fence viewer had a pretty critical role when these fences, so in Colchester, fence has to be on your own property. But this whole chapter is contemplating the fences on the property line. And if the property owners don't agree where that fence is going to go, it's up to the fence viewer. Well, sometimes there's a body of water or something that the fence can't go through. So the fence viewer would decide where you put the fence. Next on NPR. History of the fence viewer. Okay, so I think what I'm hearing very clearly is this setback thing is just, it's impractical, it's not going to work. So what's the alternative? So it's a seven foot fence. And I think what we're hearing is, maybe get the DRVO. Maybe get the DRVO with a six foot without DRV. Absolutely. Leave it on the line, because you're going to check it anyways. Yep. Right? So you get your six foot fence. So that's fine. Easy. And then when you do jump to the eight foot, maybe they should just go DRV anyways. They can still put it on the line if they want. They're not changing that. DRV over the one in the final. So let me play it up a second. What if you want that seven foot fence, but you're only going to put it not anywhere near your property line. Maybe it's, maybe you've got... You've got to hot that. I get that. This big barn full of chickens. No, you have an elephant in your eye. I had a house where the road came over the top, so we put 80 feet of fence up. So I get that part. But we had to get a permit for it still. I wasn't opposed to getting a permit. I'm thinking more like panels, right? Now people trying to define their property, but if you're putting up 100 feet of fencing because you don't want to see the interstate. Exactly. Right? Not at your property line. You're not trying to define your property line. What happens to those people with their seven or eight foot, seven foot 11 fence? Consider the area. Do you think fencing material helps? No, it's a private fence. I don't think so. You did? Yeah. How tall was yours? Just for curiosity, how tall was yours? I don't know. I think it might have been seven plus. Because the six foot is custom built. Custom? Yeah, that's where we see the taller ones. You start with the, you know, even wooden, you know, home depot, you can go and you can get the six foot section of wood. And then people add on 12 inches of... Yeah, this came from part. So there's a head over six. Yeah. I'm trying to go down. I get it. So I'm not pulling myself to... It's still over six. So maybe we keep the set. So if you have the set back, not because you're forced into it, but because you're not putting it on a property line, you don't have to go to the DRB. Yeah. So maybe we keep it. I'm coming to circle. I'm talking to myself here. So you're saying a fence, number five, a fence over six feet in height would not have to go to the DRB. If it meets the set back. I'm saying up to six feet. Yeah. So one between six and eight feet. So basically you have, maybe we give you a choice. You want to put up that seven foot fence. You have two choices. One, you can meet the set backs. You don't go to the DRB. Or we could give them a path to the DRB. I just want to make sure that the standards are something other than conditional use. Yeah. Which options did that address? As long as they have the option to get it on the property line. Too many. I think that's the list. Yeah. I think that the challenge here, and it's not insurmountable, but the challenge is to make sure if we do send them to the DRB, we're sending them with clear standards as to what the DRB is looking for. Because you don't want them to be arbitrary. You're going to be like, yeah, that particular one, there's no rose bushes anywhere near there. You're good. As opposed to, well, that one, you need to be very clear and predictable that that's what the courts want us to do. So somebody should have an idea when they're putting up that fence, whether it's approvable or not. As opposed to just letting, and the DRB doesn't want that either. They don't want to be sitting there winging it. It's not fair to them. So we could go that route. We'll just have to bring you back something that gives you some DRB-related standards. Sure. What would prevent somebody from putting up a line? What do you mean? Sorry. You want to put your fence on the line? It's 8 feet. Yeah. What would prevent somebody from putting it? Why would the DRB say no to that fence? What could possibly? So I think just, I mean, based on things I've heard from you guys, based on when does it start to become problematic to be high? Well, potentially if you are close to other structures or you're a small lot and you are creating, I've heard the word imposing. You guys have used that a couple of times. Are you creating too much shade that wasn't there before? Are you creating, are you blocking views or access to sunlight? Yeah. That would be DRB's job. Yeah. So we could write stuff like that. I think that's the reasons that you would not want something super tall. Could that be anything over 6 feet then? I mean, why make a judgment between 6 and 8 feet? I think the only reason I was thinking that is because a residential property probably should not have an 8 foot fence unless you do a full site plan. I personally, I have not seen a residential area I've seen an 8 foot fence. I mean, that's just huge. I mean, to me a 6 foot fence is pretty tall. I mean, to have the setback, it kicks in when you're going over 6 feet, right? That's how we have it written. Yeah. So you get over 6 feet. I think what we're talking about now, you get over 6 feet, you could have two options. One, if you don't want to go to the DRB, pay that expense, do anything like that. You could just set it back. And maybe you are already because you're not trying to put it at your property line. So it's easy. You've got a very easy path forward. Option B is I want to be able to prove to somebody that I'm not impacting my neighboring property with this higher than usual fence. So those are your two options for that 6 to 8 foot fence. And then when you start to get higher, I think that the way it was written before, so that 8 was sort of already in there. The 