 Good evening, everyone. I'm going to call this December 20th meeting of the Development Reboard to order. And thank you all for coming out this evening. And I will turn it over first to Meredith to review the meeting procedures, particularly the remote meeting procedures for this unique situation we are in. Yes, Kevin. Don't forget to introduce the members. Oh. Yes. So I'm going to introduce members of the board starting on my right. Hi there, Captain Burgess, DRB. Kevin O'Connell. Meredith Crandall, staff. And I'm Rob Goodwin, chair. And on the Zoom platform we have... I'm Joe Cairnan, DRB. Abby White, DRB. And Michael, Azure Track, DRB. Alrighty. Thank you. Go ahead, Meredith. Alrighty. So for everybody on Zoom, you're going to see a shared screen here. Hold on one second. There we go. And this is in part for anybody watching at home via Orca so that they can then log in and attend if they want to. And then also other people who might be attending via Zoom who aren't used to this setup yet. So if you are watching this meeting via Orca, you can participate in tonight's Development Review Board meeting using the Zoom platform. You can just log in using this link. Or you can call into the meeting using this phone number and meeting ID number. If you're trying to do so and you're having problems, please email me at mcrandall.ontpillier-vt.org. That email address is at the bottom of your screen. That will remain there while I go through the rest of these remote meeting procedures. For those attending via Zoom, turning on your video is optional. For everyone that's attending, please keep your microphone on mute when you're not speaking. This will reduce background noise. If you're on the phone via Zoom, you can use star six on your phone to mute or unmute. If you're on the Zoom platform, please use the chat function only for logistics or troubleshooting questions. Any questions or comments about content or actual items on the agenda, please raise your hand. If you're on Zoom and we can see you physically or in a break, if you're on the phone and you can also just state your name. I know right now we just have Susan on via phone, so we'll check in with you, Susan, because we know what items you're going to want to talk on. I'm going to skip over some of this stuff because we don't really have any just general members of the public. Everybody here is pretty much for an application or related to an application. In the event that I get noticed that the public is unable to access this meeting, that would be through my email. The meeting will need to be continued to a time and place certain. I'm going to hand this back over to Rob. Okay, so at this time I will entertain a motion for approval of the agenda. I believe there's one change here. So Kevin, do you have a motion? I will make the motion to approve the agenda for this evening with this modification. Item number 7, 1 North Franklin Street and item number 8, 25 Cliff Street be changed into reverse order so that Cliff Street is addressed before the Franklin Street application. Okay, we have a motion by Kevin. Is there a second? I'll second. This is Joe. Second by Joe. Okay, so we will call the roll to vote. Kevin, how do you vote? Yes. Michael? Yes. Joe? Yes. Abby? Yes. Catherine? Yes. And Rob, myself votes yes that is approved unanimously. Okay, so yes. Thank everyone for coming out tonight. We have two items on the agenda. The approval of the change here was just to accommodate somebody that could not make it this evening instrumental to the Cliff Street application. And I believe everyone has been formed of this change ahead of time. And so we'll very briefly take up the 25 Cliff Street application. Minutes first. Sorry, I think you have it in your packet but you can use mine. No. Sorry, I forgot about that part. I got it all up. I just don't have the minutes. That's the only thing I don't have. So I will entertain a motion for approval of the minutes from the December 6th meeting. And those eligible to vote are myself. Yes. I think that was a cough. Do we have enough people for it? We do. Okay, so you Catherine, Joe, Abby, Michael. Yes. You can't make a motion. Make a motion. The motion to approve. The motion to approve. You weren't there. Oh, you were. Sorry. Catherine has made a motion for the December 6th minutes approval. Is there a second? I'll second. This is Joe. Joe second from Joe. I'll call the roll. So Catherine, how do you vote? Yes. Joe, how do you vote? Yes. Abby. Yes. And Michael. Yes. And Rob, myself votes yes. That is approved unanimously. