 Okay, welcome to the Monday August 6th meeting of the Monday-Junecels Liz Bridget Mary Randall Staff Steven Abram Eric Gilbertson Benjamin Cheney Cindy Muddy has anything else to offer Initially, do I hear the motion to approve the agenda? So moved. One favor of the agenda, Richard. For anybody who's not been here before, we had an advisory committee to Harris Hall. Are you here representing Harris Hall? Yes. Ryan Nick? Yes. Nick, NICK. So we want to put up a couple of signs for our tenants. Back here. While we delay the National Wildlife Federation. Monument sign up front. And a directory sign near the main entrance. The tenant signs will have just the tenant names on them. The National Wildlife Federation has a logo on it. The monument sign will come with some landscaping around it to make it look nice. And the directory sign is pretty self-explanatory. Those act with colors, right? Yes. The one, we're going to take that into consideration. We kind of just asked for a mock-up from the Kirchner sign people and they gave us something that looked like that. We thought it looked fine. Okay, yeah. It's just more of a maintenance thing. Yeah. We have a pretty good maintenance guy. We trust him. I like the H on this one better than the other H. With the floral design? Yeah. Which one you're proposing? I suppose we're proposing the floral design one. I was just putting all the signs on the same page and had to kind of recreate it. But that's the one that we would like. You're proposing the floral one. Yes. If you have the wrong one on that page. Yeah. Well, it's similar just without the floral behind it. Yeah. You thought about putting some kind of borders on the sign. I was particularly looking for a legal aid sign and it just tends to make the signs stand out and look better if they have a small border on the same part as the sign and inch inner line. Yeah. It makes the sign look more finished rather than just a white board up there. Sure. You guys are doing a great job. You're building beautiful. You're storing it and painting it and taking great care of it. To be putting in the final posts seems the little one can do it with. Out of character. Out of character with the building. Take another look at that. I think it was more of a cost consideration than the maintenance consideration. I would assume you're going to maintain the wood on the building and take care of that. It doesn't seem like it would be if you're already in that world with a beautiful wood building. Yeah. I would agree. Something. Not final. So tied to the street. Yeah. In that case, four by four wooden posts. I'll be with them. Thank you. There was a missed email between the sign people at Kershner and Aaron. The original plan was wood. They came back to final. You need lighting on any of the signs. There was existing lighting on the building that we installed in anticipation of the signs. Tenants first. We've gotten tenants. The monument, I don't think will be lit, but there is existing lighting. You can see on the stand, a wildlife. There are a couple of food snacks down here. Close. That's also my job. Hopefully soon we'll be all these stuff. Do you have anything specific for general? For bulge bed, white shrubbery. For quality, for quality, for quality, for quality, for quality, for quality, for quality, for quality, for quality, for quality, We did have one for their question, not to complicate matters, but we had another sign here that we were going to propose, but we don't have a tenant for that space yet. Just a staircase to the second floor, and we were wondering if we could just get an administrative approval for that, or if we'd have to come back before this committee, okay, even if the sign is going to look more or less like the other ones, I understand, I just figured I'd ask, you know. Yeah, and I don't think we're going to need something for the directory, for the tenets sign. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot to reschedule. Yeah, because we'll also have to check your area. Okay. I don't know if Audrey told you how much you've had left. I think, yeah, we have a bit left. Yeah, I know you have some left, but we have like 25 square feet, but anyway, you'll need to come back. That's fine. I'll just figure that out. Yeah. All right. No worries. That's a nice drive down. Go to the other one. Thank you guys for writing. I think we've got one of those on the front lawn. All right. Thank you guys. Okay. Appreciate it. So this is the application on the agenda for one of my six-string, Hamilosa. Welcome to my failure. How are you? Go ahead. Hi, I'm sorry. I'm 38 years. Oh, I'm sorry. My wife, Karen. Hi, Karen. How's that? So this is an application simply for demolition of the city of New York. So we were looking as you have, I think, in your package. This is the building that would come down within that area. We were then proposing the Republic would fill that down. The Republic would fill. There is some area of foundation and cellar that we'd be filling with a structural fill, such that it would be ready then for future building. It would likely remain as a crushed slate material at this time. We wouldn't look at paving that because that would be torn out. These red dots indicate where we would anticipate the location of both such that the car couldn't pass between them. People wouldn't be sort of indiscriminately parking within it. And then I think you probably have this sort of indication as to what that might look like within the city of New York. Not wild about that idea, to be honest with you. I mean, a chain-link fence would look offensive. Even keep in mind demolition to construction, it's the winter. Maybe Mother Nature might provide a natural barrier this winter, but seems like we can't even count on that anymore. So we realize that something like a chain-link fence, that would just be offensive. The boulders are particularly attractive. They seem a little out of place. But so I'm open to any other suggestion. Just temporary. Yes. They wouldn't be there very long. And the bigger issue is somehow we'd have to mark the boulders in the winter. I wouldn't want people... It's going to be a little bit of a challenge. I don't know if we'll... Literally, I mean this sounds silly, but a big part of our job in the development company is managing risk. And anticipating what people might do wrong. So we might actually drill holes in the top of the boulder and put reflective flags on them so that someone moving about at our neighbor's property doesn't think it's just a pile of snow and try to drive through it. Or a plow pushes it around. So I'm open to any suggestions. Let me coordinate with the city for the Bombardier. How far back would you want them for clearing sidewalks, et cetera? Generally, I'm not in favor of demolition before you have a plan and project. That's existing buildings and old buildings. I went through some finding it not to be historic. I think it was probably double-bundling. Probably about that, yeah. It's been pretty severely damaged. Taking a metal tile off it and sandblasting bricks and mortar. It's pretty clear the mortar wasn't designed to be whether it was a priori that lasted as long as it has. Usually that sandblasting bricks is not a good thing. Any idea what you're thinking about? Sure. Sort of along those lines of the city. Yeah, a building that is not very different in terms of the width. Building would be probably, in terms of the footprint, twice as large. Absolutely multi-story. A lot of folks have expressed interest in tenancy and what the eventual use is going to be. And right now, what Jay and I have been kicking around is, is it two, is it three, or four feels too big to me? I doubt you'd see a, I really doubt, don't hold me to anything, I really doubt you'd see a four-story application. It just, it would kind of dwarf the surrounding buildings. Two, obviously, we have to go two, and I wouldn't do less than two. And so that's the issue. I mean, it will likely be a mixed-use building, some sort of office retail, something appropriate in the downtown. I really like the idea of housing at one point in time, but quite frankly, I'm a lot more interested in the pit out back. The more I've walked around in the area about doing something great. So, you know, we've got a history in Barry. I mean, I could point at a number of buildings. We don't, we don't disrespect neighborhoods. I don't think there's anyone in Barry while they might argue with my politics. I don't think there's anyone that would argue that I haven't left a property better than I found it, and that my properties don't enhance value. And, you know, listen, that's not lost on us here. The reason why I pursued that property is because it is special. You know, it's on State Street. If you think of the history that's there, yeah, it's a pretty special area. So, you know, while we're still trying to program the building, I can absolutely tell you it's not anything that you won't be proud of. We're in a massive standpoint. You've got, you know, five stories here. Yeah. And three on the other side, so it seemed like maybe four might be, you know, three or four might be. Even the step back, you know, the pavilion is right to the sidewalk. The, what was the old Vermont Federal Building is set back quite a ways. We'll likely split the difference. We know, there are some things we know. We know that our building is roughly four feet in terms of floodplain. The building floodplain is about four feet from grade, which puts us based on the, and we'd like to have that discussion with the city because every other municipality is one foot above floodplain, you're two, which is going to put our bill. No, no, no, I'm not. No, I just, but so that puts the building six feet up, which if you're going, so, you know, so when we looked at the likelihood of an access ramp, 60 feet of access ramp, I mean, that would just be offensive. So we'll likely do something at grade. We'll do a half stop elevator at grade so that we can eliminate the, you know, limit, we can't have a 60 foot ramp. I mean, you just can't. So we know that the setback, well, until Jay tells me, I don't know, but I suspect the setback will be something, you know, it won't be like the pavilion sitting right at the sidewalk. It won't be quite like Vermont Federal. It will be something that graduates the setback. We could actually be, by city zoning, we could be zero lot line on all sides. Yeah, but I don't see that in the front. Thinking that at the front, we might relate to like the porch at the pavilion. The State Street side of the pavilion isn't right up to the sidewalk. Correct. The steps come down. There's about 12 feet and that's from the porch forward and that's kind of what we might think of doing similar. And even, you know, and even going to, you know, setback one of the things that I've discussed with, you know, Jay, this is the existing building here. We could, I mean, our property is here. We could build all the way to here. I don't think that would really be a great idea because, you know, looking at this very large parcel back here, someone's going to have to get to it someday. Maybe not during my lifetime. So I told Jay, look, you know, why don't we pull the building back to allow two-way traffic here if it's ever needed and six feet of sidewalk. So from building to building, you'd have two travel lanes, six feet of sidewalk. If anyone ever needs it, we can easily, you know, trade. We'll trade you our land for some parking spaces somewhere. You know, but I mean, that's what we've done for decades is kind of look beyond this project and think about how other areas might develop. But the thrush building, that used to set up. I understand that. It's kind of interesting. There won't really be anything to put that back up on the street. No, listen, believe it or not, we looked at that. We actually spoke to our neighbor who, you know, and it's his property and I absolutely respect someone's right to it. But he wasn't interested in looking at that. And we actually discussed it. It was just cost prohibitive. And even looking at the, I'm sure Mr. Russell was proud of his building, but even looking at the condition of that building, and we even had a house mover, the one who actually lifted the old Jones Brothers shed in Barrie, which was the biggest lift in North America when they did that one. We actually had Norm go down and take a look at it. And he just said, you know, I just can't guarantee that I can move that building. He said, you know, I might lose it on the way over. It's just not, so we did look at it. So don't think you're, don't think it's a bad idea. We thought it was a neat idea until people started putting a cost to it. And then it wasn't that so great. I watched them move an eight-story brick building in Indianapolis. It's cool. The way they do it, it's art form. It's not all science. You can leave the dishes in the cupboard. So, I had a quick question. What's the difference in the grade between the sidewalk and the back corner of the property along the side street? I would say it's probably a foot total from foot to back. Maybe a little more. I walked around it. We've had a lot done now. It's only a foot from here to the back corner here. I don't think it's a lot. It pulls up stuff, but I'm probably about that. Now it's just curious. It really isn't a lot because when you're in Mr. Russell's parking lot, you know, it's not a big curb. I mean, I know it's not more than a foot. So I think Jay's estimate of, you know, approximately a foot would be about right. It starts to change really rapidly after that as it goes on up. There's that ramp in the state park. So, in general, I'm enthusiastic for the idea of a new building there, but I don't fully understand the rush to remove this one. It doesn't seem like you have a solid plan yet. Well, it's difficult for us to develop a solid plan until we know that we can remove the building. And then that really, you know, I mean, everything costs money. I mean, to date, we're in between having to deal with, you know, tank removal expenses that even though they weren't ours, we got stuck with them doing things the right way. You know, you get tens of thousands of dollars into it. So I simply wanted to make sure, you know, that we were able to remove the building before I turned Jay and his creativity loose and, you know, told him to design me a multi-story building. And certainly aspects of timing. We have to look at soils as we go through that, and such and do not have any of those things sort of become hold-ups or if they can. We'll report that in the future. What is the timing? You know, I'd like to think that we could program the building in the next 60 days, get on the permit schedule. I think our permits could be issued, I think in as little as 60 days, you know, that's four months and summer's gone, you know. I mean, it's Labor Day. So that literally puts you through the end of the year and then we're mobilizing the way the construction seasons have been. You know, we could have the building down this fall and then we could start construction in April. And that would be our intention. You know, we plan on starting construction as quickly as we can in the summer months. You know, we're already notifying contractors that and in speaking with the, we did enter this property in the Brella program with ANR and that is the schedule that we've submitted to them. Construction would start this spring. Is part of the reason for moving the building sooner than later the property