8 is saying like once you get at a certain height, that's just not residentially appropriate. And you could have them as part of a site plan. If Costco wants to put up a 12 foot fence or someplace up on Water Tower Hill or where it's reviewed holistically, then they'd be allowed. But Wendy and the Critchlow family, no 12 foot fence for you. But they could have a 7 foot 11 fence. Yes. And they'd have to go to the DRB if they want to put it on the property line. Yes. Or something different. That's just a placeholder. I know that's still making you a little uncomfortable. This is one of those things like the patio. I don't think people realize they need a permit for a fence. We get a lot, I think. For some reason, fences feel like the least after-the-fact thing we permit. I don't get it either, but... Even if it's a rail fence, I mean it's like two rails going across. We do permit those. I'm just... I don't do a lot of after-the-fact fences. And if we do, it's like, you know, somebody who kind of put in... They weren't trying to put it on the property line to start with. They were like, I've got a little dog and I need a little play area for our own. Got a kid in the yard. I want to keep him in the yard. Yeah. Yeah. So it's the smaller ones, interestingly enough. Not necessarily short, but smaller that don't get permits. Maybe because people think I'm not on the property line. What's a big deal? I think those get caught more often. But now with this, it's under four feet. They're okay. Yeah. All right. So it sounds like what we're going to do with the six to eight. I think what I'm hearing is maybe we keep the part about the setbacks because we'll make it nice and easy for people who don't want to be anywhere near a property line. That's easy. They just come get a permit. You meet it. You get a permit. So what do we do with the people who want six to eight on the property line? Nothing? Right now they go to DRB? Now they go to DRB for conditional use. Which we want to try to get away from. I want to try to get away from. And it's anything that's over six feet. So sometimes it is just that guy who wants to, or Gal, who wants to put in just the panel and they live on four acres and they're just putting it in to shade a little bit of something. Who knows? They're not always in close, especially the tall ones aren't always in closing fence. I think those are very expensive. And they feel really confining. I think when you start to get taller you're seeing them in sections. You're seeing them as dividers maybe between two condos. You know, you got the patio on Wendy and Rich and they want to put up a little divider between the two. You might see taller ones because six feet, you can still see, well, not me. But some people can see over that six foot. So I don't think you see a lot of people with eight foot fences that are totally trying to enclose their yard. Like you said, I think people just... So you would be comfortable though not sending them to DRB and still allowing eight foot or less fence on the line for you guys? Are you guys comfortable with that? This is one of those things that doesn't matter what I think. I don't... I'm okay with... This is very, very... Let's say that one more time. So she's trying to get out of sending this to DRB under conditional use. Yeah. We're stuck on the six to eight feet. Anything eight foot or less, we let the office take care of it and we also allow them to put it on the line. Or a foot band. Actually, our regulations are a foot band. Yeah, you can't put it right on the property line. So we're still a foot band. We have to change that. I've heard different... Do we actually have one foot set back? Because I've also heard it has to be so that you can maintain it from the other side without being trespassing on the other property. Yeah. So the requirement of the regulations is that it's simply on your property. Our advice at the counter is that you have to install this fence and people start to walk it back a couple inches. But ultimately, you know, we're not surveyors. We're not going out there to make sure it's on their property. I forgot where I read that. I don't know if it's Vermont or somewhere else, but they maintain it. You have to paint the other side of the fence. Right. You need to be on your property when you do that. Oh, yes. There's a lot of discussion. We must have... I know we discussed the one-foot set back. We're going to work it again. Yes, it would be anyway. But I'm good with... To be clear, I have no opinion whatsoever about what... Yeah, your nay. Definitely no professional opinion about whether or not an eight-foot fence should sit on a property line. I do have a very strong professional opinion that conditional use review by the DRB is not the right avenue. It could still be DRB review if you'd like, but it's just not conditional use criteria. So, how do you guys feel about an eight-foot fence on a property line? As far as the regulations are concerned, I don't think it's going to be okay for them because I don't think they should go through the DRB because they're probably going to go and say yes anyway. You know, it does seem like a waste of time and expense to be... But we keep talking about putting up a couple of panels. To me, that's not a fence. It's more like a barrier, right? Yeah, I think we've changed the definition. We'll get to that. There's a definition of fence that includes purpose to enclose or separate. Okay. The way it's written now, a fence over six feet in height has to meet the setbacks. So that's anything over six feet. It'll be a 10-foot. And if you wanted to put it on the property line right now, that doesn't say you could, right? Unless otherwise modified by the DRB as part of a site plan. That's not the greatest language, but the idea is there. I guess my hang-up is I don't see any difference between that and the eight-foot. I think... Well, the way it's written is that even if you move it in, you can have a nine-foot fence, no matter how far you move it in. There's no out via the setback. Yeah. I get that face right there. Yeah. Yeah. Then you're a different wall. I hear you loud. It's going to be pretty rare if you hear