 I'm calling to order the February 10th meeting of the Popular Planning Commission. First thing we do is approve the agenda. And we'll take a look and let us know if it's all right. If we do get to number seven, we'll be talking about the energy chapter because transportation wasn't ready, so. And was that a handout over there? No. No, I have to run downstairs right now. Yeah, I do think it's going to be good. I see all on six-six. Motion to approve the agenda. Do you already have one? Nope. We have a motion from Barbara to approve. Second. Second by Stephanie. All in favor of approving the agenda? Aye. Opposed? Okay. Agenda approved. Comes from the chair. I don't have any. I mean, I guess I could reflect on the last meeting, which was the hearing on design review. I thought it went really well. I feel like the Planning Commission is in a good place as far as our relationship with the public. I mean, no one seemed to aim anything towards us as far as, you know, like a trust or anything, which is not, I mean, it's not something we can take for granted. So I think it's notable to say that I think we're in a good place and that we can continue to, I think that we've been as rational and even as possible going through this process. So I feel like we can just keep going and it seems like it's going pretty well. And with that, you know, that brings us to tonight, which we're going to go through the comments that we've received so far. And there's maybe a couple of big topics for conversation, but there's also a few little things, so it's not a huge amount. And then as far as how this is going to play out in the future, we will still have one meeting and after this one where we provide notice to the public and invite people to come back again and provide notice to the state. So that they're notified too that we're making these changes. So there'll be at least one more meeting where we consider that or at least leave it open for consideration and then from then, from there we'll move it to the city council. Do we have to have that meeting because we might make changes based on the hearing last time? Is that why we need to? No, well, we're going to make, if we make changes, we'll just send things back out to rewarn the required, the abutting communities in the state. You're supposed to send a copy to DHCD and they didn't get a copy. We sent out 350 letters to every single member of the Design Review District, but the state did not get a copy. Oh, I see. And so just for making sure that does not end up being a point of contention that somebody wants to run us over with down the line, we'll just warn one more meeting, we'll make whatever changes, then we'll just warn a meeting for the ninth and on the revised version and see what. I think we've always talked about having extra opportunities for the public to come in, so that works out fine. So there's that. I won't be here at the next meeting. I guess that's another thing to bring up. So, Erin, you'll be around, I'll take it. Sure. Take over. So Erin, we'll leave the next one. Sounds right. Yeah. Yes. So that meeting, the topic of discussion I believe will be the city plan. Yeah. So probably the energy and transportation. It'll probably, well, we'll have historic preservation back, their meeting tomorrow night. Unless that's changed. Meeting tomorrow night. Oh, thanks. Okay. So they'll finish up their section and then we should have a couple others that are pretty close. A lot of them are getting, everybody's very interested in talking about the topic. So unfortunately, they haven't always finished them up, but they're working on it. They're very interested in working through them. Great. Great. Will you send me an email after that meeting? Just let me know. What happened? Like, you sent us this? Okay. I can send you a deeper email. Thank you. They're all still here. At least I could do it. No, wait, quit. Yeah, that would be, that would be like I come back and we don't have a chemist for anymore. Cheat Kirby? Something like that. Why do you have to leave? I mean, guess what happened? Yeah. So I don't think that will happen. Okay. So that's all I have for comments. So that moves us to general business where we would say the public has anything to discuss that's not on the agenda. The only person here is Eric. Eric, did you have something to talk about for? Just, the one thing I noticed is the dealing with the gable roasts that face the street and. This design review, so he's here for number six. Right. I would like to take that up with the preservation commission, I wrote some quick language out just a general idea and I can talk about that. That's on the matrix, right? No, I didn't have those comments in advance. Oh, okay. So, okay, so when we talk about, that's most of what we're doing and that's we're going to go through the comments on the regulations. So if you can come up and we'll dive into that. Does that sound okay? Pull up a chair and join us. Yeah. Come on up now if you want. Should we talk about CVFC meetings tomorrow or can we just switch to talk about that after? We can talk about it after unless you want to. No, that's fine. Okay. I just didn't know one of the best time to bring it up. Okay. Just try it. Yeah, okay. I was just making a roll for you on the other side. I'm taking up a lot of space. We probably should have invited you up earlier. I'm really bad at formalities, by the way. You're doing great. I'm just gonna own that. I'm just sorry. You're doing great. I was born in Eastern Kentucky. I grew up in East Tennessee and I do blame the upper things. Where were you picked? Huh? Wood City. Parkville, Kentucky. Everybody's a coal miner. Is that right? Yeah. Has somebody wrote a book about growing up in Kentucky? Yeah. And I can't remember the name of it. The Liology. That's like. Yeah, my wife read that. The Country Songs of the British. Yeah. You used the episode. Southern America. So, yeah. Anyway, so I'm crippled when it comes to those things. So that's it for the general business and now we have to consider the minutes from January 27th. One little correction, under, when you considered the minutes from January 13th, it says the motion passed on it for a vote with Barbara abstaining because she was not present as the meeting. Yeah. So just insert the word not. Okay. It would make much sense. It's great that we have a record of the comments. Yeah, it really is. And they're pretty concise. Okay, we must approve Stephanie. We have a second. As with Barb's edit. With it, yep. Yeah, a second. Oh, you second? Yeah. Barb's seconds, okay. All in favor of approving the minutes? Say aye. Aye. All opposed? Okay. Approved the minutes. And now onto the good stuff. So Mike wonderfully made us this matrix of the comments that we've received so far. And then he also has his own recommendations that go with him. So I guess with that, hand it over to Mike to walk us through. So yeah, for anyone who hasn't seen these, we've done, we did these for the zoning update. So it was pretty, it was something that the consultant had brought along as an idea. She would put these things together. And so I have stolen it and reuse it. So we usually just try to record what the recommendations were. I tried to provide some comments or thoughts on it. And then you guys can make a decision. So the first one was on the 29 terrace street. And we'll kind of end up with a couple of discussions up here with the Redstone, North Redstone district, which is the red area. Her property's here. And we got met with a person whose property is there. So the three of them, the old historic district followed this line. 2017 came and they revised the historic district, the National Register Historic District. They cut those three properties out. But this meant this district had already been made and we didn't catch that. So these three probably should be part of the process. There's a real break at the top of the hill there. So this is beyond Bailey and Terrace? This is beyond Bailey. The first one on the corner. The first one on the corner would stay in. But the other ones as you start going up, Terrace would not be in. So that would be the first, that's what the recommendation here is. I kind of agree these, at least these three should be removed. Sorry, the one, sorry. The corner one you're saying is the one that's on Bailey and Terrace? Yes. And then it's three. I can't tell where the lines are. It's three up from that. It's on the move. If you're looking at the black line, the black line would stay in. Okay. But it's the three past. Since they're already checked out. Since they were taken out of the National Register, this district. So from the black line northward there, is it just three parcels that make up all of that area? Three north on Bailey or three north on Terrace? Just three north on Terrace. Three north on Terrace. There are only three parcels there. They're much bigger parcels than what you find on the lower area. Look one, two. Yeah, that's a 0.99 acres. I don't think that was like a 0.6 acres. That was a little bit smaller. So they're bigger than the properties you'd find on Bailey. So we matched it to the zoning district but you're saying based on the map that probably should have been caught and then should have been part of the other. Yeah, we matched this neighborhood. Could we need it to find some delineation and so we followed the National Register? So now if we followed the National Register, there would be even more in the economy. There would be just this. Just those three. So if I drew this line here, that's the National Register. All of these up here are all in the National Register. This is the National Register. Oh, I thought