cleanup as well? There's going to be some, there's going to be some remediation. You know, it's really just site management. There's, you know, even the demolition we would likely do that. Everything's got to be done in stages. It's not a big site. You know, we respect our neighbors. You've got a restaurant out back that depends on that egress and ingress, you know, for their customers. So it's really just project management and that's why we wanted to remove the building first so that if they're, you know, we're not aware, you know, interestingly when all of the readings except for one directly under the tank were within permissible levels so we don't think there's really going to be a lot of site remediation but one of the things we don't know, we don't know until you remove the building and we can't test in the basement adequately until we get the building out of the way. We don't expect to find anything. I mean, you know, remarkably, considering it was a wall cementing site, remarkably I was pleasantly surprised, you know, remediation will probably be in the, you know, $60,000 range. It certainly was a garage, as we all know. It sort of takes one of the aspects of the particular path that could be an unknown and a hiccup out of the equation to allow us to move forward in the near fashion of the spring. We can deal, I mean, we know, you know, I've got prices, assuming that we had to excavate from grade to a depth of 12 feet, 50% of the site, which would be pretty extraordinary. We know that that, if we take the building down first, that wouldn't put us off critical path in terms of construction. If we start in the spring and we run into a problem, then it's going to be a real problem and then it throws the, you know, the construction critical path off and, you know, this is Vermont, so now we're into winter construction, cause escalation, that's, we're really just trying to manage the site. We used to get contractors to hold bids for, you know, 60, 90 days. Not anymore. Steal, seriously, steal, you get it for 24 hours, and that's it. Do you have an example of a building in Barrier like this that you've removed and then built? No, we really tend to, you know, most of the buildings that we've done in Barrier, you know, the Reynolds House that Karen is doing now on South Main Street, you know, the Cornerstone Building, 47 and 59, North Main, 100 North Main, which is a building that doesn't get much attention. The Spa Building, which we actually saved from demolition. You know, most of the buildings, if they're candidates, we did take down a building on Elm Street and then, but we left out a parking lot. That was to support 47 and 50, you know, the Cornerstone Building, so that supported that. Well, you know, we really tend to, we tend to rescue old buildings. Unfortunately, this is, you know, it's the use. We've never purchased a gas station before and we've learned a lot. We've learned that, you know, when you use a concrete slab to accept petroleum products for 50 or 60 years that literally it leeches into the slab such that, you know, it's going to off gas for decades. So it's not, it's fine to have a filling station in there or a repair place. It's just, you couldn't rehab this building. I mean, when they pulled the tank, they buckled, we don't have a picture of the building, but they actually buckled this corner of the building. When they pulled the tank, the tank was actually under the building and they weren't careful about pulling the tanks and weren't really careful about the building and they actually buckled this corner. So, you know, some buildings can be saved and if we can save old buildings. But, you know, a building like that, you could reuse it as a repair facility but to try to get it to accept humans, it just probably wouldn't work. And it's not the best use of that piece of property. Yeah, so, you know, they, I mean, one that I certainly took an active role in developing but it's not my building. Contrary to what a lot of people very like to think was the city place building in Berry where the Department of Education is. We took a very active role in taking down a number of buildings and I actually owned the property and was the lead developer until, you know, obviously at that time being mayor and pushing the state to sign a long-term lease is a little bit of a conflict. So, we did the right thing. You know, we had DEW construction that worked here in Montpelier as well. They took the project over and that project worked well. You were very much a part of making Community National. Oh yeah, I forgot about that one. Yeah, Community National Bank in Berry, that was, we actually purchased, that was an auto parts store. That was a long time ago, no number is as good as yours. That was an auto parts store. It was a Napa store at the time and we leveled that building. The buildings were similar in size to the one-story building. We leveled that building. We had the distinction of being one of the only people who successfully negotiated and purchased property from Jeffrey Jacobs and we purchased the property from Mr. Jacobs right next door at a price of $1.5 million an acre, equivalent. But I knew who I wanted my neighbors to be at the time and then we built the Community National Bank building in Berry and that was on a, this property will not be on, no matter what we do, we won't be asking for a tax stabilization. They admire what you're trying to do in Montpelier with your TIF district. I know how they work. You need the, you need the grand list. So the Community National Bank building, that was a 10-year tax stabilization program worked really well for the city. That's over. It was about 15 years ago. Yeah. So thanks for that because that was what example of one where we took one down and built one. Interesting things in Montpelier. This used to be a real service station that served the people who worked for the state. You could drop your car off there and get your muffler entire. Then the mobile across the street was that where the county courthouse has parking lot with a service station. So it was the bank, the branch bank for if that was a service station or a cleaner and the ambulance. Every quarter. All service stations. So we should have a service station downtown but I think it's great for state employees to be able to drop their car off. It is a real service. I think the only, there's only two left to do that. Perry's and Bobson over there have so walkable from state employees to drop their cars off. Perry still puts your gas in. Probably the last one left in the state today. And we have the same thing in Berry. We've got one. Summer Street Auto. Great guys. They do a great job. But what it boils down to is it's a different industry. Who would have thought when when I was growing up if anyone had ever told me that my car would go 50,000 miles before it needed an oil change. Because of synthetic oil I'd be like, there's no way. So it's a different business now. And, you know, unfortunately as we've found out in a lot of our downtowns, probably a more appropriate use to get them away a little bit. It was when they were a really service station. Now that the convenience started pumps gas, maybe not so much stable. Not our business model. Fantastic. I'll pay a $50,000 penalty if we don't build it. No, I mean, I know we didn't purchase this. We purchased it to do something great. And that's absolutely what we're going to do. You're going to not stay mad, right? Yeah. In the interim? In the filled area. Right. And it won't be maintained when we're locked up. Correct. All of the industry will be shut. Olders, I know. Honestly, construction funds doesn't bother me. They're a little out of, I mean, we would be happy to work with the city to come up with something. If the city would like us to, you know, barricade it so that people can't park there. You know, we're having... Is there a request to that? Yes. And there was their bolder suggestion in the spacing that cars not drive through. And it seemed fine, but... I was amenable to just letting people, you know, people park there today. I don't understand why that's going on. I'm not charging anybody, you know, I haven't charged anyone to park there. I'm not... People have kind of, you know, a few people have figured it out. You know... If that was a possibility, then you have to manage it. So we could even... Like you said, it's a short period. I wouldn't have a problem. I mean, if the city said, Tom, can we sell parking permits there? You know, I don't care. I'm not going to police it. You know, we're not going to plow it. We're not going to police it. But if there's a higher and better use in the very, you know, a short time between demolition and construction, I'm... Or a... We can do something better than rocks that are more visible in the winter. I'm open to anything. People would love to be able to park there. I think, yeah, I think you could too... You could get some good money for parking places. Yeah, I'm a creative guy. I'd have citizens of the month. I would look around and say, who really does great things in Montpellier? There you go. You get like a gold star parking lot, parking space for free for 30 days. So... Hostry. They had a plowing business. And I wonder if they'd be interested in releasing and managing the park. You know, just... They plowed from the state. Yeah, I understand the gentleman who... What I heard is that there was a plow truck there over this winter as we were, you know, because I mean, I've been talking to them since January of this year. And there was a gentleman that had a big, like a bucket loader there with a big plow in the front of it. You know, I mean, we'd be, you know, we'd be amenable to most anything. I mean, you know, if the boulders are preferred, that's what we'll do. If open is preferred, that's what we'll do. The only thing I didn't want to do, you know, I didn't think of, you know, just a chain link, like, you know, barricade fence and no opening. I think, well, I would look a little strange. I thought that would just look weird. And then... Yeah, and then putting a lot of money into a fence, you know, we, you know, we looked at real fence. It looked, you know, a three-rail fence. It looked a little out of place. And honestly, it seemed like a waste of money when it's going to be snow-covered, hopefully in November. Well, it gets shot, but I think Jersey Barriers would probably be the easiest thing to do, because they're easy to move. It's a bite with a bucket. And you could probably sell it to somebody when you get time. Like I said, we're open to most anything. I don't think it matters, but I would chat with the people that do the, do the state and see if you can piece it to them and leave it open to me. I sort of hate to see you put money in folders and whatever else for some short period of time. I don't know how the city would feel about that. I mean, it would require a conditional use of purpose, but, you know, a detail. Well, maybe if we're not the applicants, you know, like they are, we're happy to do, you know, whatever is reasonable and makes everyone happy. It seems like it's a good property for some sort of exposure or something for that short amount of time, whether that's some sort of like art piece, whether that's some sort of like some pop-up restaurant-y business. I don't know, but it seems like a really big spot. You might see the cornerstone guys over there once or twice in the fall. Yeah. I think that would be great. Yeah. So, you know, like I said, we're, you know, I realized that it could be amenable, so I'm not sure if it could be a, you know, a condition, assuming you'll approve it, if it could be a condition of approval that we work something through with the city that they're, you know, amenable to, we're happy to install whatever kind of barricading they want. We're, if they would, if the city would prefer to have us not install barricades for whatever reason, we're happy to do that. If we have to come back here for another event, because it means we're going to let people park there, we're happy to do that. It's a relatively short period of time. We don't want to upset anybody. We don't want to upset our neighbors. We don't want to embarrass anyone. We're, I don't, I'd, I'd be certainly willing to just whatever you want to do there in the way of, you know, barriers, rocks, Jersey barriers, some kind of offense or leaving it alone. I think we should give you those alternatives and, and I'm happy having barriers and they got sort of an administrative decision when you come in and she feels it needs to come back to what I interviewed and I wouldn't think so. One, one thing is with the rocks, you do get more options for pop-ups. You're not blocking the pedestrians from getting them there with the rocks. For pop-ups where you just then take it down the same day. You don't fire any other kind of permit that's on private property. You wouldn't worry about cars coming in. You wouldn't worry about cars coming in. I'm a berry guy. I would've drawn granted anyway. Wouldn't have been, wouldn't have been stowing like bull, like plane field boulders or something. Some of them are motorcycles. Motorcycle parking. Motorcycle bicycle parking. There you go. Bicycle parking. Bicycle parking. I don't know if that's part of the parking lot. Be happy with that? A little tough in the winter, but some do. There you go. Bicycle parking. So like I said, we're happy doing whatever is going to, you know, the city thinks is appropriate. You can put the rink on it. My worry and you've done it in a heartbeat, we got water. It's said it's a vacant lot, whatever you do for a long time. I mean, the Nelson brothers had a hole in the ground where your building is steep where the capital grounds is there. There's a hole in the ground there. It's the same thing as true. Two years. 