an eight-foot fence. I think you're right. I think... That was easy to translate. What you're seeing more of is, as you described it, you're seeing the six-foot panel with the foot of lattice on the top of it. You're seeing seven-foot fences. Yeah. Not a ton of them, but... They look nicer. But you do see them. It's a change which comes six-foot to seven feet. You've got it down from eight-foot to seven. Oh, yeah. The problem starts at eight. Oh. And that's why we had six feet. The problem does start at... It includes seven, right? It's anything over six. Correct. Yeah. We're looking at six-to-eight. Yeah. Six-to-eight is where you get into that setback zone there. Correct. I mean, you know, somebody that sees a lot of fence, you know, applications, you know, primarily we see them in residential areas. What's that? Primarily, fences are seen in residential areas when people are applying for permits for them. But there's also purposes, you know, to have fences, for example, there's scrap yards adjoining residential areas that, you know, have taller fences and that's probably welcomed by both parties. As well as, you know, sometimes in, you know, PUD reviews, you might have a very dense proposal and there might be a fence on a property line, but generally we're seeing, you know, six-foot fences there. But yeah, I mean, I think kind of echoing Kathy's thoughts. You know, I don't really have a steak in the ground here. I really... It's whatever you... Yeah. You know, it's, I think it's really up to what you think is appropriate. Given all the circumstances the fence could be. So if you did go six, but took into consideration that it would be 70, now we're still in the safe zone, right? So you're still in that middle, we'll call them A, B, and C. Well, I guess there's... I guess there's like four sections. Okay. So between six and eight, anything between six and eight, let's assume it's seven because that's the most frequent iteration of that. How do you feel about that seven-foot fence? Most likely it's probably gonna be a lattice-based fence, but not necessarily. But if you say seven feet, they're not gonna say seven feet with lattice. No. They're gonna say a solid seven-foot fence. Right. So how do you feel about that seven-foot fence? Where do you want to see it and not see it? I think six feet's plenty high for residential. The vinyl fences that I looked at, it's usually a four-foot or five-foot panel with the lattice work on top. So it never exceeded... Oh, so they're short in the solid part? It never got over six feet. As I said, wood is a different story because you got slats of wood and you can go off forever. So those could be over six feet. But a lot of people are putting the plastic ones in in the neighborhood. Six feet. I mean, my daughter has a six-foot fence. That's the only thing I can picture. It's a solid white PVC fence. And it's basically a screen between her and the neighbor who's a contractor. So they don't really want to see that. So hers is like one section. Or BC. Yeah, they have it. A short section of that. And then they have just a regular chaining fence around the rest of the property because they have a dog. They want to keep the dog in the yard. But the six-foot fence is pretty tall. Can't see the neighbor. He were in the yard. I see most of the six-foot fence. The question is, if somebody wants to go over the six, do we send DRD? I say yes. Because once you get over to that, it's like, okay, is it appropriate for that location? Or is it infringing on the neighbors? Yeah. And what's that annoying thought? Right. Are they doing it in spite? I think they could make that judgment call saying this is not appropriate here. Or they can stay. That's what the DRV would do. I think we would try to find objective standards. To say, does it cast additional adverse shadowing? If there's nothing anywhere near that, it's an easy... I think there's some objective standards we could write in. So why don't we work on that for you guys? I think we're sort of going back to what's there, but add to it as to... Six-foot is pretty much all you get on the property line. Unless you go to the DRB and they evaluate against objective criteria, I just asked Zach about whether or not he's... Because he's the primary staff to the DRB, if he's seen any of these fences go to them. And he hasn't in his two plus years. So I think most people are going to be able to meet that six. And this isn't going to be a big issue. What I was trying to... And I think I still accomplished is if somebody does have that taller panel somewhere on their property, that's not necessarily... You know, that they have an easy path without going to the DRB. Maybe it is to hide their own where they park their camper. Who knows. They're trashed. I'm keeping a scalloped fence. Scalloped fence. Did you see them? Yeah? They go like that? What do you measure it to? You have a six-foot panel. Did you guess the scallop? I don't know. I think they're saying just stop. That'll be next week's bring in fence types. Fence in that area first next time. We're just going to keep this totally blocked off. It'll be the demonstration area. Yeah, I didn't realize that, you know, I thought it was going to be the S100 update, but it's really the fence update. Taking some of the pressure off. Okay, let's work on that. Are you okay if I move on? Yes. Nice. To my list. Meet the fence to death. Kick it a little. There is a section in that statue related to like sudden destruction of the fence. Sudden destruction. Yeah. It's like some sort of disaster. Pass it on to Sarah. Perfect. Okay, let's see. Fence exemptions, blah, blah, blah. Electronic message signs. Oh boy. I don't know if I want to dig into this one. Let me start the idea with you here. So we have a lot of language in there about electronic message signs. You'll tell me if you want to talk about it a lot tonight. We didn't get into it last time. There's not a lot of them in town. In fact, outside of like things that I would provide exemptions for like schools, theaters, things where changing gas stations, changing messages are part and parcel of what they do. Does Joe the accountant really, really do you want