it was the South, Dark South one. No, that's the existing design review. Existing, all right. So that was the question that had come up before when we were drawing this line was what would be in our new design review and what would not? And we were trying to include all of the neighborhood. So either everybody's in or everybody's out because then we've got a reason to say that's why we're drawing the line. So we had a question. We've got some parcels in and some parcels out. Do we include, do we add these ones in new or do we pull these guys out? I think that the next one that's up. 30 Bailey, is that the one on the corner? So this was resident 30 Bailey excluded from district. Oh, that's this person up here. Yeah. Up here in the nose, wanted to be removed. But they are currently in the historic district. They are currently in the historic district, which kind of leads to the, you know, then there was another one if you go farther down. This person on Mather Terrace didn't want to be in the district. So we got a couple of them that were all following that same theme in that district. So I think what I had for in number two, which kind of goes the next step farther is playing devil's advocate. Every other design review neighborhood is a mixed use neighborhood, except for the spot up here and these guys over here. We'll talk about those guys later, but everybody else is in more of a mixed use. The person on Mather Terrace is right sort of in the middle of things with their all historic buildings on Mather Terrace. Yeah, they're all historic, but what I was just pointing out is there is a, this is the only one that is a purely residential neighborhood by zoning. It's just residential 6000. This is mixed use. These are urban center. That's urban center. That's mixed use. That's res 1500, which is a much higher density, but we'll talk about that one separately. That's mixed use. That orange down there, that's East State, is a mixed use district. All of this is mixed use. That's mixed use. That's mixed use. And this is National Light, which is a gateway, which is another mixed use district. And the college is mixed use. So if you look, this is kind of a unique thing. The only residential group that is, and there are other residential neighborhoods that are not gonna be in design review, such as Loomis, Liberty, these other parts up here, Franklin, they're also in the historic National Register District. So from a consistency standpoint, it would make sense to probably remove the rest of these guys. What the other argument going the other way is that these other neighborhoods aren't as close to the state houses that that neighborhood is. I think we talked about this at the last meeting. I live on the top of Richardson Street, and that's out of design review, and that neighborhood should be in. I mean, so it's great. Yeah, the proposal here would put you in. Yeah, because it's all historic buildings. It's a pretty coherent neighborhood. Watch yourself when you turn around. There's a cord right next to you. So, Mike, if we were to remove these pieces that have been requested, will this be the only example of a sort of chopped up neighborhood under the zoning regulations of neighborhoods? So the proposal, what the proposal would be is if we took these guys out, the next time we're opening and we may discuss whether we put this in the same proposal, if we're gonna go to city council is, do we change their zoning designation to the res 9,000 and change their neighborhood? So that way it does follow that line. Okay, so. Okay, so that goes for those three parcels, and there's the other that's more like a, in the middle of everything here. This guy up here, yeah, we've got these three, we've got that one, and then there's the whole neighborhood question, whether that stays in or goes out. Okay, I thought you mentioned that there was another person. Yeah, and Mather Carrots. Mather Carrots is way down here. So he's pretty much, there's these three, there's one little clip on the end, and then there's this guy here, which asks a question really, should this whole neighborhood be in design review, or should this whole neighborhood be out of design review? This is based on the fact that it's the only purely residential neighborhood that will be in design review. We didn't figure with that, right? The line used to just clip the bottom of the neighborhood, so we did add a bunch. This last car run we did? This was like quite last minute, like the last voting we did was. By the way, I don't remember. I know. You see the dark line shows where the whole, and that's the part of the state of it. That's the, how come? We added it because we wanted to add the whole neighborhood, right? Yeah, we wanted to follow neighborhood lines as much as possible because we wanted to have a justification for why, you know. That whole hillside is pretty visible from the state house. You know, all of the houses are, I mean, they don't stand out, but they're. I think that was, I mean, that was the biggest part of our reasoning in the first place. It was like, oh, this is, you know, within the view shed of the state house, so sure, why not? The math or terrorist houses are very visible from the state house. Did someone, I thought I heard someone. Oh, I was just gonna, I couldn't remember what the lines are, but the black line is our current proposal for the design review. No, that's the existing today. The hash is our proposal. Oh, okay, which I, maybe I should get one of those. Okay, just look at that. Yeah, so this is the current effective line. The black line looks like he put a DPS on a rabbit and let it lose. Okay, thank you. That's helpful. The hash line is already within the historic district. The hash line mostly follows the historic district in this area, but not in other areas. So we've added it in there, but I think, so I think that's ultimately the question for this side is, you know, are we keeping them, keeping them in or not? The other thing is from the corner of Baylien State, looking up the street. Those really look like contributing buildings to me. Oh, they are contributing buildings, but I mean, the question also goes, you know, we've got mixed use areas like Elm Street. We've got other, we've got, you know, you can go up East State and there's a lot of historic buildings up East State. It's also in the National Register District. It will not be in design review. So there's a lot of, there are a lot of things that are not in design review. East State Street will not be in. It won't be passed. It stops at Cedar Street, up to Cedar Street, it will be in, and then it stops. That's the current boundary. Yeah. Yeah, and the current proposal. Yeah, I think that, yeah, both, yeah. Yeah, we added like a couple of parcels right there. Cedar Street is like at the bottom of the hill, right? Up to the bottom. That's the way to borrow. It's halfway down. Halfway down? That's really steep. Yeah, we added a few properties just east of Miles Court because it was actually part of their, those properties are actually part of the designated downtown. But we're not, we're not in yet, but we're actually not being regulated like they should have been. The East State Street is really a connecting corridor with the college, and it's, I think with the exception of that new apartment building that was built on Cedar Street, it's, they're all historic buildings. Yeah, and I think just that's a little bit of the reason why playing devil's advocate, why this area, you know, there are a lot of areas that have historic homes. And the question is why would a low density neighborhood like this one be in when so many other areas which are mixed use or higher density, all these yellows and greens are all higher density. These are mixed use are all higher density, but you know, the Meadow has equally nice historic homes, but they won't be in design review. In terms of the view shed though, if you were, people are going to be stopped here at the state and Bailey, right? So they're going to be looking, passively looking up and seeing all of those properties, which isn't necessarily the case on East State. I mean, it's more a view shed kind of considerations than we had before. Just so I'm clear, are you recommending that we take out the entire neighborhood or go back to the original existing control district? My recommendation was I would be leaning towards removing these guys. Okay. So, but you guys could status quo. Yeah, the status quo, we would be losing a couple of properties on the north side of Harris Street. Yeah. I said, I'm not saying that the neighborhood isn't deserving of protection, but just from an equity standpoint. And that's the capital complex just. The capital complex starts here going down. What do you want to take out like that? Everything that's this shade of purple up here, that neighborhood. So we're trying to follow neighborhood lines. So either that whole neighborhood would be in or that whole neighborhood would be out. As I said, I'm not saying they're not deserving buildings in there, but if the people who have buildings in there have generally responded negatively in the fact that part of their thing is these are residential homes. They can't be anything but residential homes. They can't be businesses there. Matthew Terrace, Richardson Street and all that stay in, right? What I was saying is no, they would not. Where's Matthew Terrace? It's the decision here. Matthew Terrace is on the extension. The south side of Matthew Terrace. It's like Terrace Street extension. Matthew Terrace is really visible from the state house. And it's a really nice little cohesive neighborhood of there's one new house in there