74 to 76. Is that all that was in there? Born in 74. The building was built in 76. Yep. And there was a discussion that didn't say maybe it's where a city star is born and the holes turned into a swamp in there. It was thought about having a limit on the time like a year and then if it didn't nothing happened you'd have to come back with the plan. Yeah. I think that was it. And we're happy with all of that as well. A time limit to come back with a permit. Yeah. Yeah. It's probably acceptable. Audra and I have talked about that possibility already. I'm sure you want to get an income producing as quickly as you can. Be nice. If you're thinking about touch base when you're not fully alive I've talked to them about other projects here in downtown for future problems. They might have some ideas that people might have in some way. They might manage it. Yeah. The idea is that I'll stop when I just work out with the building demolition that's true and then once the building is removed the applicant has the option of surrounding blocks with folders or concrete blocks or subject to any city requirements can be used for temporary parking for cars bicycle as well. For me thank you. I think coming up as covered in the back Yep. Good. Absolutely. It won't take that long. I don't like but additional stuff. There are people in town that think of that as an historic building because of its gas station. We hear the National Register nomination or some discussion about that. Yes. I met a few of them when the tank removal was happening. I think they confused that with demolition so I met a few of those people who were standing there. They told me exactly how they felt. I would feel very definitely about the demolition if the metal siding was still on it. Yeah. It's still it's really not an appropriate candidate for restoration. You know it's just not not worth the investment. I don't know that I don't know that you could even I don't know I don't think you could create a safe environment. I mean you just have there's a reason why they keep the doors open in the summer and when you go in that building now it's been shut up for about six weeks. There's a significant amount of off-gassing from that slab. I mean you I don't think it could create a safe environment in there. And Devin did send to the city that does a non-contributing structure. It used to be a marvelous discipline in their petroleum materials. They didn't care. They didn't know. They didn't know they didn't know you just let the plug out. I used to all those wash parts in gasoline that had a grease pit one of the gas stations had a grease pit they spilled a lot of oil in that. I think any of us over 50 have learned a lot in the last 20 years. So we're making amends for it it's all good. Okay I'll run down there's a short question of reconstruction you've procured a historic style and you've proposed a project to send to the historic district. All things structure and completion is acceptable and they they're non-contributing building a historic district being cycling you does not go on to DRB so we have high expectation I think quality design is a big it's a big deal with buildings in general and losing a building that has some historic value not enough to really save and so it needs to be particularly in that location I think I'm going to see a glass front steel building I promise you're going to see cornice and it's going to you know it's not old you try to make it you try to make it a companion building to the buildings next door we're going to do that it's going to look great yeah proposed exterior materials none proposed yet actually acceptable stone is acceptable compatibility proposed landscaping again strongly acceptable prevention of use of incompatible designs buildings materials not noted location of appearance of all utilities no change in it something something light bulb there's a light bulb taken out and then Tom has given us the instructions on wind water and sewer disconnects how he wants those done we'll coordinate that with him Tom McCartle Tom McCartle yes not just being solved and explained correct and recognition of and respect for new quarters and significant business okay we've used the city and state house acceptable all in terms of the application in your hand do you put the condition that they have to come back in eight years plans right within twelve months it's not on here we'll be putting it on I think that eliminates my worries about having an empty lot there I know that's not the way you are I worry about that too yeah you have a big investment in an empty lot I'm sorry thank you very much folks pleasure seeing you and meeting you thank you good luck with your project thank you and we do do informal reviews as you develop I would think we'd probably do that oh absolutely come in and yeah if you don't have to apply make an application you can just come in and get on the agenda and that that's worked well I think for a lot of projects we did it for the hotel which is a much bigger project happy to do it it's a good suggestion thank you thanks thanks for your time I'll move them do I hear a second all in favour of the August 6 minutes raise your hand any other business I'm going to move adjournment go here a second all in favour of adjournment raise your hand meeting is adjourned okay I had a a long discussion of marriages today but cities access to the internet everyone else ready so over here good good evening welcome to the city of Montpelier Development Review Board for Monday August 20th 2018 my name is Daniel Richardson I am the chair and the other members of the board for my right are Rob Goodwin Kevin O'Connell Meredith Crandall staff Kate McCarthy Tom Kester Claire Rock all right the first order of business is approval of the agenda do I have either a motion to approve the agenda or a motion to amend so moved motion by Kevin do I have a second second second by Tom any further discussion hearing none all those in favour of the agenda is printed please raise your right hand we have an agenda all right there are no comments from the chair I will discuss this is a somewhat unique application before us and some of the members on the board now are new to this so we'll have a discussion at that point the next item is approval of the minutes of August 6 myself Kevin Kate Tom and Rob were in attendance I would make two suggested edits to this one is I believe that in my comments from the chair I also welcome the new members to the board which would have been Rob Deb and Tom at the time do you want to name them yes just add them as a welcome and I don't think I voted for myself as chair but if I had I would have voted for myself but I think it was another 6-0 vote that's okay but other than those changes any other changes or a motion to approve the minutes so moved motion by Kevin as amended right as amended thank you motion by Kevin do I have a second second second by Rob all those in favor of the minutes that are eligible to vote for them please raise your right hand we have minutes and welcome to Ryan alright we have only one piece of business before us tonight and that is the Murray Hill final plan review for the one lot subdivision and I'll just simply note for those who have we're not here at the last meeting a couple of key points that we decided or that were decided as a result of the application first of all this is an amendment to a 1983 subdivision so a lot of the substantive rules that we're going to be applying tonight go back to the 1983 or actually 1973 zoning and subdivision regulations and so if you have any questions I know that the packet itself and the memo had a lot of that but we'll refer to Meredith as well as taking testimony from some of the original developers who are here tonight the other point is that at our last meeting there was a vote taken not to apply the Stoke Club Highlands test and analysis for this application it was determined by the board at that initial meeting based on the testimony that this was not a condition of the having the lot as common area was not a condition of the original approval therefore we're really looking at this as a subdivision amendment I think that's a really important distinction to make because we're not looking to meet the Stoke Club Highlands criteria which is a fairly high threshold although there was testimony that they may have been able to make it but for tonight we just simply are looking at the application as it stands any questions as a preliminary matter if not I'll invite the applicant to come forward Mr. Chair I'm sorry may I ask a clarification on Stoke Club Highlands it has to do we've made our decision about it we changed that but it has to do with the condition not being an essential condition right so we can still acknowledge that it may have been a condition at the time of approval but it was deemed not so so integral to the operation the building of the planned unit development I just want to make that distinction in case anyone in the audience was confused that it was not a condition at all it was a condition but it was deemed understow it's a little bit of a gray area I don't mean to add confusion that's okay it was a condition in the sense that the applicant asked for it to be put on but it wasn't a condition in the sense that it was determined that the permit was not conditioned upon its issuance which may be the important distinction to be made here that the board found last time great, thank you I wanted to get that nuance out there as to what it is and what it isn't that we're working with thank you sorry so here we are again for those of you who weren't here last meeting my name is Eric Bigelstone I'm the president of Murray Hills Homers Association we have asked Ken and Joan Seneca here to represent us in our organization while they are the original developers of Murray Hill it is not their personal interest tonight they are asking for they are acting on behalf of Murray Hill Homers Association because they have great amount of knowledge and we ask them as a board to represent us today thank you good evening if you'll state your names for the record please and then I'm going to swear people in Ken Seneca Joan Seneca may want to move that microphone just okay so I'll ask you and I'll ask anyone who's considering giving testimony at this time on this matter whether it's in the form of testimony and support or comments that you wish the board to consider beyond the scope of the application if you'll raise your right hand just to be sworn in do you solemnly swear or affirm that the evidence or testimony you're about to give for the matter under consideration shall be the truth the whole truth I do okay thank you very much so Meredith I tried to give a sort of overall procedural background for the board but if you could dive in a little bit more and give us a little bit greater detail and focus us particularly on the issues that we have before us tonight I'll do I actually took away a whole bunch of my preliminary stuff so that's great so for especially for members who weren't here last time the final plan review for this removal of a condition from the plan unit development plat as well as a boundary line adjustment because the PUDs and the subdivisions both have to go through subdivision process there was a sketch plan review earlier so this is the final plan review you can actually make a determination on the entire application tonight so this application is for that the condition reserved for common land no longer be included on the Murray Hill lot 1 plat for the PUD and that's something that administratively I cannot do on my own it's a decision that the board has to make the second item is a boundary line adjustment to make this lot 1 larger so it can be developed for a single family home and normally administrative officer can do without board approval but there are conditions on here be reserved for common land as well as determining if any other permit conditions are going to be violated by that boundary line adjustment that I can't make so it's a multi-step process so one point to note is to see the final outcome in the big picture and what they're about halfway through your packet is the site plan that's a good reference point you're going to be referencing that multiple times throughout this hearing for reserving removing the reserve for common land designation this requires review under the zoning regulations from 1973 and the key item based on my analysis of those regulations the key item is that you're going to need to decide whether the density and open spaces allotment and how everything has worked out whether to do that you're going to have to consider the choice and types of environment or living units available to the public and several different items the key ones that I think you're going to have a pattern of development that preserves trees outstanding natural topography and geologic features and an environment in harmony with surrounding development this analysis is on page six through nine of your staff report and given comments from sketch plan review I think that's where we're going to have the most likely to have public comments and people wanting to focus on those areas reserved for common land issue the second item is the boundary line adjustment and the key items there are the only way you can do the boundary line adjustment is to for the board to confirm approval of the removal of that condition as well as confirming my analysis which is in the memo at the end of the packet that the planned unit development is allowed another dwelling unit those are the big items that you're going to need to focus on there were some wastewater and stormwater issues that were brought up during sketch plan review I think those items have been addressed by the updated application and if you need references to where in the staff report that's discussed ask me when we get there great thank you you're welcome so the floor is yours bring us up to date and focus us on some of these issues alright I'm Ken Senegal with new members I'll do a very quick pass through this plan that I'm showing you now you have it in your packet the first 75 units at Murray Hill lot one was included lot one use which is put in those days for the second stage from the process was approved received conditional approval when we went in for final approval 48 units thank you for 48 units one has originally configured this beer and instead the entire area which is now made out of lot one and common land was designated as reserve lot number one so that's the second stage and this plan was approved in October of 1983 excuse me that was 1983 did I say 84? oh good okay and then the third appears on a plan that was the subject of the city planning commission holding a hearing to determine whether the development had been built according to the plans and permits that that were in place and lot one is shown on that plan in a new shape it's no longer common land plus lot so that's status of lot one as we stand here this evening it's a triangular lot roughly a quarter of an acre inside we're asking that it foundry the adjustment so that it will look like this this is a new plan I don't know if you have in your packets a plan that labels lot one blow up yep I do not as in bang bang bigger bigger if you follow along with that I this plan I've got some colors on it so that it'll be easier to see from where you're sitting but this plan will track with this smaller version that you have if you don't have it I have extra copies here for you so if anyone is unable to find lot one blow up just wave a hand it looks like you all have it I'm going to get those two people okay so I'll run through this very quickly I don't know with new members whether I'm short changing you but I'm sure you'll tell me so this here they blow up and I've added some colors there the blue line represents the new configuration of lot one the dotted line across here divides the triangular lot which currently exists from the land that we're having to within the blue area there is a yellow area it has a label on it that says building envelope this is the area on the lot where structures can be placed they can be placed no other location you can have a driveway where structures have to be within the way the association is going to sell the land the structures have to be within that building envelope on the plan there's an outline of a building I do not expect that building to look like that when a zoning a building permit is sought from the city I expect the buyer will design their own house there will be limited building within the yellow area I have highlighted because there were two issues brought up by Don Barney who is the adjoining property owner he lives here one was he mentioned that he has a driveway easement across the part of block one and I wanted you to be able to put that in context it's a 25 foot easement to the east 45 foot easement to south and a line connecting them together so the driveway easement that he was referring to is here and the building is here so there's no interaction between where we want to build and where he has a driveway some of that water please he brought it up it was the drainage system I guess Tom McArdle was in