him to have a moving message sign with, but right now we can. Flashy lights. There's not a lot of them. People have shared very, very strong opinions about them with us. I have my own personal opinions about them. So while I was going through some of the signs in there, you know, I saw all this like stuff that talks about them and I couldn't help but think, boy, if we just didn't allow them, we wouldn't have to deal with all of the fine details about them. Again, if that's something you wanted to undertake, I would probably put in some exemptions. You know, the school district has one. I think it's standard and appropriate for that type of use. I think gas station pricing. So much easier for them to type into an app or a computer that gas has just gone up 10 cents, especially right now. They'd never get off the ladder otherwise. I think theaters. I think our drive-in hasn't gone to that yet, but theaters utilize this often because their times change and stuff. It's just so much more flexible. But I think outside of those uses, they're not really common in a lot of communities. Just sort of like, I wasn't going to use the word, but I'll nod my head. So I don't know if you guys want to talk about it. You want to talk about it later. You want to just say, don't bring this to us at all. S48. Do we have a definition of electronic message signs? Yeah, 2.18G. I was trying not to single out the only one business that I know of. I can only think of one. And it would be grandfathered just to be clear. Yeah. The business that has that would not lose it. If you could change the regulations, it just means that the 10 other businesses, from ice cream to accounting to plumbing supply, don't get to them. That's 2.18G. Yeah, I put that again in the category of things you've gotten very lucky with. Well, so there's also a standard, I believe, about how often the message can change. So there's a certain gas station that has reached out to me multiple times. I think it's just multiple people that's wanted to install an electronic message sign because it would be useful for their business and the way that they sell gasoline. And when I told them the interval, I believe it was like five minutes, they said, nope, we're not doing it. So, you know, it's a non-starter for them because it just wouldn't be functional. Are you still looking for it? Sorry, found it. I found one reference. I was just trying to... 2.18C. number seven. She written, but let's look at C. That's where it started. Because it started saying prohibited signs, but then it has these exceptions in that paragraph. Yeah. So they are allowed... 2.18C is the best place to start. Because it starts out saying it's prohibited. And then you read further and it says it allows it. Yeah, as long as the five minutes that Zach said... And it doesn't exceed 10 square feet. You can have greater than 10 square feet. I mean, we haven't mapped it out on the wall, but 10 square feet is pretty small for a... A 3 by 3 is 9 square feet. Yeah, it's not very big. The one I think you're thinking of is small. Is it? I drove by it recently, it's small. Small but mighty. So, I mean, you could decide, you just don't have the capacity to deal with this, or you could say, you know, I hate those. It's not allowed them. I'll say that. We hate those. It's not allowed. Or I love them. I guess I shouldn't re-judge. You could say I love them, they're fantastic. It's not a really difficult thing to do. So the exemptions I mentioned, do they feel right to you? Any thoughts on them? Schools, gas station pricing boards only. Not like milk is on sale this week versus... Yeah. Get your coffee for 99 cents. And theaters, I feel. I'm going to be driving around town, see all these signs, and see if there's anything that stands out that should be included. I think that's... Right now, it makes sense. Yeah, I think those are just the most common uses I can think of that would benefit from them. Like I said, our theater, our drive-in theater right now uses an old-fashioned... Go out there with the letters, but... Actually, does the motel next to them have a... Is that electronic? I don't know. In the neon side. The neon side? Is that what they're doing? In the neon side, right? Just neon, but not like... Not the electronic where you can change up the messages. Yeah, I don't think so. I think you're right. I think it's just the way that the lighting is. Okay, so we'll bring you back something there to look at and text. If you're generally okay with the idea. Moving on. Let's keep using the mouse. We talked about text updated... Oh, freestanding sign. So I gave you guys something you liked the idea. 2.18h. So this is all new. Based on what we talked about. So I got rid of base called it a support structure. The freestanding sign shall not be included in the maximal output footage if it's not taller than the height of the sign nor larger in total area than the sign panel. So you're looking at proportions, I guess, here. So you don't have a super tall base with a short little sign on it. And it's not meant to be larger than the total sign panel. I don't know. That one could sort of come or go. I think I've seen some attractive bases that are larger. I'm talking myself out of the text I put in. Well, I can envision like, you know, a stone base with a nice tasteful sign about that stone base may be more fitting into the landscape being bigger than the sign. Yeah. Maybe what I meant to say... Could it be that height is the correct thing to leave there? I think what I was trying to say is not taller than the allowable sign. So you have a 40-square-foot sign that you're allowed to have and then you have an 80-square-foot base. That gets really big. I think there feels like there needs to be some sort of limitation on the base. So maybe it's not necessarily that it's not taller bigger than the sign but not bigger than an allowable sign size. It needs some sort of outer boundary. Right. Of the sign itself or the allowable sign of the sign? Of the sign itself. You're not making the sign shrink because of the base, right? Right. I think the idea is that you didn't want the 40-foot sign sitting on a 300-foot base. That was a