that Chapman Street would be in or out. They would be out. Anything north of Terrace and Mather would be out. But that was just my, what I was saying based on my comments is what they're deciding right now is to what goes in and stays out. So one theme that we've kind of followed is concentrating on having designer view in places that are likely to have commercial development. That's why a lot of the stuff south of the river is now included. So what Mike is saying would go along with kind of that theme of. I just think of things that can be done in a neighborhood for just people doing that is just as damaging as a commercial development. It doesn't happen very often, but it just really can detract from the neighborhood. And particularly a neighborhood, I think it's the backdrop for the state. And it's not necessary that the residents are malicious. They just may not know. So if they had to go through the process. I think, you know, it's people that come and say, well, you're not going to tell me what to do with my house. I'm always doing good things in my house. Yeah, but maybe the guy across the street wants to demolish his house or put a whole roof addition on it or do something like that, which really detracts from the neighborhood. And I doubt if there'd be very many applications for any of that kind of thing. But, you know, people want to put additions. On Terrace Street down, it's almost to Bailey. They turned a garage into a a mother-in-law apartment. And they demolished the garage, but then it was pretty bad shape and then replicated it. That went through designer view, but you could have put on something. Well, I think of the apartment building on Cedar Street. You know, that's really in a residential neighborhood from their commercial uses, but the houses are, and that could have just as well been a house rather than a multi. And people that have problems with that complained to designer view about it. Why did you do something about it? Well, it's not designer view, but that could easily have been a single family house rather than I think there's two apartments and maybe three. So that's why I think including, you know, the residential neighborhoods and particularly those that can have any impact of otherwise. Hillside is the general form of the buildings is pretty visible from the state house, particularly in that through Terrace. Do you have any other thoughts on this one? Yeah, I moved that we removed the neighborhood. If you want it, I can, I mean, I think Mike makes a compelling argument for it. You know, at this point, if I'm more concerned in the fact that we built out that portion in a slapdash fashion as we were sort of rushing through a bunch of expansions so we could be consistent with it, I don't think we had a very good discussion to begin with or why do we expand that? With it, I would, at the very least, I think going back to the existing boundary is fine, but given what the limited number of properties that are left with the existing boundaries, I think it would be more consistent to go with what we were saying is being, we want to draw the boundaries along neighborhood boundaries. I think it is better to remove it than to keep it in. But I understand your point, so you're right. I mean, it really is a cohesion neighborhood. Yeah, I understand it. I've lived there for 43 years. And I think there are a number of neighborhoods that make sense to go in, but at this point, this would be the only one in, and that was what the point I was trying to make was one that compared to Franklin, you know, the Franklin Street with the Franklin, you know. But the proximity of this particular neighborhood. The proximity to the state house would be the one reason to keep it. I sort of understand the connection between 100% residential neighborhood and that neighborhood is likely to be developed as commercial. But I don't think that eliminates the possibility of things that are very damaging to the character of the neighborhood happening in residential. It doesn't happen very often. I mean, I think one of the buildings that, I sort of like what they did, but up on College Street, there's a building that they put all kinds of copper siding on and swoops and things like that. Well, that's in a residential neighborhood. It wasn't in design review, but it definitely has an impact on the neighborhood of changing a house to that extent. I gotta say, I have a conflict in that because I live in that neighborhood. And if I'm not an advocate for design review in my own house, you would have advocated for this anyway, so I don't think anyone's gonna accuse you of having conflict. And you're asking to be regulated. I'm thinking about putting solar panels on my roof, so. So do we have any other thoughts on Aaron's motion? Let me just make sure I'm clear that those, that current is in the existing historic district. Existing expanded historic district. These are all with the exception of those three in the National Register Historic District. Because that line is actually not on, yeah, okay. So they have been deemed to be a historic resource for the city, I think they're important fuchsia. Anything else or should we go to vote? I'm still waffling a little. I think the terrestrial properties, that makes sense to take those out and to redo the zoning district to the one that they actually belong in. I think those things should happen together, but I think that makes sense. I'm not sure, I can't picture specifically how you can see those properties from the state house. I'm looking at the map. I'm just wondering what that view looks like. Yeah, you can't, they're right behind it, but there's a bunch of trees. That's the state house and the road comes right up behind it. And it would, so the houses on the south side of the road would still be in if we took that district out. But there's one house. There's one house. As far as I can tell, there's one property. It looks like there's two properties on that. Okay, on the south side. Yeah, one's totally treed. So that property would still be in? That property would still be in. And then, yeah, that one, that's a little further. It's a steep part right there, so you can really see that one. Is the GFO building considered part of the state complex? Yeah. It looks like it's its own parcel. Okay. It's everything that's matter terrace. You can see bacon coming up. Okay, I do see, okay. What are we seeing? It looks like it's its own parcel. And there are private residents that are part of the state complex. It's part of the state complex. We wouldn't be taking that one out. Give us the extent of what you're recommending to need removed. According to the motion, everything that is in this purple in that hatched area would be removed. Which right now includes the terrace properties. What's the line of the terrace properties? I don't know enough about these properties here that following the existing today's boundary, I don't know enough about these properties to make a recommendation. I mean, if we remove these and add them to that, are these potential for mixed use? I mean, if we added these to that neighborhood, then you could theoretically, but I think those are mostly, I mean, this has always been a resident. Yeah, houses and apartments. Yeah, I think that there's, walk that street quite a bit. It's walking my daughter across town, and I think there's a large building that's made into apartments around here, and then these are definitely like families, three families. Yeah, because definitely when you get down to the Baldwin area down here, this is where you've got a lot of VNRC and those types of offices. Right, Baldwin is all offices now. Offices. So the last residential was just sold? It sold, somebody bought. VNRC, I believe. I think they were expanding. But I think they, I was at a meeting there and they said that was the last residential. Yeah. Yeah. So Baldwin is all offices now? So can we have an amendment to your motion to take up the three properties on Terrace Street separately? Yeah, we could, if we start with this one, if we start with parents' motion, if that fails, we can go back to just removing those three, removing that thing. I think the cleanest way is to just vote on the motion because if you only want the neighborhood goes, they'll only vote against the motion. But if you vote for it, that removes those also. Yeah. Because they're in the neighborhood now. Okay, so do we want to discuss the pending motion anymore or vote, which would be the entire neighborhood? Okay. All in favor of Erin's motion, which was seconded by our own. Say aye. Aye. All opposed? Oh, that's too long. Okay. I'm waffling in nay land. Someone go nay. Okay, okay. So that did not pass. I would like to propose a motion to remove the three properties on Terrace and rezone them to the appropriate district, which is this 11-2, right? Second that. Okay, so I have a clarifying question about that motion. What about the other parcel that we've heard about that's sticking up north of it? I don't think. That's following, that's the National Registered Line goes up and comes down and goes up. I don't know this must be a non-contributing thing and for whatever reason when they did the boundary, they decided to cut that down. I looked at that house recently. I mean, it serves me good. Is that just one house? What road is that? It's one parcel. It's on Bailey, sorry. It's Bailey 30. Yeah, Bailey. It's right past Clarendon. It's like all the other ones that go steep site, so there's not a lot of available area. If that's in the historic, we should leave that. We should treat that section as one. The three on Terrace are just. Yeah, it's like the last one. It was like an accident, those guys. Right. That's what I'm hearing. It was a big guy wept in and they shouldn't have. So yeah, another question would be, is part of your motion to also suggest that city council change zoning to reflect these three parcels? Yes, that's part of the motion. To remove them from the district spend. Remove them from the review district and rezone them. Can you rezone just three parcels? Yeah. Oh, you can. OK, so it wouldn't be like blasting up in the zoning regulations. Just the atmosphere. I mean, we're already revising the map. We would just have to point out and identify those three. Two of which I've already talked to and are fine. OK, so Stephanie's motion is to remove the three parcels on Terrace Street only and to also suggest that they be re-zoned to. 11-2. 