front of the public works wanted clarification he had given us three options on how to handle an existing stormwater swale and a city culvert that goes under Murray Hill Drive and he said we could either take the stormwater down all the way to Main Street and then go into the existing culvert down there we could leave the culvert under and that would mean eliminating the culvert under Murray Hill Drive that feeds the water into the drainage swale or he said you could come across Murray Hill Drive and take the water down this side of Murray Hill Drive and then into the Main Street or you could just leave it alone from my point of view the existence of the drainage swale is a real asset to lot one the constructed area on the Dime Barney lot is up hill now the grades are pretty gentle here but still it's up hill from where a house would be located on lot one this drainage swale will intercept all of the surface water that moves towards that building area so the water that if the drainage swale weren't there would head this way and whatever's built here would have to make provision for diverting that water or we could leave the drainage swale here and let any water moving from the paving and the roofs on the Barney property simply flows into this swale heads down this way and goes south of the location where the house would be built can not interrupt you but that swale is that exists today that drainage swale it was built in 1984 it's functioned to perfection the road comes down one side Murray Hill Drive goes through a culvert under Murray Hill Drive and then it enters this is a fairly flat the reason I call it a swale is because I distinguish between a swale and a ditch is a swale is something that is made for the purpose of causing water to spread out running in a tight constricted channel where it can have more erosive power and move faster so this is built intentionally on a much gentler grade than if the water were just running down a slope and it's the bottom of this swale is 5 feet wide and then the top edge is about 30 inches deep total from bank to bank and it's about 12 feet wide at the top of the bank so it's a really deep way of picking up the water diverting it and then outletting it into the open meadow land where it was originally intended to build so I don't know if that's the background I wanted to give if there's anything more I could like to answer your questions I'm sure we'll have a couple of questions I'll bet you will so Meredith I just wanted to I think it may be helpful to start at the density and you've included the memorandum in our packet from August 1983 that Michael Jones, your predecessor by several included as far as the density is concerned if you could just walk us through that calculation and this is under the old PUD as far as their density allowed and in part because of the differences in how it was built out but also in part how the PUD has acquired land for three years. Correct. So the initial analysis by Michael Jones which is the second attachment to the memo on the density was based on the PUD's original size which was I have it sorry I have to jump around a little bit sorry it's the February 7th, 1983 February 7th, 1983 they didn't put the full amount there did they? I have it in my memo but I can't find it right now it's got 85 units on the back I'm looking for the actual acreage sorry 57 plus acres and they allowed a total of 85 units because the area of the Murray Hill PUD at that point was a mix of low density and medium density allowances but the total under the low density you could have total of 48 units and under medium density you could have oh sorry 48 units and then 37 for multifamily under medium density but ultimately these units were located on this 57 acres was up to the board and the planners they could put them anywhere as long as they considered certain criteria now at this point the Murray Hill PUD is now 70.7 acres they've added several acres to the total and and under my analysis it doesn't really make sense to say you've added all this acreage you still can only have 85 units now exactly how many units they would be allowed under the old regulations I haven't gone through to look all of that up at this point they're only asking to add one unit they should be allowed to have it it seems like under those old density requirements if they've added 13 acres adding one more unit to the total doesn't it seems to make sense when they've only built 85 housing units total with that added acreage is it 85 or 81 it's 85 81 are connected to the water system that may be where you heard that number 85 is the total number of units right so they have 85 units total in the entire planned unit development and here I have a reference to 81 that's in the areas one and two the area three that was added in that you can see in the maps D and E at the back of that memorandum that new area has only three single family condominium units in it and one single family home so for purposes of the calculation as to how many new dwelling units they can put in this area one that they're working on it looks like they have 81 in there that was trying to focus our analysis as close as we can to the original 57 acres sorry to restate area one is the 57 acres of the original application yes and area one in the original application was allowed 85 units but built 81 the additional four units are in area three they adjusted where area two was there's 81 units in one and two so some of this land in yellow was originally part of area one but things got rearranged based on the conditions that you found on the sites and so trying to parse out what in here was area one what was area two it was hard to come up with so areas one and two have 81 units your general analysis is that one more unit isn't going to impinge upon the PUD density correct even if we go back to the 1973 numbers even the 1973 numbers it's not going to impinge on that density I don't know if anyone had any questions about that I actually have a visual that may help because it shows exactly what Meredith just went through the original the 57 acres that Meredith is talking about is this tract of land here and that's where the 81 units are today and that is yes mostly mostly with a couple of adjustments I'll show you very very quickly the adjustment so this was the tract of land 57 acres and the city rule that we could put 85 units on the 57 acres over the years we have added 13.7 acres and what we call area 3 so this is the new acreage that's been added to the 57 and you'll see that you actually probably can't see it from that the area 3 is shown here with a single family house and 3 single family condominium buildings so that's 4 of them but then could it be the uncertainty about how many are on the original land in this area because we actually built 4 buildings with a total of at least 5 units in them on the 13.7 acres that we added so we ended up with significantly less units on the original 57 acres than was originally approved and I think we testified at the last meeting that we added some of that land so we could spread those last condominiums out further and they wouldn't be jammed up right and I think I just wanted to maybe start with this because I felt it was an easy question that we're below the density level and I think the testimony is fairly clear on that and I'm only speaking for myself but I'm seeing nods of agreement having one more unit isn't going to be offensive to the original density limits or the calculations that were done given the additional land and no matter which way we sort of shake out the allocation of these units whether they be for area 1, 2 or 3 we seem to be below that threshold so I think that's an important place to start and it what we're really talking about then is the condition that this be common land and what I'd like to hear is a little bit of the description of the remaining common land that's being held by the association okay so the common land at Murray Hill consists of roughly 12 and a half acres of meadow land all the land is also drilled wells that supply the Murray Hill water are located so this land as far as the state water supply regulations is off limit for any future development because it's within what's called the wellhead protection area for the wells so this is a 12 and a half acre parcel there are four acres roughly of common land right now plus lot 1 if you approve the boundary adjustment then the total acreage will be just under four acres 3.9 something or other so 12 and a half year 3.9 year of all open land and then there's 1.6 acres of common land what a bit of it is open land but it also contains a swimming pool a pool house and two tennis courts it's also an encroachment a legal one by the area one garages that also perturbed into that area so there's a total after if you approve the boundary adjustment you'll have a total of about 17.95 acres of common land and right now there's a total if you include lot 1 which is common land it's owned and pumped there's a total of 18.5 roughly and it will be reduced to 17.95 with the boundary adjustment out of curiosity I looked at your new zoning ordinance to try to determine because that does have square footage requirements of common land in a PUD and I used the number at the sketch plan I think is accurate but it just sounds like an exaggeration but I think the requirement is that there's 400 square feet of open land to be set aside permanently in your new ordinance for each unit and when I applied that to the common land we have here that meant that if you could build solely based on the amount of common land you had to have you could build something like 1500 units on the mario property the point of saying this isn't to make it sound like we have a whole lot of common land but it's to demonstrate that even under your new ordinance this development has far more common land than would have been required if we were under the new ordinance the old ordinance that we're under for this part of your review had no standard for the amount of common land I guess I have a question which is how much common land was added to the overall development in the additional land acquisitions for the expanded phase 2 area 2 and area 3 is there other common land in that 13 acres? no there's not owned by all of the owners there is common land within each of the three common areas but it's limited to it's owned by the people in the individual common area so we did not add land what we did was this common land the 18.5 acres of common land including lock 1 was determined to be adequate for putting aside standards it was found by the planning commission to be adequate for the 85 units that we were proposing to put on 57 acres but we didn't put 85 units on 57 acres we put 85 units on 71 acres roughly so and of those units at least at least four without getting into whether how many of these condominium units that would have been built on the 57 acres which we actually built on the 13 that we added just putting aside we're looking only at new units that were added exclusively outside of the original 57 acres four of the five units are those new units on new land so you do not have the same if you divide that out you do not have any reduction in fact we have more common land for the units that were originally approved so I'd like to build on Ryan's question which is a question that I appreciate so it sounds like based on where there is currently common land owned by the whole homeowners association not just one condo group or another condo group it sounds like there is no common land up in area three where we could be having this conversation again in 20 years right okay so the land that's up there that's owned in common by the condo owners has more to do with driveways or garages or football courts those kinds of things okay thank you so I want to draw your attention to the existing features of lot one how would you characterize the features of lot one is it heavily wooded is it open meadow what's the elevation where does it sit from you know if you're driving up main street will you be able to see this development from main street or will you only be able to see it once you turn on to Murray hill drive let's start with the the lay of the land so this land has somewhere between it varies from 6 to 9 percent slopes or I've used 8 and I've used 10 but it's about 6 to 9 percent slope in the area where lot one is located there's one tree on it a planted oak a gorgeous tree that it's now 35 years old and it should let to be a couple hundred at least and more so it's open land just one planted tree on it the we talked about the drainage on the land that feature of it maximum square footage of structures on that lot under your ordinance is 2500 square feet the state water storm water division has exempted us this development from review of up to 5000 square feet so we'll be building on we'll have a driveway so I'm not sure what the total will be but it will be well under the 5000 square feet that the state exempted I think there was another point you had that I didn't I'll add I sort of threw a bunch out at you but I'm curious as far as what your testimony is as to the view that will be seen of this house from Main Street as you approach the turn into Murray Hill Drive going north on upper Main Street or the County Road whichever you think of the name for it you will see this house if you look to your left as you're driving north you can see five or six of the existing homes probably just five on your left if you're driving south you can probably see seven houses from Main Street this will be closer to Main Street than any of the other houses so it will be somewhat more noticeable from Main Street but it's it's located as part of a small neighborhood which will be eight houses and this when I think you've seen the aerial photos that we've included it's a very logical fit with the homes that are in the neighborhood so I think the impression visually as you go north or south is going to be there you're looking at a small cluster of houses in the background of open meadowland and will this impede anybody's view of the meadow of the large circular 12 acre meadow I think the we've gone around and talked to each of the neighbors who can see the property and who can see where lot one it would be and the only property owner who's expressed any concern about that spoke at the last meeting that's Mr. Hahn and I have a handout I gave him a copy before the hearing I don't know if you want me handing exhibits now you can certainly hand out if it illustrates your point I can do this I sprained my knees so he's trying to say don't keep trying to get up I have a question I think it would have been helpful to see topo lines on one of these maps to get a better understanding of the and I was kind of curious about the regulations that were be applying to this because I was wondering if there was a setback requirement from Upper Main Street as far as what building could be setback or if there was any indication of a requirement of a view shed I think as you had mentioned you will see it from Main Street and it will be a more prominent in the view as you're coming up Main Street so I wasn't sure if the passed regulations included any setback requirements from Upper Main Street No there is no setback requirement there's an important point that I'd like to go back to and that is that the plan for there to be a house on lot one was in the original plan that the city approved lot one was shown the the variation we're doing is slightly