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. So at this time, we will move into the 25 Cliff Street application very briefly. And I would entertain a motion on this application. I don't think I said to them when we have to continue to. I haven't checked with them on the second date. Okay. So does the applicant have anything to say about this hearing? We have to continue this because we do not have a staff person available to review it. Is there a date certain at which you can do it? It does not appear that we are going to be able to take this up at the next DRB meeting. So is that, is Arthur on and Diane is it? Susan. Yeah. So can I, sorry, can I step in? Go ahead. So I conferred with the staff, Michael Miller for this. Or I've had an update on his situation and the third, January 3rd is not going to work. So the next possible date we'd be looking at is Tuesday, January 18th, this time seven o'clock. Would that be doable for you, Susan? Yes. Okay. And Arthur, would that be doable for you? I believe so. It's going to take me a minute to actually be able to answer that. Yes, go ahead and take a look. Yeah, I should be able to make that. Okay. Okay. Awesome. So it's January 18th? Yeah, Tuesday, January 18th, because the 17th is a holiday. All right. So I will entertain a motion to continue on Tuesday, January 18th, the 25th cliff street application. I'll make that motion. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay, we will have a second and a motion. We will call the roll. Kevin, how do you vote? Yes. Michael? Yes. Joe? Yes. Abby? Yes. Catherine? Yes. And Rob, myself votes yes. That is approved unanimously. Okay. Arthur, Susan, thank you for being on tonight. I appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. So our next item on the agenda for this evening is the One North Franklin Street application. Now, first thing we need to do is everyone that is planning on speaking on tonight's application. We need to swear you in as witnesses. So is there anybody on the Zoom platform that will be speaking on this application? Okay. So all those interested in providing testimony on this application, would you raise your right hand and to be sworn in as a witness? Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth under the pains and penalties of perjury? Alrighty. Thank you. So if one of you... Or two. Whoever is going to be actually representing the application in general could come up and sit in front of the laptop and then make sure that microphone is close to you. Yep. You're going to get the overview. Yeah, I can do, yeah, but just making sure that they're up there so they can respond to the microphone. Yep. I'll just still do the overview for sure. Okay. Would you just like to introduce yourself real quick? Yes. My name is Elaine Watson. I'm the president of the Sawmill Condo Association at One North Franklin. Thank you very much. Feel free to pull that microphone as close to you as you want so that it catches everything. Okay. Do you want me to just go ahead and say... Well, we're going to have Meredith's school to give a little brief overview of the application and then we'll sort of, you know, let you give your overview of what you submitted. I'll stick to mostly procedural stuff. Yeah. So, in the application, it's sort of a question about definitions. What's on the site at the Sawmill Condos right now? There's a garbage enclosure and really based on the way the terminology we have in our zoning regulations, the way I look at it is it's a fence for privacy to keep all the garbage in, you know, to contain that area. And the Condo Association wants to put a roof on it, which makes perfect sense. But once you put a roof on it, it's really not a fence anymore. Fences are accessory structures that do not have setbacks that can be right up to a boundary. Other accessory structures under section 3003 have modified setbacks that are a little different from like big buildings, but they still have setbacks. They can't be right up to the boundary. And this particular garbage enclosure is up against the front boundary line. And for front boundary lines, it really doesn't matter what what what structure it is. If it's not a fence, it really needs to meet the 10 foot front setback. And so I could have just had them apply for a permit and then denied it and had it come to the board on appeal. And that just seems too silly. So it's just come right to the board to figure out if they can see a solution that I can't so that they can put a roof on this without having to move the whole thing back nine to 10 feet from the front property boundary. There is an option in here for a waiver, but it's a 10% waiver to that front setback. So that would only get them to nine feet. And right now it's at between three and four feet from the front property boundary. If you say the front property boundary is the back of the sidewalk. So it's it's it's it's a little complicated. But on the other hand, it's it's really, you know, how does the board feel about the situation and how do they see it under the regs? Make sure you're by the microphone. Can't we simply grant a variance or a waiver? I mean, I think that I think that even if it's not explicitly in the in the ordinance, it's certainly implied and we could just so that would be so the waiver are much more specific since the 2018 regs. So the waiver wouldn't work. If the board felt that they could that this could meet all of the variance criteria. Then maybe the board can see it where I can't write, but we have something to go through and look at for sure. But I didn't have them pay the extra money to apply for that variance