11-2 neighborhood. Thank you. I was like, how do you know that? You don't know that? Somebody's been studying our maps. You need to study them. I come prepared. It's really tiny font, but it's not. I don't know if they even can read that. It's a scouting. It's the distance, that's the fault. OK, so any further discussion on this one? I haven't had a second. Oh, wait, a second. I seconded. OK, you have Barb seconded. I didn't hear that. She was the first to second. So let's have a vote on Stephanie's motion. All in favor of making this change, say aye. Aye. All opposed? OK, so that one will pass unanimously. We'll make that change. So those three out, everybody else stays in. And it sounds like we're not going to have a motion to change the other parcel there on Bailey. What if we moved it back to the original house in there? That's going to be the one rock. What's the, like? Yeah, because that seems weird. The whole, no, in between. Oh, the blue? Yeah. I don't know what that is. What that is, it's somebody who's on the right side of it. So I'm living in there? Bailey. That property might not have our mind. There's one little tract that's just past the road that's on the right, and there's nothing there. And then you go up a little further, and it's about, it seems like a lot, a lot up. So it's not in the historic district. There's a house tucked in the woods back there. Are they ready? Oh, well, that's a high five. Right across from 30. Yeah. It's not lying in there. There's a house back there. But it's set back behind some trees. I think, I always thought that that was the next property up. I could be wrong, though. Yeah? That one? There's a blue house that's up there that I heard of. Bailey changes to another named street name. Yeah, up there. Because it does not do anything. Hubbard Park Drive. Sunnyside Terrace. Off-burned. Oh yeah, Sunnyside Terrace is once you get top. Yeah. This man doesn't even label it so it came in. I don't know enough about that parcel on the east building. I could bump out. I could be wrong about it. I apparently am. But I always thought it was. It's not exactly visible from the street. I think that's obvious. I kind of like the idea of keeping. What's the divider line between the dark red and the lighter red, purple, the two, like, state and house behind us? Yeah. This is Urban Center 1 zoning district because it includes all of State Street out to Bailey and all the way into the downtown. Can you point out the state house? The state house would be right here. What's the, is that a property line that divides? This nose that sticks up is the property line. This is all the forested hillside behind the state house. And the red part is also forested back there? Yeah, most of this up here is all forested. The state house is probably sitting right in this area here. OK. And then the purpley residential one that's next to that. Is that all forested too? It's all forested above the end of Richardson Street. Yeah. A lot of this is. OK. The large parcel to the north? I like the idea of keeping stuff right by the state house in. I don't like the idea of splitting a neighborhood, but that neighborhood comes right down to the state house. Currently it's in, I mean. Currently proposing. They're proposing. Yeah. Yeah, the whole neighborhood. Yeah, where the rules in effect today follow the black line, which divides that neighborhood into two. Oh yeah, there is a house back there. Is Designer View meant to take Viewshed into account though? It does, but only it primarily looks at blocking views of the state house, not necessarily being an eyesore from somebody who's looking at it behind the state house. Because if. Not to say the rules can't be changed. Designer Views had some design review on the historic preservation commission. Both have had discussions about that backdrop for the state house, which I've probably been at 30 state capitals. And having a wooded hillside as a backdrop for the state capital, I almost think it's unique in the country. Yeah. And that really ought to be protected. But I don't think Designer View is going to keep people from cutting down trees. Is that correct? Like if this parcel back here wanted to cut all its trees down. Because it's residential, it would be very tricky. Because that would be something we would take up in site plan. And so. Like development or review or something. Would design review give us that latitude? I don't know. That would take some homework because removing trees. Design review is to get into design review, we're talking about making a change to a structure. So if you're cutting down trees as a part of a construction project, yes. If you're just cutting down trees, you're probably going to be allowed to cut down the trees. That's a good point. I'm just wondering if we're going to get what we want out of keeping the design review district close to the state house there. Or if there's some other mechanism that protects the view shed there. Because I agree. It's nice to look at a wooded hillside behind the state house. Is that still in the development area that was there areas developed as designated as developable in the city? And that whole backdrop was designated as part of that. I objected to it. Designated downtown? No, it's a growth center. Yeah, a growth area. Yeah, I think we took it out of the growth center. Good. I suggested that I put up a condo building up in there if that was the case. And well, you never get a zoning permit for it. So I thought, well, the street is actually, Richard Street's actually dedicated all the way up the top of the hill, the granite markers and the ground and everything. And I think that would be a really, now the steepest street in Montpelier is steeper than the ones over on it. That's what the city says. And you don't want to take another two blocks up the hill in a way. But that backdrop is really unique and important. You've got to be protected. And also, as you come out of the side of the state house towards what used to be the pink lady, you can see that neighborhood up above, too, can't you? Yeah. Particularly if you come out the West End. The West End. And at one point there is a proposal to move the pink lady, the building, the state building, and put up like a seven story office building there for the state. I think I remember that. The view from the state house lawn up through that neighborhood and the backdrop is really the whole idea of the state house sitting in a residential neighborhood and using the residential buildings is pretty special to Vermont. I mean, you go to most state capitals and the state house is surrounded by parking. Any other state the lawn in front of the state house would have been parking in. They would have torn down the houses on the neighborhoods and put parking in. So that's really important to protect for the city. Kind of emphasize the idea that the state house is the people's house. Yes. When I tell my friends, my kids used to walk to school through the state house. You know, you can't, people can't believe that from other states, really. The fact that you can just walk in is the thing. Yeah. OK. Do we have any other motions related to numbers one or two on the matrix, which is this terraced room area and 30 Bailey? I'm just wondering if that property on the top of Bailey that sticks out, if there's 30 Bailey, if that really, if there is a solid argument for that being in that district or if that also makes sense to be moved out of the district. 