more closer do you have this in your packet at the So the planning commission at the time took into consideration the impacts of a house being on a lot one it was only Joan I should blame it all on her but it was like our foolishness in deciding we did not want to build on lot one we want to give it to the association and let the association be the one that made the decision at some whatever point in time it chose whether it would actually build something out of lot one and that's what we did the association got lot one as a gift but lot one was reviewed and was it's impact was considered in the original approvals from Maria and it's on the house bill and it's also on the house bill plan but I just wanted to make that point that you know it isn't that this is the first time I've stood here and said we're going to build a house on lot one I said that in 1983 and it was only later that we decided to give that lot to the association and not build on it ourselves go ahead I was just going to say that it's a little confusing as to what's old regulations, what's the new regulations for the actual setbacks this is all under the new regulations it's like their water setbacks have to meet the new regulations because otherwise anybody could be grandfathered for a zillion things so the setbacks have to meet the new ones I think the setbacks the 20 yard side yard setback would be what's applicable to the property line from Murray Hill Road we're looking at the front setback the front yard is irrelevant right because in the subdivision it would be cut off you may also want to look at the lot one because it has some topo lines on there it's also on the site plan there's some topo lines on the site plan as well yeah so while we're on the topic of setbacks and we have the this diagram up and you told us that the yellow area is the building envelope and I just wanted to look at the numbers on the diagram we have in comparing them to the actual setbacks the front yard setback on that is 40 feet only 20 feet is required the side yard setback on that is 20 feet only 15 is required and I think the rear is 30 the reason I point that out is that technically unless there's a different set of setbacks in the homeowners association technically someone who bought this lot would be able to build in slightly more area than is currently colored in yellow so as we're reviewing it's only five feet this side five feet this side but it's 20 feet here that will give us an idea of the pieces of the lot that could be eligible to be constructed on and I would ask the board to make it a condition of the approval that the setbacks we've shown in this plan be adhered to that's the intent is that the association is going to sell this land subject to construction structures being located within that building envelope area we do not want the home to be closer to any of the property lines than would be allowed by the building envelope thank you for making us aware of that request I would be interested in knowing from the chair and our zoning administrator whether that is something we have the power to do or whether that would be incumbent upon the homeowners association to implement its own restrictions based on its goals or if that's our role to implement your goals we can always approve and ask for a more restrictive condition such as this we can always approve it I'm curious is this to keep the uniformity of development it is it gets to when I look at Murray Hill and drive through or on Main Street the fact that the buildings are clustered but there's always there in the presence of significant amounts of open land if we allow under the is it 15 feet in the newest ordinance 15 foot sideback and 20 feet for the front I would hope that that would not be allowed in this development I know the goals some of the goals that were considered in creating your new ordinance were to allow infill development and to allow some more compact design I would not want to see a development that I think works really well visually to be affected by having structures on adjoining lots being only 30 feet apart so it would be 15 feet set back on each side when we did the design for this section where the lot one and its neighbor seven units are located we really wrestled with how we would make it feel as you drove through there that you were seeing lots of greenery and open space in the buildings and so our reliance was on 20 foot set backs minimum for a side yard so that meant 40 feet space between structures on adjoining lots I think it would be a shame if that were reduced how about distance from the road from other existing houses even within there looks like some of these including the next lot up the structure might be closer than 40 feet to the road and it seems like if the homeowner wanted a shorter driveway and to actually move the house further out of what's now that field that wouldn't be a bad thing to me what are your thoughts on that 40 yard front yard setback when the regulations right now only require regulations right now only require a 20 foot setback in the front it's drawn as 40 on the plans well there are a couple of things about that the PUD permit adopted the medium density setback requirement so we're operating under it's 20 foot side yard setbacks it's 30 foot front and back setbacks so and our view of that is that that's locked in stone or concrete as far as because every property owner has the right to enforce the standards that were current at the time they purchased the property so I'm wondering if someone wanted to put a shed 15 feet from their property line if it would now be allowed under the new zoning or if they would be stuck with the old I think it would be allowed under the new zoning accessory structures but that's only in the side yard so it's now 15 feet I don't remember exactly what the allowance is here you can bump into that for accessory structures I guess my point is that even if these were approved as lots with 20 foot side setbacks they now all exist under the new zoning regime and so could conceivably put their accessory structures or have their building envelope with 15 foot side yard setbacks unless we condition the approval of the lot to existing lots not this one existing ones could come to us as long as it's not a violation of the Pudu rules or if their restrictive covenants contained I think that's what suggestion I'm just trying to create a realistic sense of what can actually happen now amongst those even though that is your goal for the existing lots that can be affected unless you impose that through the homeowners association as a value you wish to maintain in which case maybe you would want to do that for this too I'm just thinking out loud a little it can be dangerous but and I don't think I need to get into that issue very far because we're proposing with this lot to exceed that standard but I take your point of maybe other lots within Murray Hill could build closer to the side yard or to all sides from back and side then but it's my understanding of PUDs and I'm not an attorney I'm just somebody who has heard things for a long time and repeating them maybe unwittingly but my understanding that under Vermont law that when a PUD permit is granted and the setbacks are established that those run with the land and that the change by the municipality to create a new setback does not apply in a PUD we had two cases at Murray Hill where that issue came up and in one version of the zoning ordinance at one point they were allowing 10 foot setback in the ordinance and Joan decided to challenge that when people wanted to build with a 10 foot setback and she ultimately got the director of planning I don't know his title exactly for the city issue and he agreed with her that in a PUD you cannot the setbacks are not changed by a change in the ordinance it can only be changed by the agreement of 100% of the owners because everyone relies on that at the time they buy into the property the same is true in other neighborhoods I think we're getting a little far field into the weeds but I think the board's point is that this may be just something to revisit but certainly if you want the more restrictive and if that's the request we can certainly grant a subdivision we can grant as part of the approval here to have these more restrictive setbacks as part of that I don't see a legal problem with that and I think the points that you're making are simply that it is consistent with the other lots generally and your understanding and that obviously if that comes down the line and somebody buys lot one and just because their neighbors are able to build a shed closer to the boundary line if they should be able to do that that's not really what we're looking at tonight so let's look let's move forward so I just so I understand so there aren't any trees apart from a large sort of specimen oak and is that within the building envelope that oak so that would be preserved even if there's construction and otherwise there's no trees and the only the only real view of the meadow that's going to block is a neighbor on main street that might right now have an unobstructed view Mr. Varney's raising his hand obviously blocks me as well well I mean that's the question is if we're looking at the map you have a straight view right out of your driveway if you want to come up Mr. Varney if you're just responding okay so noted so let's any other questions about the view I didn't print one but I can show you a picture of my phone I don't want to have your phone passed around because I'd hate to take it into evidence I think my old phone I let's start add a comment to the viewshed question part of my reason for asking about if there was an original setback requirement from upper main street when the PUD was created if that had any impact on building a house within what could be perceived as a viewshed from upper main street because it appears that the land slopes up and away and Mr. Varney's house is kind of set back a bit further and this house obviously will be more in the view and potentially blocking aspects of that further meadow from a person traveling up upper main street and I wasn't sure if there were any prior conditions or criteria in which would have led to kind of any rationale behind why that swath of land was preserved originally that's the same question the first time we heard it there wasn't a very clear point as to why that little piece in particular the purpose of naming it common land if I recall testimony correctly was less than clear and was not explicit for that purpose that's a good question so let's talk about utilities I understand you've gotten wastewater permits and I'd like to take a little testimony on the utilities that are going to be servicing this lot so the water supply will build well and it's located on the site plan again I'm using the flow up map but it's also on the survey, not survey, but the site plan prepared by Grenier Engineering but this is a flow off of that right here drawing so the well would be between the house and Marisone Drive the house would connect to the city sewer system with a 16-pipe coming from the new house or wherever it's located to an existing 6-inch pipe that's owned by the association and that pipe goes to a connection at this location which is a city man hall so connect into the city sewer system at New Street and we have the approval for a sewer allocation I saw one of the documents in your packet was the wastewater system and potable water supply permit that was dated I think July 11th, 2018 for this lot so it's going to tie into the common water system for the Murray Hill Association and into the city sewer it'll have its own drilled well oh its own drilled well alright and then utilities are, as I understand underground? they're all at the site and they're all underground um just a point on that they were installed in 1983 in anticipation at that time that Joan and I were going to build a house on lot one but they were not utilized because we didn't want to build on that is it fair to understand that part of the reason why you're asking for this boundary line adjustment is that you want to make this very particular type of building envelope but sort of very I better word suburban with a house in the middle surrounded by a fairly broad setback it would be um difficult to build um a house a house that wanted a good solar orientation on the existing lot as a triangle triangular line and meet the setback requirements so we're, the association is looking to make this lot appealing and take advantage of its natural solar orientation uh by uh by changing the shape of that lot so that the owner would have more flexibility in orienting the structure okay Murray Hills, is that a private drive or public road where he'll drive is city city so does it have a curb cut or will that need to be obtained it would need a curb cut approval from the City of Montpelier and a decision on whether a culvert will be needed for the driveway from the city I'm skipping around on some of these but if anyone has any questions particularly on the amendment to the PUD final plat review some of the criteria talks about choice of types in the environment or living units available public and open space recreation areas I think we've gotten a fair amount of testimony talks about pattern of development which preserves trees outstanding natural topographic features and geologic features and prevents soil erosion and then D harmony with surrounding development are there design requirements for any of the buildings that are built in this neighborhood yes, there are the requirements in our declaration of bylaws that have to be met so it goes through our Board of Directors that acts as the design review board now so they have to approve the colors they have to approve the style of the building they have to approve the materials that are used on the building they have to approve the landscaping thank you at this time if there are any other neighbors that wish to speak 70 Murray Hill Drive which is a lot too excellent one after all you don't have the back of surveyors or engineers you have to peek at the second page thank you that's what I used to that's what I used to google and scribble so you're not looking at the second page I'm looking at the second page okay so this this is an aerial from do you have a copy for the applicants as well thanks just as a reference now I'm going to let you look at the second page I really want to see it this is a shot from Google Maps and incidentally it happens to be from year 2012 just right after I bought the property and I kind of drawn in there are some of the printed points and you can see how the property was landscape when I bought it I thought I was blind but that red line that's crossing that grey car intersecting with the yellow line and the point that's the boundary point in the middle of the driveway the little yellow triangle is the easement so to speak when you look at it from top down it doesn't seem very exciting but when you look at it this way I'm having a lot one in the middle of my driveway this is the point this is what I'm here for there's that a lot being in the middle of the driveway I should tell you that over the years I've been on the board of directors of Murray Hill and probably about a year after I was there I discovered I was going to put it in the shed and I wanted to know where the boundary was and I had to go on a quest where the boundary was and I was shocked to discover it was in the middle of the driveway so I've been