bit exaggerated but you know what I mean. So it could be slightly larger but not like... It's not a free-for-all. What's that? Well, it's like a 20% wider than the sign. Actually, it could just be 20% of the base. Yeah. How big is that? That's where it gets confusing to me when you start putting out the percentages. Are you saying if the sign is 40-square-feet, 20% of that, the base can't be any larger than 20% more than the sign? Well, I think you said 120% of the sign. I'm trying to see if in some way we can make it as simple as possible. I've been having people try to figure out 20% of why. It just sounded confusing to me. I don't know how to answer but... You'd think so but... Yeah, I know. It doesn't stop them from proposing signs that are not even close to fitting our maximums. Okay, so I think what we want to say here is that there's still a cap on the size of that base. The support structure. You can't just put in whatever size you want. So the cap could either be... You want to put this tall base and this little tiny sign up there. We don't want that. For example, like you talked about, where you have a nice wide base with a sign on top of it, that nice wide base doesn't become, you know, enormous. Then it becomes a retaining wall. Yeah, a retaining wall. Exactly. Or a fence. Okay, I'll think on that some more. I think it's not going to say what it does to say there. Because I don't think that's what you guys intended. I think that the next two paragraphs sentences is fine. Okay, so clearly distinguishable as a support structure. The purpose of this is so it doesn't give a giant sign. Free of lettering graphics attachments and all forms of advertisement. Yeah, I agree with that. And then if you don't do that, you do put lettering on it. That's part of your sign area. That's what D says. So very important sign. You still don't get an extra tall sign just because you've got this exempt base. Your total sign height is still your total sign height. The same one you have today. Same one you would have when this is adopted. You can't illuminate it. And just for fun, I added this, but you can take it off. Must display the properties address number. It's an ongoing conversation I have with some of our emergency services about getting address numbers out there on things. But if you don't like it, you can take it off. I personally like it. But especially in our model, we are in some of the worst addresses. Yeah, I think an address number is good. Okay. So one little on A there. I see I see one. Okay. Moving on screening or buffering. We're still working on that. Elderly. We started to talk about, I haven't done a lot with it. So you have, and maybe this is for another supplement, but there's a fair amount of stuff. That sets up exemptions at the age of 55. Sometimes it allows younger people that fit certain characteristics. We use the word disabled in the regulations. So we talked about it last time, but I think may just table some of this for another one. I don't know if you necessarily mean to have certain things apply just to age 55 and over. Maybe you do 55 is not really elderly anymore. Even if you're comfortable using the term. It just seems an unnecessary barrier that I, I don't know what purpose it serves and including something at 55. Either you, you don't have that sort of distinction or you consider what purpose it serves and determine whether or not 55 serves that purpose. What's the depth? You mean the actual place of over 55? Yeah. So you have certain like congregate housing is like allowed only if in certain, it has more allowances than other housing. If you're over 55, for example, I'm good with that. But it has its own definition then. Congregate housing does. Definition includes age 55. So how often is the word elderly used? Not that many. And I think actually under congregate housing, I think it uses older persons. So maybe the bigger conversation waits. Sound okay? You put it L, Y, and then actually those sound probably Sunday. But the word elder self is where you're satisfying. You expect your elders? Yes. But even where we use it like 907D, we say elderly, but there's no definition that goes with it. So what does elderly mean? So if you're intending to say something there, there should be some definition of what? Either you get rid of elderly, you choose older persons, and then you define older persons. Currently somewhere in here, older persons is defined at 55. That exists in the regulations. And where we use elderly with that definition work? 907D7? Is that where you're looking at? I'm trying to find it. I have to scroll. It's forever. I mean, senior citizen, people have different definitions of what a senior citizen is. Yeah, I'm sorry for getting us all into this. I just had to remove the word family. It's so fun. Starfire nursing home, they changed their name to Elderwood. That just sounds so awful. What's next? Deadwood? It's a cemetery. It's a cemetery. It's called Deadwood. I'm just saying I'm an elderwood. What am I looking at 908? Is that what I'm looking for? Comment seven. You found elderly on that page? Which number? I don't know how to use these iPads. I'm at eight. Oh, nine. Nine oh what? 907 or 908? Here we go. Multi-unit dwellings for the elderly. As a PUD bonus. So that is on your PDF page 138. So if you're going to give these bonuses, this density bonuses through a PUD for the elderly, should probably define, even if you're okay with the content, should probably define who the elderly are and who gets these density bonuses. So you don't have to change policy, but we should at least provide some clarity. So you could say off the cuff, older persons as defined in congregate housing, whatever that says. Two pages up. Doesn't require you to deal with the 55 plus issue, but it does provide some clarity as to what the density bonuses for the elderly. Sound good? Very basic. Very basic. Okay. No policy change. Just clarity. And remove the word elderly. Now we're chugging. Hey, that's it. I'm done. Did you make any changes? Oh, we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about location, so emergency shelters. After the last meeting, there was a bit of discussion