30 Bailey? Yeah. It's in the historic, right? It's in the historic and natural area. I don't know what's right there. That's why it's a big tour in. Oh, OK. It's pretty prominent. But then the parcel across the street is not. It's like, I realized not as well. There is a house there, and it's like. OK. So that line does make sense. From Minnesota. Yeah. Sorry. OK. Yeah. OK. Let's go to Austin. And yeah, if I remember correctly, if you start going up Clareden, like right after the corner off of Bailey, the houses are still older, but they're not quite the same caliber as the rest of those going all the way up Bailey. Once you get however far dry of the whole neighborhood, that's a real distinct change. The houses out past Hubbard Park Drive are all new houses. There's a real distinctive neighborhood. And if you go up Hubbard Park Drive, it's all new houses. And I mean, for kind of for the record here, 30 Bailey is in the same zoning neighborhood as the rest of these parcels that we're proposing to include nearby. And we seem to agree that 30 Bailey is part of that neighborhood, the south of it, because they're more historic in nature and kind of go together more. Even though it looks funny on the map. Even though it looks funny on the map. We have our reasoning for this. They're on the corner. It's not that weird. When I came to Montpellier's maps could be really misleading, because I couldn't figure out why Elm Street wasn't connected to Cliff Street. Because maps are two dimensional. On the map, it looks like they're just there. A gondola would be great. A gondola, that's funny. Yeah. OK. So that's one and two covered there. Do we have another motion? We need a motion on two. I'm just saying, before we have Mike move on to the next one. We had a motion on two and it failed, so basically the map stays where it is, except for removing those three. OK, great. So Mike, bring us to number three, please. The next one. So the other one that kind of is all presidential in nature. We got comments from the folks from Franklin Square condos. And what was strange about theirs is, if I can find it, you'll see right here where the street is, this parcel actually connects to this parcel. There's a little space here where that connects to that. So their question was, hey, half our condos are in design review and half our condos are out of design review, even though they're on the same parcel. Oh, that's the problem. In connection. The property on the corner is a separate property, but they kind of wrap around that property on the corner. Oh, like to the west, it's part of that property? And then north is the one? Yeah, so there's a property on the corner of Franklin and Maine that's its own independent one. OK. The condos are the second, kind of like the second from that intersection in the second intersection of Franklin. They just kind of connect in behind on that one. So their questions were, I mean, one of the obvious is should both be included in design review. And then they had some questions on concerns about maintenance and improvements, such as changing windows and those types of things, which I think. So there are three buildings in the old, sorry, I know Franklin Square way too closely, but there's that single house and then the one that sits on Main Street. And you're saying the one behind on Franklin that used to be part of Franklin Square One is not connected? And it's a house. It's not the condo town, so is this this? If I draw it, it's a little bit easier. If you've got Main Street coming across and then you've got Franklin going up, there's a property on the corner that's its own property. The big white house, yeah. And then this one kind of goes like this and goes like this. And then some of the condos are over here and some of the condos are over here. But it's really, they're one parcel in what we're seeing. But you're saying that one over there is not. Yeah, what we did was the design review line goes like this. That's not really a parcel line. And it's not a parcel line. So this set of condos is in and this set of condos is out. And is this part of the, what is the thing that you have to have? Is it the designated downtown has to be in design review? Or what's the thing that like for the certified local government? I think it's the designated downtown has to be in there. The designated downtown, I don't think it extends out this far. Okay. I think it goes out to the, where the red properties are. Okay. I think it doesn't mean downtown goes maybe out to the roundabout there. Yeah, I think it goes out just passively. Yeah, I mean I would, as someone who's worked on, the state has made a significant investment in preserving the Franklin Square condominiums as affordable housing. And to add, it's been the 10 year process to get to the point of asking our organization, the organization I work for for funding I'd really be in favor of leaving, of stopping it at the roundabout and leaving Franklin Square condos out of the design review district. Because even if the design review folks are helpful and you know, any, even minute sort of financial any sort of more financial or process barriers I think could really hinder this condo association. So I'd really make a strong argument. And I don't know if we ended at the roundabout, what, how that else? District here, did you mean to cut it right there? Cutting off the rest of all of the district? You just took it back to the corner of Maine and Franklin? Is that what that is? That's kind of an odd condo association in that the people own whole buildings, right? Well, no, they own their individual condo units but they have to all work on the exterior maintenance of these buildings which are very difficult to maintain. And that's been part of the, part of the real struggle. And then to add another layer of, you know, any would be really difficult, I think. So are you proposing that we cut out everything in this eight dash three district? I have to, well. So this is the roundabouts right here. It goes just past that roundabout. And then we have all of the properties on Main Street. Yeah, so this goes a little bit back to same issue. Had this been removed and we would have had the same conversation here, that this is a strictly residential neighborhood. That's residential 1,500, much higher density. But you still can't have commercial here. One option is maybe this should have been mixed use. Maybe it's mis-zoned. They are mostly residential, but the school is in this area. I think there's a conversation going on about the future of that school building. Yes, no. I've heard that, but. Yeah, I'm not a cat person. I thought I was supposed to go there next year. It's very convenient walking distance. Don't start anything yet. So there would be a question, you know, if this was mixed use, maybe it should be mixed use, if it's residential, the same argument applies here. These were the only two strictly residential neighborhoods that are in design. I am surprised it's not mixed use. It is, it does, it did surprise me a little bit, but it is all residential except for the school. So there's capital candy used to have a warehouse down there that's still there, I think. Is it? No. It's down on, it's further down on Franklin Street. And I was thinking the Montpelier, what is it, Montpelier Integrative Health, but that's in the, that's right over right about there. So that's in the other district. Yeah. Yeah, one property out from the roundabout in every direction, so out of the Brown Street. So I gotta confess, I mean, when we were doing the Big Map, this was not really in my radar, but I remember when I was looking at it, I could, and as I'm looking a little more closely now, I can't understand the rationale for why that neighborhood is in design review. Our discussion touched on the fact that it's a kind of a gateway when you're coming down Main Street from, when you're entering Montpelier from that direction. This is, it's kind of arbitrary, but the argument would be, this is when you're starting to hit downtown proper, I guess you would say. It was already in design review, so it's kind of made sense to go through and say, when they're not really changing the boundaries, it doesn't follow a neighborhood boundary, it splits Franklin North and Franklin South neighborhoods. It just, it just was the properties that have butt Main Street, right? That was just the ones that are on Main Street. Setting the boundaries in Montpelier, we had discussions with the National Register District. You just kind of got to stop somewhere because the neighborhoods don't have a abrupt change, occasionally they do, but most of the time it just keeps going when we did the National Register District in that same area, Franklin Street, and I can't remember the name of the street. Franklin and North Street. There's a guy there that wanted in the district, and it just, it's really hard to draw clear lines in most cases in Montpelier. Yeah, I mean, I would make a motion to take out that whole, now that I'm looking at it, take out that whole neighborhood from the roundabout up, given that it's residential, and I don't think, even though I voted against the other, or voted with the other motion, to me the State House is a more compelling sort of fuchsia reason. Middle school is part of that, too, so. Yeah, and the residential, on the Liberty Street side of the street there. Basically all the rest of this is around. Yes. And it also raises the question, I mean, those condo associations are merging, so isn't that going to be, there's other buildings further down on Franklin, so technically won't that be one parcel? They'll be separate parcels, they may be the same condo association, but there is a property boundary in there. Oh, okay. It might have to do with how the whole deal's structured. If they've merged through some documents, which you can do, merged parcels, we'd be back in same, pretty commitment to the side. Okay, so do we have a second for Aaron's mission? Let's remove the whole neighborhood. Yeah, so we would be cutting it off where this red line is. What's the name of that neighborhood, Mike, just so we can. It's Franklin Street Southwest and Liberty Street West, because Liberty Street West goes up to Main Street, Franklin Street Northwest goes. 8-2 and 8-3? 