trying for a number of years to find a solution to this buy the land swap the land so far nothing has ever happened so I've kind of given up on that but now going back to the first page if you look at that I could probably argue that I'm the one that originally proposed expanding lot one because I thought at the time that we talked about being able to do it a swap of land it was a quick administrative thing so if we expanded this lot I thought we could take a piece off of mine and give me a piece in the front and get rid of the easement on the driveway at the same time leave the swale out of the picture so this white dotted thing is kind of what I proposed mostly I just I don't know a legal way to say it but it seems to me to feel a lot with an easement in it and the blue line is the drainage swale roughly and have that right in the driveway no matter what you say or do that piece is going to be right there now the thing that seems so absurd to me is that right now all the boundaries are fungible you can move those boundaries anywhere you want that's what we're here to do I'm not necessarily objecting to lot one I don't like the idea that it's going to spoil my view on that side but that's not really the development you can't really help that but it seems to me that you can just slide that boundary over and make that lot in a nice clear line not give the next guy that buys that lot an easement and a ditch you could simply move that lot over a little bit make a nice clean lot and leave this little triangle as what? as some common land you've got lots of common land ditch run in there I think this would be a good maybe the next guy will actually be able to do something about that boundary and get that property line out of the middle of their driveway that's all I'd like you to consider is can't you just swing that whole lot over a little bit and take that headache away from everybody well thank you very much okay well thank you very much Mr. Barney I'm just as a note restricted as a board we don't get to redesign these plans it's certainly not a commentary either way we vote on whether or not a proposal like that is reasonable it's just that we don't have the power to say we have a power to say yes or no we can put conditions on an application but we really don't have the power to say move this lot over we can say this doesn't make sense the way it's drawn and I guess does the board think it makes sense to have a property line in the middle of a driveway I mean this easement was granted because the original builder of the house could not build a driveway they had to give them an easement so that they could do it so this kind of thing does happen if we were talking about the expansion going into your driveway we might have different questions part of it is that's the existing lot is where your driveway is and some would make the argument that actually an easement is better because you don't pay property taxes on it as you as you see from the second page what was a nice landscaped area is now a field of weeds right against my driveway I would much prefer to be able to make it look nice again like it used to but I would forbid it to do it one thing to consider and I don't mean this is anything other than just simply a spitball take from where I sit but certainly if this lot is sold to somebody it's not uncommon for neighbors to do boundary line adjustments and what the representation of the homeowners association is is that that land this area that you're focused on is not going to be developed so if down the road you wanted to take sort of full ownership of that and we're able to work something out with a neighbor to adjust the boundary line um that would seem to be would fall into something that you and a neighbor could work out as opposed to you and a homeowners association simply like I said a spitball take from from where I'm sitting not actual legal advice I just heard that you could maybe put a 10 feet from the boundary line so the new neighbor wants to put a shed right in the side of my driveway because that would be in a front yard setback and that's actually what the the applicant and this is unusual I think this is why it took us a back is that it's unusual for the applicant to say please make us more restrictive give us less than what we're entitled to and so that's what what they're saying is that we want those as setbacks meaning your neighbor down the line can't build anything except for that little square in the middle so if they do want to put a shed they're restricted by the permit that we're issuing tonight so it's just again I think it's just something to consider and like I said it's it's we're kind of handcuffed here a little bit in that if we were in a different situation it's certainly your arguments are grounded in reason but not necessarily what we have the power to or authority to deal with was there another yes Mr. Hahn you want to come on up to Mike introduce yourself state your address if I may before Charlie that's all right before Charlie speaks I just want to disclose that Charlie and I had a brief exchange about this application though we made a point of not getting into the substance of it instead I directed Charlie to speak with the zoning administrator and I pointed him toward the parts of the zoning that I believed we would be walking through so I just want to be fair about that and let everyone know that exchange took place if I wasn't supposed to do that I apologize like I'm on the restoration commission and it's a little a little different not that it's a little different style I didn't really oh Charlie it's no problem I'm just closing it everybody not to pick on you in any way no no no I've known Charlie well yeah so Charlie home I live at 282 Main Street that's a lot negative one it's not in the conservation field for what it's worth I work for the wetlands program and it's good that there's I don't have to worry about conflicts of interest because there's no wetland issues with this plot however I do having done a lot of work with different conservation and land management related things both here and in Vermont I'm kind of you know I know I'm not a legal expert I don't know what a Stowe Highlands test is I've been at Mount Hunger I don't know if that counts but like basically my understanding of the PUD is that it was an agreement made when the neighbors all got together I'm sure when they first built Murray Hill people bickered and fought over everything because it's Vermont and you know a change was happening I wasn't here so I didn't comment on that but you know this agreement was worked out with the community there's a tag on there that says common land then it might not say it has to be forest or it has to say meadow but this says common land and you know I've been around a lot of developers in California who are pretty aggressive and to be honest there they pretty much always win despite what they might tell you but I've never had actually and I appreciate New England honesty but honestly like saying that we should undo a community agreement for any reason because the landlord wants to make money out of it and this is not picking on the Senate bill I know they're just representatives and that don't even necessarily want to do this but like to have a conservation agreement or a planning agreement or whatever with the community is kind of a front almost to me to hear that like well you know all you have to do is say you want to make money by changing the rules and you know rules go out the window because I've certainly talked to my friends who live in the neighborhood and most people there thought the common land was part of an agreement I mean you know obviously the neighbors aren't all lawyers and they don't control that but I actually think it's a really concerning precedent because I know there's not that many PUDs here but there's sounds like there's PUDs all over Vermont and you know if we come out and Montpelier comes out and says alright well a PUD is used to plan how our development works unless someone wants to make money and then they can take their land and develop it you know and not have common land anymore I mean that's that goes far beyond like my view getting ugly or something this is like a big it could be a big precedent you know I don't really know but it's something that really concerns me especially as in a butter of this large four acre parcel and you know the Senacles probably I take them at their word they don't want to develop it you know I believe the HOA now doesn't want to develop it but we know HOAs have representatives that come and go you know in five years and we want to be there for the long run and you know I don't see any reason based on my experience with HOAs else we're not to believe that that whole field by the time I'm old we'll just and you know my daughter has grown up we'll just be concrete you know I and maybe at some point a line will be drawn but the line isn't being drawn now it won't be drawn in the next house it won't be drawn in the next house you know so I mean I think that's really concerning and I you know especially that you're not just it's not just an existing lot you can argue whether or not lot one was really a thing maybe it was but like and you could even argue that it's triangle that's a dumb shape making a better shape that's cool but like to say that it has to be point six point seven acres I mean like how many of you live on a lot bigger than that I mean to be fair I do but most of my pillar is on smaller lots than that and the idea that it has to be point six acres that's taken out of the existing common line to be put into this is you know I don't I don't really understand why that has to be the case so moving on yeah I read over the document that was written about this and a couple I just want to make a couple comments of that first of all the idea that there was a change in neighborhood character it appeared that the they were talking about the Murray Hill neighborhood and I agree it probably won't have much change in the character Murray Hill but in terms of Main Street it has a very big effect because this is not in the Murray Hill land that is extending way out into next to Main Street and most of you probably have been up there most of the Main Street houses are not like one of those suburban fields they're like more I don't even call it traditional Vermont small little houses along the road with maybe big areas of land behind them a stream tiny lawns you know our house is a little different but it's kind of the same we've been shrinking our lawn we've got you know one house it's you know I I don't think you can actually say that it's not going to change the character of the neighborhood to build a house a Murray Hill style house on Main Street this is not just Slander Murray Hill you know to each their own but like it is very different from what the neighborhood is down here and I think that it would make a lot more sense to have that house put within the core of the Murray Hill community instead of dangling down and I think you know I invite and yeah and follow the disclosure we'll make our view a lot a lot uglier because our house faces in that direction our giant picture window is in that direction the whole house was built around that field and so yeah it'll make me really sad I understand that's not really a concern of you know anyone else other than me and my kid you know well she doesn't care she'll probably be like ooh bulldozers you know cool but um you know and so I'll disclose that yeah I do care about that but that's not the main thing I'm you know talking about here that's it will have a big effect on the neighborhood and especially I don't think there's anything that can convince me if you approve this that other stuff would not get approved over the next 10 to 20 years because you know as he said maybe you should maybe the law is now less and build a thousand houses maybe he doesn't want to build a thousand houses but who knows you know maybe in 10 years the new HOA will want to build a thousand houses and then I'm like in you know whatever South Burlington or something that's not really what we were expecting about the hydric soils in the runoff it's not a wetland but it still has hydric soils um water isn't necessarily going to absorb very well in those hydric soils typically if someone is doing you know worried about storm water and this is an impaired brook in the watershed I realize the house is set a little ways away from the brook which is good um you can poke around our field and I've done a lot of that because I'm a wetland ecologist in some places you can dig a hole water just disappears other places um it won't you know after rain there's just water flowing down our hill because it's not very deep to the water table or the bedrock and so you know I would hope that someone has done like some percolation test at least digging a hole seeing if the water soaps in before you assume that that storm water won't impact the brook because if you don't know otherwise I'd assume it probably will because there's just not a lot of infiltration there but you know it's underground it's really hard to say same with the well I know one of the reasons that this lot wasn't pushed farther up Murray Hill is because the um well issues well Murray Hill's well has this big fat well protection area which is awesome you know water protection is great then you look at our well it's got nothing and I realize this is a few hundred feet away from our well but a disclosure I'm not you know a geologist but um bedrock in this part of Vermont runs from north to south and since north is higher up hill you know our well is not just drying from our field our well is drying from the north and that you can see that in the Murray Hill well area which goes way north and you know I kind of would hope someone could tell me why my family's water was less important to protect than Murray Hill's water and if that's not the case I would hope someone has at least done the research to determine that this wouldn't harm our well both in terms of them taking out water too or in terms of whatever fertilizer or pesticides or whatever they apply on their lawn you know I think I think it's important and I think there's other people on upper main street are closer to it than me so I you know I hope and I looked at the in our resource Atlas and I saw several wells within you know a couple hundred feet of that well and I don't know I mean maybe that's all been considered but I think it's something that needs to be documented and everything in terms of special natural features or whatever you know like I said last time in my great common it's not victory base in your Yellowstone it's a field that I've documented over 360 species using our field and you actually you know looking at the overall shape of the fields you couldn't choose the worst place to put a house in terms of affecting the habitat it actually because if you if you go and look that technically the common line goes farther south but there's a big fat mowed lawn with the Murray Hill sign around it but you know again that's fine but you will stagger across from that you will literally just cut that field off and then there's another landowner who has a big block of forest around the back all the way back to the cemetery that's no longer accessible to any of the animals as easily as it was before and I'm not going to lie you know the deer are still going to get in and eat my vegetables I mean if we're just the deer I'd be happy