about where they'd be appropriate in town. And there was a note that, you know, there was a question about, you know, a public transit lines and where those are in Colchester. So as you know what, what the zoning district layouts in the exit 16 and in Fort neighborhoods are. So we did provide some additional zoning maps to kind of provide some context. You know, this is a zoning map of exit 16. You can see the commercial district is the kind of grid lined red. There's where you don't want to travel right now. Just to orient you. That will be the diverging diamond interchange. Yeah, future diamond. So Zach, this zoning district is. And that's the business district. Red hatch. The business district. Oh, wait, no, sorry. The red grid is the commercial district. The red lines that are going sideways, kind of a diagonal kind of on the periphery of daddy road. Hercules drive. Those are going to be your, that's the business. This inner core here. It does cross over. Mountain view drive, lower mountain view drive, all grid. Okay. So it's called, that's the V Costco. It would be Shaw's. We see yes. Yeah. All the way up to Water Tower Circle. Yeah. All the office buildings up there. And then it does step down a bit. If you go south of the interstate, just to note that. Okay. We talked about that at length last time. Okay. South of the interstate. That area is all zone commercial. That's basically where McDonald's is. Yeah. Yes. Okay. The two motels. I think that the, the diner and the, the other building, the high point center you guys have gotten. Here about a few times. That's all in there too. Same district. So what's not in there, just after you get past lower mountain view, I think the gas station might be in there. And then that's it. Gas station, but it looks like once you get to the, the architectural firm, Chuck's starts transitioning to business. They're very similar, but they're not the same. So I think, you guys were talking about potential places for this emergency shelter. It sounded like you were talking about south of the interstate, but if you choose that district, just know that that district is not its own district. It does extend to the other side of the interstate quite a bit. Mostly water tower hill, Costco and whatever else you pass heading down lower mountain view drive. Shall I flag this as discussion for the town plan? Yeah. The zoning south of the interstate should be different than... I don't see it as a fit myself. The only thing that I've, emergency shelters for me is people are limited because they don't have cars. They're limited on how they can get around. And this area is one of the few areas in Colchester where you could walk to the grocery store. You could walk to the drug store. It's not really any other place in Colchester. You can do that. That's the only reason why I see it as potential for emergency shelter. It's not... I don't really categorize this as permanent housing like you're living there year round. There's no lease, as you said. So it's really a transient type of occupant, I guess, which is similar to me like the hotels and hotels. Yeah. I mean, I think it could take... I looked a little bit more into it. I think it could take a variety of forms. I'm just looking at some of the emergency shelters that exist in the state right now, even before the COVID hotel program. You've got your shelters that you have down in Burlington, the Cots shelters, especially. You've got some of your battered women's shelters. You have... I would think somebody could make an argument that, a fair argument, that the pod village that has been quite controversial in Burlington... Oh, next to the post office? Yes. That those would meet the definition of emergency housing should somebody wish to develop them here. So emergency housing isn't just the hotel rental program, but also, you know, I think the format... There's a fair variety of how that exists right now in Vermont again. Everything from, you know, some of the specialty women's shelters to the overnight Cots shelters to these housing pods. I think it would be considered emergency housing. Those are not meant to house people for length of time. So as you picture what these... Yeah, but it's not permanent housing for people. It is a transient type. People are not familiar with the area. They want to get to places. You had to remind me, were we thinking of the Fort area as another one? I think the suggestion that we brought to you was the Fort area. But... You're looking more like 15. A long 15, yeah. You have that map, too. Yeah, so try to turn the transparency of the zoning layer down so you kind of see what's underneath it at least. But really following the 15 corridor, but the GD2 district does extend fully into Fort Ethan Allen, all the way back to Camp Johnson and up to the town line with Essex. So it includes St. Michael's as well? It also includes St. Michael's College. It's all in Big Zoning District out there. Everything from Fannie Allen to the college to the... What's the name of the mobile home park out there? Drawing a blank in the name. You know, all the way down through the Fort. That's all the same zoning. Okay, well then, you know, we're not going to put emergency housing in the Fort, so we know that's not going to happen. So I'm just unclear. You're just designating a place if somebody chooses to do this or have to do this. We have to allow it to happen somewhere. We must choose some location that should somebody wish to build more of these pods or a certain type of emergency housing that there is a place in Coolchester that they can do it. So if you designated some place in St. Michael's around that area, then... no one else could build there No, no. It just means that it would be allowed. So if you designate this zoning district, it's allowed in that zoning district. But other things could develop free market. Nobody has to put anything there, but you can't outlaw it across the entire town. You can't say none of these shelters can exist anywhere in Coolchester. You have to allow them in some district. And the question is which district would you... And we can wait till the master player? No. Does this well be... As soon