8-2 and 8-3, yeah, maybe that's easier to use. I'll say I'd include the buildings across the street from the school. Yeah. Yes, they would all be removed. Isn't there a really wonderful building there? There are wonderful buildings and, you know, well taken care of. I do see that as a gateway to the city from my view. Okay, so we have a second from Aaron. Is that right? Yep. Okay, so those in favor of Aaron's motion, which was to remove from our proposal all parts of 8-2 and 8-3 neighborhoods, say I. I. All opposed? Okay, so we don't have a pass. Because we did a 2-2. Yeah. What do we need to carry? Motion three and one. We'll need four to pass. Oh, but you break ties. Oh, you have to have one. If you had one more, then we'd have to. Your indecisiveness is protecting my indecisiveness. Yeah, you're welcome. I don't know, I can certainly see the rationale where it should be removed. It's definitely different than the neighborhood we were just talking about. Yeah. In terms of the state house protection and view shed. So if you make another motion, I'll say yes this time. Oh, okay. Well, it is a problem that that parcel is split. And then we'll get Kirby in. Well, yeah, that's the strangest thing. And usually we're following parcel boundaries. So somewhere it was, those were identified this. Separate parcels. Yeah, the motion, yeah. If there was an interest in keeping this, then we would have to revisit the question of that other half of the parcel. Which is right. So we'd have to add that. Oh, we would have to probably go through and add the other half of the Franklin Square Condos in. Right. Which I think might have been my recommendation. Didn't even read it here. If it helps at all, we've been through the DRC process recently for my wife's business out of our house. And I mean, I don't feel like it was bureaucratic at all. It was painless and quick. So hopefully. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And I know that the Design Review Committee is trying to be helpful. But maybe yours was about a fence, did you say? And I feel like the nature of some of the Franklin Square, they have to get together to agree on exterior work to their buildings and exterior maintenance and pool their resources and keep their condoms. So it's like a little bit, I feel like it's a little bit, could be potentially more challenging. Maintenances doesn't have to come to Design Review. No, right. If you're repairing it, doing in-kind repairs. I guess I'm using maintenance in perhaps an incorrect way. But replacing a window or something like that. Asset management. Yeah, I mean, I think there are beautiful houses there. But there are beautiful houses in a lot of neighborhoods in Montpelier. And I don't know that that's enough of an argument for me based on the location that they should stay at. Those houses get appreciated by all the middle school students as they come out the front door. They do appreciate it. They're probably more visible in some ways. Are you going for the motion? I'm, yes. It's too late, it's too late because it's too long. That's what it sounded like. Should I make the motion? I'm sorry, I didn't, it took me a second to get there. That's no, no, that's totally fine. Should I make the motion again then? I move to, no. Go for it. OK. You knew your motion. I move to remove the neighborhood from the roundabout up. I'm not sure. 8-3 and 8-2. 8-3 and 8-2, thank you. Remove all part of 8-2 initially. A second again. OK. And so those in favor again of the motion? Aye. OK. That's a, you need a fourth vote. It sounds like? Sorry, Kirby. That's a 2-year after all. What do you think John would say? What's that? What would John say? John would say, take it out. Are you trying to convince me? John would say, that could be a way for you to make it. That's a good point. You know, the reason why? Because I'm the guy that's not here. Definitely. Listen, listen. OK, OK, so this is my take on it and how I would vote on this, my reasoning for voting this way would be it is predominantly residential. But its proximity to the urban centers is pretty compelling for me. I think it is an extension of downtown. I would think in the future, growth in Montpelier, I've always thought it makes a lot of sense to grow up Main Street there for mixed use development. So I think that I'm inclined to want to keep it in because looking to the future. Is that a nay? So I'll be voting, yeah, we're voting nay. 3-3. So he says, he believes it's only reconciling that property. Yeah. Then add it in to clean up the boundary. Yeah, because we thought we'd follow the boundaries. Yes. But we need motion to add that in. Move to make a minor change to include the remainder of the Franklin property. The minimum property is the Franklin square condo. Franklin square condo. Hold on a second. OK. Those in favor of Barb's motion or Aaron's motion with Barb's second? Find by me. Is Aaron's motion. Is Aaron's motion. We don't have to fight over this. Those in favor of Aaron's motion say aye. Aye. OK. Any opposed? OK. Any abstentions for the record? I mean, I guess, do we even need a motion for that? I guess we have to. Sure, I'll vote yes. 6-0. You could choose to keep a split knowing it was a problem. No. I guess. You can abstain if you want. Yeah, I thought it was number 3. That's enough to you. So number 4. Meredith and I discussed, so there were concerns a couple places about new rules, make it difficult to replace windows. I think there's a similar one on solar panels. So I think 4 and 5, we can kind of take together. So staff reviewed these and agreed they could be interpreted as people were concerned with these prohibit solar panels, whether it be difficulties replacing windows. Meredith and I developed some alternative language that would require design review for these changes, but clarify that changes of original materials are allowed, provided that the loss of materials is not a character-defining feature. So you may be able to remove, you may not be able to remove unique stained glass vestibule light over a door on a historic building, or drill into and remove a slate roof. But in most cases, we would approve replacement of windows or roof provided new materials as historically accurate, two over two lighting appropriate sills. We can get some exact wording if people are OK with that. So our sense was just that. Most of the discussion about the windows, if I recall it correctly, is the information that's provided to design review about the condition of the windows. And that came out of a lot of the public meeting we had about the Cliff Street neighborhood, where somebody said, well, they were going to design review was going to tell us what contractor we use. What we actually told them was, you need to have a contractor that does windows look at it. Some contractors don't do windows, don't know how to do windows. So I think that's mostly just an informational change rather than any, we're going to look at things like if the same glass window, that's a character defining feature. So that's going to get that. It's mostly just providing good information so you can make a decision. My contact with efficiency of Vermont is that windows are not the biggest eaters of energy. People think they are. But they're not. And most windows, if they're in good physical condition, can be weather stripped. And with storm windows, be just as efficient as the north of the windows. That's just kind of the deal of getting the information to design review to make that decision about how significant the windows are and if it's really going to be an energy improvement piece. And I think what we've had was just in our office is being able to answer the question when people come in, I want to replace my windows. Can I replace my windows? And that's usually we're just trying to go through and say, well, if they're deteriorated to a point that they can't be fixed, then no, you won't be able to. Or you can if they are deteriorated. But if they're not deteriorated, we're not going to let you replace your windows. And that's the question that they have. People want to have the option to be able to go through and say, I know it made a huge difference in my house when I replaced the windows. They were just single pane glass. They would build up ice, three quarters of an inch thick on the inside. They were just miserable things. It was the most wonderful thing when I was able to turn a crank and open a window. See, the energy efficient piece is sort of a, it depends answer. If your windows are all leaky and everything and maybe they need weather stripping, and they are usually character defining features of the building. And I think what we've found, a lot of people saying is the comments we've gotten from a lot of the public was that they want the opportunity to be able to replace their windows. And that was what they're asking. They're like, I haven't read the rules or I tried to read the rules. I couldn't understand it. Does this mean I can or can't replace my window? And I think that's just what we need to be able to do is to have something that, for whatever it is, if it is you can't replace your window unless it's deteriorated, then we just have to make sure that that's known to the public clearly. So it's not clear in the zoning now. We're not being clear enough. I don't think it has been as clear as it could be. I think it seems clear when you read it, but then when you start talking to historic preservation or DRC, it starts coming up. It's like, well, no. It's like, well, are we or aren't we going to go? And for the most part, is it we're going to look at the character of the window? So you've got a historic house. You want to replace the windows. We're going to look at the materials. Yes, you can replace your windows, but they can't be fiberglass. They have to be wood. I think people would be OK with that. You can replace them, but you've got to keep the materials consistent. You've got to keep the pattern right, the size right. And there are a lot of good new windows. And I think if that were the things like, yes, you can replace your windows, but they have to be wood combined. Like material. Like material. You can't replace them with vinyl or fiberglass. Then I think people would be OK with that. I think where people have issues is when it's like, no, we want you to fix your windows. And that's when people go. Yeah, the other issue about old windows is lead paint that keeps coming up. And then windows are the worst