to have them like knock on our land but you know we're going to we've spent the whole four or five years we lived there restoring our you know trying to build a pollinator ecosystem and a native plant ecosystem and you know it is it's gonna it's gonna affect that I have no doubt of that you know as an ecologist and then yeah I just I just I think this is all stuff you consider I don't think that we should be removing conditions from our agreements that has been made with the community I realize a lot of people have just moved away or died but you know I hope when I die that the agreements we make in our community community we build it remains longer than myself so that my daughter and her kids if she has kids can come and say well you know like this is something my dad helped build and you know I think it's kind of sad that the community maybe it's too sappy but the community got together and made this agreement and then you know we're just gonna float it away and you know it's nothing against anyone else it's just it doesn't I don't it's not the way I think other people would it doesn't it doesn't seem right and it doesn't make me feel good about living in this community if our agreements aren't being held you know and maybe maybe the law supersedes maybe money supersedes our agreements you know not really what I was hoping to hear and you know I really would hope you consider moving a lot somewhere else that is a little you'd still lose common land but trying to make it a little more centralized this is not walkable this is not infill this is kind of sprawl out into some of the open space they're definitely we weren't considering other places to build it if you find something I definitely think it's a mistake to build this big giant lot and honestly I think you know if we want to talk about compromise you know maybe don't push the house back away from the road towards the field and our house at least say well if you're going to build it keep the level smaller push it up against the road so that the impact is more centralized towards the people who benefit from it which is the HOA who are selling it you know because it seems fair to me you know and yeah you know I'd like to see and I know you know I can't specifically speak for other landowners all the people I've talked to you know all feel at that field is something that's been conserved and if that's not conserved I think we're owed you know some communication I know they said they went out and talked to the landowners and again I'm not not picking on you two at all but like the only communication they got is we are building this house we are building it this way just deal with it there's been no attempt to be like hey can we try to adjust this somehow can we consider other sites can we talk about it it's just this is what we're doing and like it or leave it you know so you know I mean that's not the business of the planning commission but I'm you know I'm open to talk to my neighbors but I'm just yeah I'm hoping that we can get some clarity and that it's not going to be the next Walmart because right now I'm feeling like you know I can hear the McDonald's bells ringing or the Taco Bell bells I don't think there's any commercial development proposed in this application not in this one but if you decide the PUD can be denied because someone wants to make money then I don't I don't think we can look at those future applications based on this you can't look at it on precedent well no I mean it's it's not related I mean I think one of the problems in the argument that you're making is that there's distinctions to be made between applications and so I was just simply noting that you know this is a one unit boundary line adjustment and clarification on the common area designation I don't think it makes sense to say that the sky is falling can we talk about the sky not falling or do we just have to have the same meaning every five years until I am 80 it feels like a precedent is being set we're deciding that every time that HOA wants to make some money they can sell off potentially part of their company can I comment Dan Mr. Hone do you have any other comments no okay Mr. Wigelstone if you wouldn't mind going up to microphone so obviously Charlie has if you introduce yourself Eric Wigelstone I'm a resident Murray Hill as well as president of homeowners association obviously Charlie has his feelings he's throwing lots of accusations out there that don't seem to have substance he's even said so he's not a geologist whatever it may be I want to make it clear that this is not a money grab we didn't suddenly say hey let's make a new lot so we can make money this is a lot that has been approved how many years ago it exists we are just looking at the best interest of Murray Hill if we have the ability to develop one more lot we should have the right to look at that we're not carving out new land we're not going to add 10 more lots down the road even if I'm not sitting on the board or anybody here is not sitting on the board it's impossible for us to create more lots at Murray Hill number one our water capacity can't handle it we're not allowed, well it could handle it but we're not allowed to build any more based on the water capacity that we have now that's why we have to drill a new well to replace this lot it is a lot that was approved again I'm going to reiterate myself when this development first came about I just want to make that clear we suddenly need money let's sell a lot let's get as much money as possible without any consideration we might not even put it up for sale we feel that the best interest of Murray Hill at this time is to explore the option so we have asked them to apply on our behalf I'd just like to make that clear give it to Meredith she can and I just note that as I said before it's not really the job of the DRB to redesign applications we have to take them as they are and so to the extent that there's an idea that there might be a better place for this that's not really before us the question is is this fit within the regulations and laws that govern our zoning board can we approve this or not or can we approve it with some conditions and it will suffice and so it's often beguiling to think what could be better and that's great conversation to often have between neighbors between different groups it's just not anything that we as a DRB can necessarily entertain so it's we're limited to this just as if you were coming before us with an application any of you and I don't mean any one person you would have hopefully put some thought into it and to have us sort of sit here and speculate well what if you did this it would be a very frustrating process it would also I think go contrary to what our job is which is a bit more like an umpire in a baseball game to call the balls and strikes so I just want to keep us focused on what that necessarily is Kate did you have a point? Thank you Dan, if I may just add to that I have a concern about the impacts of incremental development bit by bit in general in Vermont I didn't hear that as an accusation but as an issue in general I totally hear you and that is a question we have faced on the DRB is if one lot is done in this spot and another is done how do we anticipate the others that are done but as Dan said we're bound by what the law allows us to glance at and evaluate at any one time certainly those questions of well what's next and how do those puzzle pieces fit together are valid questions they aren't questions we can answer with the pieces of paper in front of us but I just do want to acknowledge your concern about incremental development Do the PUD have any so who would I talk to if I had concerns about the PUD not being followed? Well I mean by not being followed I mean so the decision that we're going to make is whether or not to allow an amendment of the boundary line for lot one we've already determined the lot one exists as a separate lot and we already determined at a prior meeting that the language reserved for common land on lot one was not a critical condition to the issuance of the subdivision permit such that lot one could not be developed so now the question is we're going to answer the question of whether or not a boundary line adjustment that will then be part of the PUD Well first of all I wasn't allowed to give a comment during the first meeting even though I sat here for two hours I said something but I wasn't allowed to give an official comment on whether or not so I'm trying to address that now Sure if you have anything more to add please add it Charlie can you go up to the microphone I came to the other meeting and that whole thing was passed through as a land owner or as a citizen or as a person concerned about conservation even if I ignored this is meant as a personal accusation against Murray Hill Murray Hill is probably the best HOA I've encountered of all the stuff in California and stuff that just the fact is that if one HOA doesn't have to follow the PUD that they set out then it does matter and if not you then who do I turn to if I feel like a community agreement that has been set in a legal document or whatever it is Well one thing that I think it's important to keep in mind is that we're not saying that the PUD conditions don't have weight it's just that there are different conditions in different ways for example if a person applies for a restaurant and says I want as a condition that I can be open for lunch so we say okay they can be open for lunch and they want to come back and they want to change that and they say oh I do lunch and dinner now if there is a reason for having that lunch condition in there there may be a good reason to deny that dinner but if it was just simply in there to clarify when they were open in the first place then adding dinner is not causing any harm and that's what we did at the first meeting was really a determination of was this essential common land that when they approved this in 1983 this was an essential part of this PUD an essential part of the contract and the determination that we may at the end after the comments were taken was that it was not that's what the Stoke Club Highlands test is about is to say that there are certain essential conditions that are the basis for granting approval by an Act 250 commission by a development review board that are essential that if to change them you have to meet a high threshold and the determination last time was that wasn't what was going on here what was going on here was a little bit more of they offered it as the applicants themselves imposed it really not intended to create reliance in the town or in the community but just simply to clarify that for the time being this was a common use lot because they didn't intend to develop it and so it's hard and that's why I want to take your I take your comment seriously and that's why I'm trying to respond is to say this isn't I don't see this at least and the board voted last time that it didn't see this as an essential condition now other conditions on here as part of the PUD that was granted back in 1983 can't be revisited and that's why we took seriously the analysis about density because there was a density calculation that was done and we wanted to make sure that we weren't that we weren't allowing creeping development that just because the the infill that was created since then has changed that we weren't somehow short changing the intent of this this community and you know part of this is that this is a suburban like community it has a certain quality to its its lots in the way in which the driveway slow that as you point out is different from your neighborhood on Main Street so you know part of that is is what it is and we're trying to balance these various factors and as I understand the homeowners association wants this existing lot to be developed to add and the question that's before us is is there anything in the PUD that requires this condition and it's a two-step process the last step that we took was was it an essential condition and we ruled as a board no it was not an essential condition requiring elevated but part of what we've been taking evidence on tonight is whether or not even if we did lift this condition would it create a negative impact and I think your testimony has gone to that that certainly for your house there is a negative impact you've also talked now about the wildlife I actually had a follow-up question on the wildlife you said you said the deer probably won't be affected because they don't seem to be affected by much of anything but what kind of wildlife are we talking about that your purporting may be affected by this development I'm a botanist and so you can actually go on I will get to these literal weeds but you can go on iNaturalist and you can see a list of all the species I've documented if you're interested ask me later but we can't take evidence outside of the hearing so that's why I'm asking now everything from species of moths to plants that have come in on their own because they are dispersed by birds or by other animals we had a rare orchid pop up at one point in our tiny little wetland which is another one like if another well is drilled a little wetland dry up I don't know and it's not federally it doesn't have special status it's just cool and uncommon there's probably five species of goldenrod or something like that there's a lot of stuff none of it is an endangered species I value it I think a lot of these points are certainly something that the homeowners association should be considering for the remaining common land because as they testified before they have a big well area that they have to protect and those type of species might well get any protection off our land well that's a good question and that's an ongoing issue which is the well is we don't rule on well protection areas as a zoning matter we're charged with looking at making sure that a property isn't created that doesn't have access to water but the well shields are something that goes through the agency natural resources and in a case like this the answer is probably no that there's the well protection is there's a number of different issues and I can tell you that the Murray Hill people have had issues with their well protection area their secondary well protection area with the compost company uphill nor why but these are the constants push and pull because if you have a well shield area that goes beyond your boundaries there may be issues about protection of that well when your neighbors seek to develop but if your neighbors have a right to develop we're not well experts and we're not well shield experts it's not something that we can consider it's not something this board can consider it's not the Department of Environmental Conservation and it's not this board it doesn't lastly in terms of the PUD is there something other than the preferences of the HOA that would protect that land from being further developed by any sort so what I would probably recommend is if you're really serious about this you can certainly have a conversation with Meredith and review the PUD permit that was granted in 1983 and go through the various details because there are certain things that are in there that are affected but you know ultimately you may want to seek legal counsel as an abutting neighbor to figure out what exactly the status of such things as the common area that abuts your backyard is entitled to either through the various declarations of the homeowners association through the subdivision