because I couldn't see it meeting the variance. But you guys can have them amend their application in the hearing if you want. If you see it. Well, I think before we get too much, we'd love to, you know, hear from the applicant, present your application and we'll have some questions. Oh, yeah, if you have additional pictures, feel free. The situation with the snow and ice. Right. We've got to fix that. Yeah. So what we have is we build this as a, I call it a structure. Make sure, make sure you're at the microphone. Otherwise the other board members can't hear you. Okay. Yes. We'll build this When I first became president, we had a dumpster in the middle of the parking lot and it was really ugly. Yeah. And so I suggested that we build a structure to contain the garbage containers. And so we did. And we didn't, I mean, I don't know if at that point we even knew we needed to get permission for that. You got a permit. Okay. We did get a permit. Okay. Thank you. We got a permit. Okay. So the reason I took this, it was good that today we've had the snow and you can see what our situation is in the winter. We have elderly people that live there, including me. And it is dangerous in the winter. Yeah. That's really evident. I mean, you know, I'm going off script here a little bit and I apologize, but this is something that's near and dear to my heart. You know, fall prevention is really important when people are aging. It makes the entire difference. I just hope we can find a solution here without too much hassle. Thank you. So that's what I did. We got letters of, I went and talked to all the neighbors that were, and they all support it. There's two letters that Meredith included in the packet. One is the condo association across the street. And the other one is our woman that lives on the corner of Cross Street and North Franklin Street. So she abuts our property. I went and talked, she was concerned because she shares, there's a fence between her place and ours. And so I went over and talked to her and told her exactly what it was about. And she said, oh, that's great. No problem. And so she said, I support you totally. And so I said, well, would you write a letter? So she did. And also, because I realized then that every ball of the neighbors had gotten, I talked to all the neighbors that they've gotten letters. And Donna Bate, who is the, who lives in the condo across that looks out at this structure, also wrote a letter of support. And I think one of her, one of her concerns is she's having to look at it ugly. If there's a roof there, it might be a little bit easier to look at. So I don't see a downside except for the fact that there's a, you know, there's this issue with the permit, the rules that we were actually trying to say, can we get approval to do this, even though there are, you know, it could be construed to be not in compliance, I guess. I'm just going to check and make sure Abby, Joe and Michael got my email. Abby, Joe, Michael, I just want to make sure that you all got the email I sent with the letters that Elaine has been referencing. I circulated that earlier this afternoon. Okay. Yes. Awesome. Thank you. So you have any, do you have anything more you want to have backstory or anything like that? We have Dan Wetmore is the person that would, You can go to the stand up mic if you want. Dan is, is the person that would build the roof. And so we asked him to be here and thank you, Dan, for coming. Sure. I just wanted to add one thing that is I, I was talking to you, Meredith, right? Probably down in the basement over there. One of the issues that you've brought up is that because it's so close to the sidewalk, the roof can't go past that side of it. So basically, if we project straight up along this side of it, that left side of the photo, then have it shed towards, towards the driveway. And just wanted to point out that that's, that's the design. We don't have, I don't have any sort of final design for this, because I'm not sure, I'm not sure what would happen, but, but that's what we would do. We'd have a shed towards. Go into our parking lot. They probably lose one parking space, which is better than losing two or three and, and building a big box somewhere else. I just actually, I had a couple of questions, maybe if you care. Yeah, I just, I don't know if you have a general, you know, idea of like how, how tall the roof would be above the fence or just a generally conceptual idea of like, you know, what the construction would look like. One of the issues of this is that it was built as a, it's, it's, it's just built along the grade of the ground. So the different walls of the fence or the structure are all, they're, they're parallel to each other, but they have a, they're not even across the top, if you know what I mean? So what I would have to do is, I would essentially have to like sister on new posts that would, it would travel up above this wall and then, and then whatever would be the normal, whatever would be a decent height for a tall person on the right hand side would be the minimum height over here. And then the, the, the, the