as it's adopted its law, whether you have it in your regulations or not, how does that play out? State law. We're under state law. But without us putting the zoning in for it, it can't... Unless the state can rezone something. So it'll have to come in to rezone something over us. So basically what would happen is we have to create some space for it. If we don't create some space for it and somebody proposes it in the growth center, I don't know. They're gonna say, you have not provided some space for it yet. This is the first one. That's where it is. So I would encourage you to get this one in this supplement because if you don't, it will likely end up wherever your first application is. Because it is already law that you have to allow it somewhere. So if we allowed it in this district, you can't count the fort because that's government property. Nobody has access to it. Oh, the camp. Yeah. When we say the fort, we sort of mean the area on the green. Okay. Well, Camp Johnson. Camp Johnson. That's a huge chunk of this. It takes a huge chunk out. District. The Fort Ethan Allen, that area, Dalton Drive, Ethan Allen, and Hedgeman. That's pretty built up. So I don't know. I mean, we're seeing conversions out there. We're seeing older buildings, potential for teardowns and rebuilds. Can we put that in as a traditional use? No, I think that's not allowed. It has to be a permitted use. We picked this area. No matter where it's from that area. They find an old building before. You can still regulate the same way you would other things. You can regulate five dimensional standards. You can regulate traffic and regulate. Yeah. I mean, in the historic preservation overlay district, you're looking at what the renovations look like as well. So that's in the actual Fort Ethan Allen core as well. So you wouldn't see necessarily a teardown or rebuild in those cases. So the definition for emergency shelter, the state. You've given us different examples of the state have that written out. Well, yeah, we have it in here. It's in the regulations, but it's pretty open-ended. It's pretty broad. I'm just giving you examples of ones I'm familiar with. Well, there's a lot. There's one of the news tonight right now on Shelton Street. It just was a motel turned into an overnight. Now it's a 24-7. It just keeps evolving. You can have that. And to say nothing would happen, I would encourage you to plan for it before it's planned for you. And the law says you have to put it somewhere. I personally like the idea of down in the four years, there's halfway out, there's some support. I do have a hospital and get the other hospital out the street. I don't like the idea into the business district of exit 16. I think that's exit 16's messy. I think there are opportunities for failure for operational mixing of businesses. Well, there's a lot of business in this district, too. Oh, yes. It has a different flavor. I'm trying to figure out what property it's going to left over. If you're saying a pod situation, I don't see any property in there that that would fit in. I wouldn't want to see that in the fort. Fort Eton Allen. That changes the whole character of that area. I agree with that, but unfortunately, what you saw is we can have the state step. Oh, I know. Pull floor on top of one of our buildings. So this is another. Yeah. I mean, I haven't done a property by property accounting of what's out there, but, you know, as you know, you've seen on the news, you know, St. Mike's has converted some of their dorms to. Yeah. I had two affordable housing. One of those buildings was where our original office was. Oh, really? The same building? Yeah. Well, we had dorms on either side of it. Well, dorms and then classroom. So I don't know what's left for other dorms that could be transitioned. I don't know. I don't know if there's still, are there other dorm buildings out there still? Yeah. I mean, St. Mike's College went through a couple of subdivisions. I think two years ago of the North Campus parcel, three of those buildings, you know, converted to affordable multifamily units. There's a fourth one with no other development plans. There's also another sort of vacant dorm per se. So there are some vacant buildings that have been, you know, are still vacant. Big problem in the fort from any development that tried to happen in that fort. It's limited by the sewer. It's antiquated. Nobody can add to the sewer. It's true. You're kind of stuck with what you got. Yeah. So whatever. It, that type of change in use would have to, again, we're allowed to make it meet our standards. So it could only happen in a place that has adequate sewer capacity or access to sewage treatment. So you were to designate that area and then they came back to where they wanted it? No, I think you've still designated the area. You know, if they came in with a particular property and said, we're going to put it right in, you know, this one building and we say, well, that building has wastewater capacity that only serves half of the number you're looking at. It's just not possible. We would still be allowed to say that. I think that that's the truth for anything else that you must have. You must have, you know, allow for churches in your community. They still have to meet all of those standards, but you can't apply conditional use to them. So it would have to meet the same standards that anything else does. You just can't disallow it. Is the mobile home park, is that on sewer? I'm not sure. I'm saying no. Yeah. So they have their own septic system? So that, that wouldn't be able to be converted then because it's. Yeah, and they're already state owned. Are they? Yeah. That one out there is owned by the state. I think the state. So that's really, the only place left in that district is the Forty-Even-Allen area. The hospital, you're not going to put housing on the hospital. St. Michael's is a college privately owned. Camp Johnson Cemetery. You're not going to put it on a cemetery. I guess Woodside. I think it's, you'd see some small infill or replacement. But I think it would be small in scale. I don't think anything out there has, is large and has, but then again, I don't know what the dorms. The dorms are pretty much been converted. The only ones I can think of are maybe those very first ones would you pull into the fort there on the left-hand side? Are there more boxy ones? That's before you get to the two that were recently. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not as familiar with that as you guys are. I think St. Michael's overall wanted to get out of the North Campus. I don't know if it includes those. I think it's two or three of those brick buildings just as you come in. To be on the left-hand side. So it's really, you don't even feel like it's part of the four. Yeah. I mean, I think it's fair to say that if you were to allow it in this district, I don't think it's so impossible for it to happen that it would appear exclusionary. I think even some of those duplex buildings, you know, potentially could be converted with an appropriate amount of work. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, just looking down, you know, where the building that says Winooski Park, you know, there's a whole neighborhood there along Gorge Road, you know, buildings that, you know, you have a duplex. Maybe it's, you know, eight bedrooms in total already on sewer. That could be eight beds in an emergency shelter, which is still meaningful. And I think, you know, possibly a proposal that could, you know, provide that function. I think there is an emergency shelter in the district already. There is. Yeah. Are you? Where? Closer to... So they don't give you guidelines down here? Down here? They just say emergency shelter. Is that correct? Lan Kilm Road? Did I go off? Sorry. Closer to where the old hotel was near the town line with Winooski. A little hotel. Now you've lost my home. Candy sweets or something? Yes. Oh, that's still on Route 15. Yeah, across from the St. Mike's. Yeah, right across from St. Mike's. I thought that was like an extended stay or something. I think it used to be. It's now a specialty emergency shelter. Okay. There you go. Sheriff's women. Oh, I know what you're thinking. That's Susie Wilson Road. Nope. Nope. There's one here. Well, Susie Wilson Road has one too that Handys have. Yeah. I think that's a CHT building. CHT. Oh, Sheffelin Housing Trust. I'm sorry. The one on Susie Wilson. This one is a women's shelter specifically. We've spoken with them about some plans. Otherwise, I would never know. Interesting. Yeah. Because they own two buildings there. Yeah. They don't exactly put a sign up, you know, especially if it's. Yeah. A women's shelter. Okay. So I think it exists already. It exists. In some form. And there is transportation to that border. Because Essex is served by it. Yeah. And it's not long-term stay, but there's still, you know, they're working with the property to make it, you know, adequate for while people are there, putting in some fencing, you know, for people who have children with them. So that the yard is playable, et cetera. There's just not too many amenities to walk to. No, but they do have a pretty, probably one of the most frequent bus lines. Yeah. Cold Chester there. Okay. Good. I'm sold. Go there. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. There's a couple of Zach reminds me of a couple of streets over there too, that are actually in Cold Chester. Paradise or something. Am I making that up? Couldn't do it up top my head. Yeah. Only what's convenient for me. There's a great yard at the end of that. Oh, really? Yeah. Well, there's the road that goes down to Woodside. It used to be a juvie jail. It's not a juvie jail anymore. Oh, no, not that. Like, further up, it's like, Do you want to talk about parking for the students? Start going up to 50. It's like one of the first rides. Oh, yeah. I know how. Yeah. Anything else? Was there anything else? I think those were the big things. Yeah. So we've got some hallmark. We'll work on those things. Bring this back to you. We're in progress. That's good. Yeah. I don't think I have anything else on that agenda item. No. I just included, because I'm required to, South Burlington's town plan, 2024 town plan that gets directed to planning commissions. There's nothing in there. They always have to do a chapter on neighboring towns. It says exactly what it said before. We barely touch Cool Chester. It's really a lime cone. Like, it's like the river. So, you know, this is not a major neighbor of ours. There's nothing in there that was. I just looked through it quickly to keep family in there. Guess what? In that plan. Yeah. Where family stays in theirs. They'll change it. I bet they'll change it. Yeah. But, you know, when these come up, I look to see, you know, where you see future land use planning, you know, is, you know, the Beltlight in Burlington, where they're going to be like, this is our new industrial area. Aha, take that Cool Chester. You know, so that's really what I'm looking for when I, when I look at these, but nothing, nothing to do in there. Planning and zoning monthly report. Getting better about getting those actually attached to you. Meeting schedule. Oh, sorry. Yep. Schedule. Not at all. I'm like, not at all. Meeting schedule. So you agreed first Tuesdays. So that means your next meeting is October, I think the third. Yes. Ah, that's what I forgot. I didn't bring you minutes to sign. Oh no. I feel like I was forgetting something. I said it's exactly like I'm forgetting something. Should I go print them very quickly? Oh, I know. All right. You can make the motions. Just sign after. You need a motion. Okay. I looked it over. So I'll make a motion that we approve the minutes of August 29, 2023. All second. There you go. I'm with neither eye. Eye. Eye. All set. Meeting is now adjourned. Well, we have to make a motion to adjourn. Oh, my sorry. I'm not getting ahead of you. Go ahead. Okay. I make a motion that we adjourn. Second back. All in favor. All right. There we go. Now one person went and had a seat during the. I thought that's where Bella would be sitting. Or a beverage. Now nobody watching this will know what we're talking about. I know. You think we're crazy. What are they even? I did take pictures. Yeah, I should have that. I put. I will. Yeah. I'm impressed. I put.