location for generating lead paint dust. Yeah, because there's a friction surface. So are you and Meredith drafting language for both the window piece and the separate wording for the solar panel issue? Or do you think that the wording for the windows will help address this? I'm looking either or. We're going to use the same wording. OK, that's cool. We felt the same wording would work for both. OK, no, I just wanted to make sure. The thing we were targeting when we were talking was identifying first whether something is a character defining feature. So I would like to put out solar panels on my house and I have a slate roof. That's a character defining feature. We may say no to you, but you may have a historic house that has standing seamers, something else we might say. You can put it on that because it's not really a character defining feature. I thought it was just it was not just that, but also stuff that's visible from the street on your roof. Stuff visible from the street, yeah. So that would have to be addressed, too. That would have to be fixed, too. So if we were to table this while you worked on getting us copy that language, if this is reviewed at the next meeting, you start to try, right? Yes, we can make changes right up to the meeting. And I make a motion that we table four and five while Mike and Meredith draft up the language that they're contemplating so that we can review it at the next meeting. I'll second that because I have. I don't think we need a motion to start. Wait. But you guys are OK with that concept. Yeah, the windows thing is very confusing to me. I don't understand it very well. And I feel concerned that people can't change their windows. What I wrote just suggested thinking about this is that there would be added to the section as rooftop equivalent fixers only concealed for my level view, public presoade, so on, and any adjacent properties on flat roof buildings. And then add in a section of when the roof is visible to the public, any equipment, including solar panels, should not obscure or damage character defining features. Yeah, I think that's where Meredith and I were kind of going with you. Yeah, I think that's good. And if you can email that to me, do you have a copy of that that you can email? And I can't even hardly read my own writing. I can send it to you. Yeah, you can email that to me. That would be great. I would be, we'll talk about it tomorrow. I'll do it after tomorrow night's meeting, because this is what I did. And we had a quick discussion in design review. And I think design review is headed exactly the same direction. The goal is to protect character defining issues, not every single roof and every single window. It's just those windows that have character defining features or roofs that have that character. Does that work for, I think there was a comment at the meeting also about being able to replace with a standing seam roof? Does that relate to if your roof is not contributing to it? That was one of the old ones. Is it a new one or a comment that we got? I thought that came up at the meeting, but I might be remembering differently. Standing seam roofs are the easiest one is to install solar planners on. Slate roofs are almost impossible. And with Asphalt Rows, you have to penetrate the roof surface, which is never a good idea to have holes. Even if you can seal them up and stuff, but it's never a good idea to do that. But standing seam, they just have clamps that go on the standing seam and pass them to solar service. In the interest of not discouraging people from putting solar on, what about because they cannot mount the brackets on slate, nor do we really want them drilling through the slate, what about removing the slate just below where the panels are so that what it looks like when it is visible from the street is that the slate is still underneath? I think that would be tough from a structural standpoint because the slate is where do you stop? We did it. They actually, they came back and feathered the slate in on the along the edges of the panel. So you can't tell, but it was the only way they would mount it because they won't mount it on slate. I'm very much in favor of some catch-all language that says that there's a strong policy inclination to allow solar panels with materials, something like that. Because I do think that it needs to just kind of overtly be said that the city has a preference to allow solar panels. Can you put it in red line? I will against what we currently have in front of them. It's usually a good idea for me to do that anyway, so. The other thing is when it's on solar panels, they should be mounted flat for the rough. You know, some of them are angled. You don't see that very often on a pitched rough, but they do do it sometimes, and that really makes the roof look odd. I mean, you don't really change the line of the rough. Imagine how well that would catch snow. Oh, man. You'd have a whole glacier up there. All right, so number six. I think we only ate of these together. So the hearing, this was a popular one. The concern about whether subdivisions should be exempt from design review. Subdivision of land is the first step in development, and so impacts of subdivision should be considered. It's impact on the character of historic district. When I spoke to this woman a few days later, she wondered if it can't be added to 2201, which is design review, whether these protections could be added to section 3507, which is in the subdivision regulations itself. And that's the section that talks about character of the area. So I went back and forth on this one. Subdivisions would have no regulations in design review. Design review just has a bunch of regulations to talk about structures, so it really wouldn't make a lot of sense to try to regulate subdivisions in design review. And when I spoke afterwards to some HBC members, we really could only come up with one example, right? Well, what are we talking about? Give me one example. They said the green up at the college. So the college green, VCFA green. If they subdivided that, the actual subdivision doesn't make a difference, but as soon as they sell it to somebody else, it's going to be redeveloped, and then the college green ceases to be the college green. But maybe the best way to solve that problem, that eventuality would be to purchase the development rights rather than forcing all development to go through subdivision review for design review. So the other question that Meredith and I had bouncing off other possibilities, would people use this rule to prevent people from subdividing carriage houses off from main houses, which happens periodically, happen at East State, a couple of other properties. This might preclude that? Might preclude it. People might go through and say, well, you can't subdivide the carriage house off from the house and sell it as a separate parcel, because these two are interconnected historically. And where else would you try to apply a design review, a historic design review? But for the purposes of design review, they're still both in the district, even if they're subdivided. So that doesn't change what they're allowed to do. Although they could paint in different colors, I guess. Yes. But they could do that anyway, right? I think you got to go through a bunch of, I thought about this a lot, this kind of industry. Yes, if you subdivide savings faster, subdivide that into a bunch of, it certainly has design implications, but that review is going to come with, any construction. It's an odd thing. It doesn't necessarily mean something's going to happen, but it could lead the way to it. It seems so speculative to try to dictate how to subdivide it, based on how they may or may not build. I mean, it seems. That would be a, that would be more of a BRB issue than a design review issue. I don't know if the subdivision goes to the BRB or not. Subdivision does go through BRB, yes. So, if it's a, you know, an open space like the green up at the college, if it's an open space, could the BRB then deny that subdivision designated open space? Yeah, it may have other protections through their PUD. Yeah, so my eventual end point was that it hasn't been a problem in the past. It hasn't been something that's been identified, so would we really be fixing a problem by doing this, or trying to foresee a problem? So my thought is I would just not make any changes. So, this question largely counts for me not being at the meeting and not really understanding this issue. Like, what's the nut of the problem, and what's the... So the first rule, so the first thing in the list of exemptions in design review, the very first list of exemptions says subdivisions. And so a woman stepped forward and said that she felt that we should not have exempted subdivisions. Now as it turns out, subdivisions are already exempt from our design review, so it's not, this is not a change in how we've been doing things. But she still felt that we should have design review, have subdivisions go through design review that's still her portion. All right, I see what you're saying. Kind of now, tossing around. It's sort of like the zoning. It's very helpful. The whole zoning, should design review comment on a zoning variance? I never thought of that one before. But that's the, it's sort of like, yes, there's certainly future implications about it, but to try to write guidelines for that, having gone through this, I think it would be really difficult. It seems like development review already reviews subdivisions? It reviews it for character of the area, but it doesn't have a specific reference to historic. And I think that was her other suggestion for 3507. Maybe