top of the shed roof would, would, would have to be high enough so that that works over there. Again, I haven't designed it yet because it wasn't quite sure what was going to happen and things got put off. So, but it would be a simple shed roof. My idea is that it would be a simple shed roof that is essentially open. In other words, this fence here is the only fence that's there. Then the rest of it, there would, there would be some structure. There would be some, you know, some lumber that's going up that there's a, there'd be a frame that would be visible. Does that help? Yeah, it does help. So would this be like new posts like, or extensions of the existing posts in there on the ground? I would say that again. Would it be new posts, or would you just be, you know, extending from the existing fence posts? Oh, I would need to, I would need to add, I would need, I would attach new posts side by side to the existing posts. I'm not going to be digging down to, to found new posts, and I can't just add a new post to the top. I have to create a vertical structure that will hold together. It's a bit challenging, but it can be done. Okay. No, what, what is it? Pay, asphalt pavement under there or gravel or? Yes, asphalt. Passful. I think that, that's all I had. Board members, have any other questions at this time? Not at this time. Yeah. I actually have a quick question. Currently the situation, I see this picture on the front of the staff report. That's the existing situation out there. But that's that door on the front. So the other picture I saw a couple of dumpsters. Are there still dumpsters in there? Large dumpsters that need to be picked up? No. No, there, there are big, there, what do I say? Rolling bins? There are bins. Yeah. Okay. All right. There's no dumpsters. Yep. The, Joe, the picture in the staff report with dumpsters was to show what was there before the enclosure was put in place. Because I was going through the history. So that was pre, yeah, pre application to even have the enclosure. And then they built the enclosure and now we're talking about changing the enclosure. Okay. So the truck pulls up, the guy gets out, he pulls the bins out, they get loaded into the garbage truck and then replaced. Okay. I understand. Thank you. Do you have any specificity or sort of guidance or requirements from the trash pickup company as to where this needs to be located or? It, I mean, Dave have not, we've been using them Cassella for years and it works for them. I'm sure it'll be a lot easier for them not have to go into what you're seeing starting for the winter, you know, which they've done every year without complaint, surprisingly. I think the reason we're bringing it up is because as we, as we age and as we have more elderly people in our, in our community, it's not, it's just not safe. It's not safe. I'll do any circumstance. Okay. Kevin, do you want, do you want to jump in and take the lead on anything? Or should I just charge forward? No, I just go, go ahead. I'll back you up a hundred percent. Okay. So I think as discussed with Meredith, I mean, there's a couple directions we could, you know, go with this. I mean, there's one where we could do a waiver or you could request, you know, a waiver. And I think that, you know, if we went that route, the board might be willing to sort of amend the application for that request, you know, here, hold on. Sorry. The waiver or the variance? The waiver is the one where it has to be set back. Yes. At least nine feet. Yes. Okay. Yes, make it sure. And so as she, you know, explained, we're only allowed to grant a waiver, you know, 10 percent. So it's a 10 foot, 10 foot. I guess I don't understand that. So it's a 10 foot setback. We're allowed to basically reduce that to nine, to nine feet under the waiver criteria. Which, you know, I don't know exactly how far this, you know, well structure is, you know, from the setback line or whatnot. Maybe that's something you guys have to figure out. But so that's a direction that we could, we could go first is exploring that option. Okay. That would mean they're moving the whole thing probably. Probably. Because it's right now, it's between three and four feet from the back of the sidewalk. Right. And that's what we are trying to avoid because of the prohibitive cost of doing that. And losing more. And to my, to my colleagues here, I would, I just have to say, I mean, I know that this is stretching the envelope or stretching the envelope a little bit, but, you know, winter's coming and we have a bunch of elderly folks that have to get to the place to do the recycling. I don't think they can hear you. Yeah. Just be clear. Yeah. To do their recycling and we can't have people falling down, breaking hips and you know, collar bones and such, which is what happens. So what I'm hearing from you is that, you know, if, if you had a nine foot, you know, setback based on the information you have your understanding, you know, Meredith said that, you know, it's three to four feet from the, you know, the edge of, edge of sidewalk. If you had to have that fence nine