and PUD permits that were granted back in 1983 or any other types of environmental permit and it's not something we can necessarily answer with any definitive nature here because we haven't been asked to look at the larger common area what they've testified to is that these common areas were labeled as such these other common areas outside of lot one were labeled as such and that they find them important particularly the 12 acre one because of the well you know and they're in common ownership so it does you know it does raise those issues but I can't give you a definitive answer tonight so this isn't the group that keeps the HOA following the PUD we don't enforce no we are the group that keep well the zoning administrator is the one who does enforcement if they're violating their permit the zoning administrator does the first notice of violation and then it might come before us if there's a notice of violation that we have to enforce but there is no actual mechanism that protects my well or you know the land that keeps that land is let me see if I want to check with Meredith I think that usually the way that that would be implemented is if the zoning bylaw had a standard in it that said something like shall not the development or subdivision shall not have its impact on the access to water for surrounding properties and I don't think we have a drinking water access to a drinking water provision or standard in our zoning and so it would be the DEC permit that either the well drilling or that would probably look into that I'm afraid we don't have we don't have even a standard against which to evaluate that question though it's not a it's a reasonable question okay thanks was there any further testimony you wish to add I do want to very briefly to speak about the the issue of the impact neighborhood water supplies Murray Hill has a total of four drilled wells that it uses to find plan for everything else so this is the large matter there are four drilled wells we only draw water out of two of those wells we check the standard water levels in all four wells twice a year we have a hydro geologist that we then feed that information to our hydro geologist and he then does a report his last form was in 2016 and the wells are arranged so that between the well that we're talking about drilling down here and the wells up here one of the wells that isn't we don't pump water from so the data that we give him on static water level changes in that well which we call well number one enables him to assess whether we're having any drawdown impact and if we are what the extent of that drawdown impact is on the general aquifer curve not immediately adjacent to a well but some distance away such as where well number one is located his report in 2016 stated that there was you could discern drawdown in immediate proximity to the wells that are being pumped but that they recover when the pumps go on that well one which would be kind of the barometer on whether we're water supply a significant distance from where we're pumping would be affected is that there is no evidence at all of any change in the groundwater aquifer by the time you get from where we pump to where well number one is located and I say that for the point that we're talking about a well that would be utilizing somewhere between 3 and 400 gallons a day on peak days during the year that we're drawing we're talking about wells in Perry Hill that are drawing 10,500 gallons a day on average and around 14,000 gallons a day on peak days and yet we're having no effect on a well just south of that location so it's not it's not the simple statement of saying well my well is well and a well is going to be affected because someone is going to build a house and drill a well at it when the evidence in the immediate neighborhood could catch well all needed the extra time thank you I hope you're not paying them by the hour to catch these but it's not very stable so I wanted to make that point and as far as the protection of the homeowners association or the compliance with the PUD standards so the rules of the road were established in 1983 the association adopted a declaration of covenants conditions and restrictions and a set of bylaws and based on legal advice it was structured so that to make a change in the PUD it takes 67% of all of the owners at Murray Hill voting in agreement with the change before it could be before we could even seek permits so we went through that process this time and we had 60 votes cast 61 votes cast and one voted no the other 60 voted yes they wanted to make this change and lot one if there were to be a proposal to add an additional law we're talking about using an existing law for changing its shape if there were to be a proposal to add an existing law I cannot imagine people at Murray Hill ever agree that they would request but the new common interest ownership statute that was enacted a few years back by the Vermont legislature now has a standard that to add an additional law to an existing PUD it takes 100% of the owners agreeing to it I have spoken to the board of directors about this I am a big fan of that but Murray Hill is under the statute that allowed 67% to be the determining thing so I'm lobbying my board of directors at Murray Hill again but this is a great idea the board has the authority to amend its governing documents to make Murray Hill's PUD subject to the new common ownership statute which would mean it would take 100% of the people to change the PUD and I'm a big fan of that thank you very much Ken any further questions from the board I'll simply note that common land going forward there was a reason why this was granted with common land such excessive common land I'll just simply say we're not being asked to judge the greater common land we're very much focused on this specific application so that doesn't carry at least in my view any precedential value as far as what happens in the future unless anybody has any further yes the status of the Mike Patterson survey plot we weren't given a complete copy of that in the application so I just didn't know if you had a complete copy with you that we could look at or just glance at real quickly I may have copies of everything except full survey which is fun I just would ask that it be I know Meredith has one survey of the entire no just a survey of a lot what he's asking for because it says it's an excerpt he was wondering if Mike Patterson did a survey of the entire no no I'm just asking for he did a survey here to create a new lot line for the adjustment and there's a whole sheet with the notes in addition to not another sheet but the same sheet we just don't have it I'd be glad to give that to Meredith for the files I think I believe we transmitted it to her but maybe not well not only that but I think we'll have to have a mylar yeah we'll have to have a mylar with the boundary line adjustment right so that would be the site plan mylar this not necessarily it depends on different aspects of this right so it could be a mylar of this we can say what you want when the lot is approved then Mike Patterson finishes his work and then we do a mylar and then it gets recorded I guess my question is are we doing the final plot review on this or just site plan we're doing a final plan if there's if there's if there's something specific that you want to see um we don't always have a requirement that the full survey be shown obviously if there's a specific issue that would you're looking for oh no no I just you know I guess in my in my profession I'm always required to do so but I have not done any work in Montpelier I think a survey includes the title block the notes the stamp and I don't know I would be comfortable with if we're doing an adjustment and there's a final plot that it be submitted with the entire application maybe not now but making sure it has the legend on it right so the final has to have all of those things on it but we don't necessarily see an exact copy of that during this part of the application process in part because oftentimes that's generated as a result of what we put on as far as conditions are concerned so we're not approving final plot tonight well we're we may be talking about two different things we're not approving the final map we're not approving any condition we're approving the zoning the zoning application which is entitled pull out my notes of course I can't find them but we're approving which is called final plot final plan it's final plan once this aspect is dealt with and you've approved a final plan then they will submit a final plot to our office I'll then look at that and see if it's met all the conditions that everybody has agreed upon and I don't do the final approval actually Dan has to literally sign that plot and look at it as well and if there's issues where it doesn't comport there's something you know a legend missing something like that it doesn't get approved just the chair signs at the end we are approving the new lot and then as long as the new lot is depicted on the plot as far as this board's role this is all we will do so if there's information that you think is important that's not on what we have then we need to make sure that it's noted so that it is included on the final plot I think it's always reasonable to ask applicants to submit documents with titles and dates and legends and things like that to ensure that we don't just get a zoomed in part of a survey but instead see the context I would agree with that that was my own request I mean okay so Kevin would you want the board to entertain a motion to close the public hearing and to enter deliberative session I would enjoy such a motion if that's what you have just made second by Kevin I have some additional questions let's okay for the applicant yes for something that we went through pretty quickly but I want to make sure that I fully understand it in light of additional evidence that's been given and that has to do with a swale good description at the beginning thank you for the dimensions we've since learned from Mr. Hohn it relates to some questions I jotted down when you were first talking I'll try and keep it brief you said that the swale because of its dimensions spreads out the water instead of creating an erosive channel and so you suggested that suggested to me that the water flows away from the site but I also wondered if because it's hydric soils and because it is pretty broad doesn't the water infiltrate and is there a risk of being pretty soggy soils around where the house is going to be built you know the swale actually intercepts any water that is flowing towards the building site I understand that but does it not absorb the water and kind of put it into the ground all around well it's been there for 34 years and except after rainstorm you can walk on it pretty readily and I don't know Don Varney would know more than I do about it he lives next to it but I this year we've had a lot of hot weather but this year I've been I've walked it several times it has never shown any indication of moisture at all I guess that suggests to me that the water is absorbed into the ground and I just as we're doing our job is to make sure we approve a buildable site I want to make sure that the water interacting with that site does not render it unbuildable and there wasn't a chance to introduce this earlier I don't mean to be I'm not intending to throw out any sort of curveball I just want to understand what's have the waters behaving on the site the swale is intercepting water the land below it where I believe Don was excuse me Mr. Hone was referring to hydric soils but we had the wetlands biologists out there she did several auger testings and said this is really great soil are you sure you don't want to build an onsite sewer system so I'm not sure how I believed Mr. Hone works in the same division that Shannon Morrison who did the site inspection work so maybe they can have a conversation between her saying that the soils are good enough to put in the onsite sewer system and his indication that the soils are might be moist or have a moisture problem Mr. Varney if you have a elaborate if you wouldn't mind going to Mike sorry for the folks playing along at home I could elaborate on that swale, fire and in fact it is dry most of the time we have heavy rain it comes down goes under the road that's as well in times I've stood up to my ankles in the water rolling through but when I cross into my land first build of my land so it's collected in that fight goes under my land and comes out of the back of my land goes into the metal way down there so in that respect there would be no impact on that house all that water does flow down goes out into the field far below it might be what would concern him it's way down in the back of the field any other questions that helps me wrap my head around the water issues not having been to the site I had a thing that was a little bit of a yellow flag I wanted to make sure it was not going to cause problems in the future Mr. Hahn you had a comment I just wanted to say for the record that I'm in no way questioning anything that Shannon found at the site she has my full confidence all I was trying to say was that on our land I've observed which is on the same map soil complex I've observed that a lot of times the water doesn't readily soak in I haven't poked around a lot once in my business thank you very much so we have a motion by Kevin do we have a second second any further discussion hearing none all those in favor of the motion to close the evidence and to take the matter under deliberation in a deliberative session please raise your right hand passed thank you all very much for your time for your comments for your very thorough analysis from all sides of this we will issue a written decision following a deliberative session in a few days it usually takes our process to vet that around at least a week or two our other business our next regularly scheduled meeting is Tuesday September 4th 2018 7 p.m same time same channel and the city council chambers thank you all very much do we have a motion to adjourn into a deliberative session I just have one question before we go under our other business the last meeting we entered a deliberative session for 27th school street if I recall and the decision was going to be drafted I'm just looking for a status of that I circulated it did not arrive we've been having issues with their e-mail you know now that you mentioned that I probably should have checked spam mail or something like that but no I never saw it okay so yeah check should be here folder I didn't see it either I'm going to have to talk to tech because we had some bounced back and I got messages on that but then other e-mails didn't bounce back I'm glad I raised the issue thank you Kevin I'm going to talk to Seth yeah we did that last week I received it under an e-mail that said like test and then I should have sent a new you because you and Dan were the only ones that bounced back from that I got messages on so I re-sent it to both of you but I didn't get messages from anybody else interesting because I will tell you just as a matter of habit I will always respond even if just to say looks great thank you big meeting with Seth tomorrow morning okay so let's yeah let's have a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion that we adjourn into a deliberative session motion by Ryan second by Tom any further discussion hearing none all those in favor please raise your right hand we are adjourned thank you