we could add some language in there regarding protection of the historic character or historic pieces of that. Again, that was where we were kind of getting a little bit into, I mean, we do regulate it already a little bit with character of the area. I think the intent of that was more to look at if you had a whole set of houses that all had 80 feet of frontage, and then you had a set piece of the road that was then going to be subdivided, and they were going to be subdivided differently for no real reason. I mean, there may be a character of the area that goes through and say, we should try to keep a consistent pattern of street frontage. Even though the rules say you can have as, you know, as, you know, you have a minimum of 60 feet and you decide you're going to do 150 feet of frontage, I might say without a character of the neighborhood, those are all at 60, why would we then jump to 150 foot of frontage? So I think that's what the character was looking at. You can't write the rules so complete that nobody will find, that's why you have planning commissions and design review and historic preparation commissions where people make the judgment and that a different group of people may make a different judgment, but that's eventually it gets down to people in their opinions. I feel like that question really just came from not thinking of the whole picture of how the regulations and the DRB and there's many other mechanisms that regulate subdivisions already and that it's just, design review is not the appropriate tool for trying to regulate subdivisions. National life would do the other thing like subdivisions. Yes. But would we, but it does design review, it's a question. It has to go through DRB for all those other requirements, but the questions. I think the current process I agree with Kirby already has a review for subdivision. Okay, so no change for that one. Okay. Considering we already talked about eight, all we have left is seven. Comment that these are adding too much regulation that this will scare away possible developers looking to redevelop in Montpelier and while it's not intuitive to think so, the more words is actually good, adds clarity and consistency and allows more applications to be handled administratively. What developers want is a predictable outcome and these rules should provide a more predictable outcome than the previous version. That's why we wrote them the way we did. That's why we wrote them. So even though somebody may just flip through them and think this looks more daunting than before, we have staff that can- The National Trust did a study of downtown areas and sort of the design review thing and they found a couple of things. One is that it increases property values because you can have some idea that your neighbor is, your neighbors are gonna stay as they are and it actually enhances development. There are tax credits available. So it's a- I think part of this is really a, how we market I guess. The update which is to say if someone has a question, it's very easy to call Meredith and say what does this mean for my building and instead of trying to read it if it's too much and making sure that that's something that people know is an option, like just call Meredith and ask her. Yes. I don't know how much capacity she has for things like that but I think part of it is just making sure that they know that that's a choice. Yeah, I mean we've been trying, we maybe haven't done as good a job of getting that out to let people know that, you know, don't download the zoning regulations and try to figure out your project. Just pick up the phone and call us and just go and see what I wanna do and we pretty much walk you through the project. But also to let people know that you can have an informal review, a design review, so if you have questions about what you're doing and it's not on the record, right? We had a person come in and formal review last Mayday and everybody's very happy to do that. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I think that this question though, it's important to make us think about how to do the marketing side of it, the branding side of what we're doing. I mean, and I'm sitting here trying to think of how to address this just through outreach basically. I'm wondering, we talked about having, putting this all together as a website, that the city plan is a website. And I'm wondering if we could try to like make a record of maybe having a page about this topic, about a welcome to design review. Sounds like not the view what I mean, like a page dedicated design review and dedicated to like, this is an intro of the process, this is please call us, we will walk you through it. You're not on your own, like that kind of stuff. Yeah. It's the same as kind of code issues. If you don't go through it with the code guy, you know, interpreting the codes yourself becomes a really difficult task. So, okay, looking at the same thing. People come in and look at the, all the building codes and have it probably about that high and everybody gets all, it's like, well, don't worry about that. Codes are gonna prevent people from doing things that they may want to do. And I think the story I probably told too often as a few years ago, I brought the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers to Montpelier. And these are people that do what I did from all over the country. They were simply blown away by Montpelier. I have several aspects of it. One, they didn't need a car to do tons of things in Montpelier, to go to restaurants. I told people we'd run a shuttle and not bring a car. Everybody bought a car at State Park for three days. And these were the, I guess, a national set of experts one way or another. And the way Montpelier looks is good for tourists. It's also good for local businesses. And it's important to keep that. Well, I'm thinking about branding. I mean, your whole point that you made, Mike, about many more of these handled administratively now because we have clear regulations so that it might actually be much easier for developers, rather than harder. Because did we actually have the ability to do it administratively before? Were there any things that could be done? Yeah, I mean, 2017, because we just had this question, but from city council, we had issued 149 zoning permits, 74 of them went to DRB. And this year, under the new rules, we had 145 permits and 21 of them went to the DRB. So, the same number of permits is just the administrative approvals. And those 20 that go through are bigger, more complex projects. A conversation that I had with Ernie Pomerull, who's no sludge of a developer, for sure. But there used to be an Act 200 that was done during the community administration, which kind of required towns to identify their resources, whether it was archeological resources, historic resources, open land, all of those resources. And people just opposed that and opposed that and Ernie told me, he said, that was the most development-friendly law that was ever done in the state of Vermont because a developer can come in there and the city or town has done the job of identifying. I want to put a supermarket in or I want to put housing in. They have told me where they want that. So, that kind of information, otherwise to get through Act 250 for that stuff, the developer has to do all of that stuff. So, sometimes regulations are really helpful because a developer knows exactly what they're, maybe not exactly, but close to what they need to do. Not telling everybody what you, it's not gonna let you do everything that you wanna do, but at the same time, you'll know early on in the process whether you're going to be allowed to do it. Right, I mean, you're not gonna invest $100,000 in your plans before you find out you can't do it. So, that kind of information is really very developer-friendly. So, did anyone else, these were the ones I caught in all of mine. I don't know if anyone else had any notes or could remember anything off the top or they're head of something that's like, somebody have something that. I actually watched the meeting again on that. Some of the ones that came in afterwards are these strictly from the meeting. These included some of the emails that came in. I didn't get anything after the hearing. Oh, you didn't? No, only stuff that came in before, emails. I think you got everything, that's pretty helpful, though. Yeah, it covers everything I have. Yeah, it covers everything I have, too. All right, so Meredith and I will work on those, that draft set of other rules there to try to clarify those two points. Other than that, it looks like a bunch of new maps. Changes are not changes. So, I'll update this as well, for everyone who hasn't had the experience of going through this. So, I'll document what your decisions were and that way, you know, people can't say we didn't listen. We may not have agreed, but we did listen. I almost had a public hearing for somebody who said, well, you didn't listen to me, but they really say you didn't do what I wanted. You didn't listen. Okay, well, it turns out Mike was right. I thought we would move on to the city plan tonight. We don't have time. Hey, we got through those. You've done the detours before. Yes, it is. Thank you for inviting me to the table, Corby. Even if it might have been more. Right, right, even if my etiquette was poor. Okay, well, with that, unless anyone has anything else, we'll adjourn. Anything else, Corby? Okay. Did you want to talk about the... Oh, CBRPC. Yeah, is that now? We can do an honor off the record. Yeah, okay, let's just schedule it. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay, so with that, we will adjourn.