feet from the front property line or wherever that front setback falls, you would have to move. We would have to physically move it. Move the whole thing and at a prohibitive cost. Right, right. It can't just be moved. It would be completely, it would be a totally new construction. Right. Right. Thank you. Okay. Make sure, make sure you get the mic from point of view. This is Cynthia Gothier. If we had to move it, would we be able to have a parking space on the side where it is now? Oh, because otherwise we'd lose parking spaces and we, we really don't have parking spaces enough as it is. But I'm seeing a nod here from Meredith that the parking spaces, there's no setback. So yeah, parking spaces can be right. I mean, you would still want that like two feet between the back of the, you know, where you have your flower bed would probably still need to be there because DPW needs that room to pile the snow when they plow. But parking spaces need to be eight and a half feet wide. So you would be able to shimmy a parking space in there, I think, as long as it fit in your measurements. So, so that's, that is an option and a way that the board could approve this, but it would entail you having to move the whole thing, which wouldn't happen this winter because you'd have to dig in new supports. Right. But also be a whole new process, right? Not necessarily, as long as what was built was consistent with what the board approved, but that would be a possibility to get a permit to say, yes, you can do this. If you have to move the whole thing over, right? And then we would just need a final site plan from you here in our office, not visiting the board again. That would be super expensive. Right, right. No, no, no, and this is just to step in on process here. It's important that the board goes through the different analyses in here on the record and gets information from you so that they can figure out how to make a decision. So I'm just trying to sort of weed out, figure out what direction we can go in because it doesn't appear that us going through the waiver process would really benefit you if that would result in you having to move the structure. So I think that we are moving on to maybe another avenue to explore here. So I guess what we are asking permission to do is build a roof where it is that's our goal. And so I guess the path forward, we would have to explore the idea of some type of variance here. So Meredith, can you read us the variance criteria? Yep, not a problem. All right, so in figure 4-04, this is in section 4603 of the zoning regulations, there are six general variance criteria that have to be met for the board to approve a variance. And a couple of these I might paraphrase when I can skip some stuff that doesn't apply here. So first criteria that there are unique physical circumstances or conditions including irregularity, narrowness or shallowness of partial size or shape or other physical conditions peculiar to that particular property and the unnecessary hardship is due to these conditions and not the circumstances or conditions generally created by the bylaw and the neighborhood or district. Two, because of these physical circumstances or conditions, there is no possibility that the property can be developed in strict conformance with the provisions of the bylaw and that the authorization of a variance is therefore necessary to enable the reasonable use of the property. Three, unnecessary hardship has not been created by the applicant. Four, the variance if authorized shall not alter the essential character of the neighborhood or district in which the property is located substantially or permanently impaired the lawful use or development of adjacent property, reduce access to renewable energy resources or be detrimental to the public welfare. And five, the applicant is proposing the least deviation possible from these regulations that shall afford relief. So there was five with one of them having subparts. Do you have those up on your screen, Rob, so that you can? I can't. I don't log into the Zoom. Oh, do you want me to show? No, no, I just didn't. You had them up, but I can share them. Give me a second and I can share them. Let me just pull them up on my thing so that the board members can see them. You guys, you can chat while I'm pulling that. So that was a lot of words. Yes, sorry to get it in the record. Right. And so I mean, this is kind of where it makes such a hard job difficult. Yes, go ahead, Kevin. Well, I guess this is more a question to Meredith. Can we modify the appellant's request to include a variant? We've done this in the last three years, where the applicant has come before and the board basically goes through and gets rid of all the other options, but there's a variance that could be done. The board has done this before. I remember explicitly Dan Richardson doing this at least once or twice. Let's get that size 8 shoe into the 7 foot size 7 shoe. If we're going to go with a route of experience, I mean, we're going to need to have you officially request a variant. So would you like to this evening explore the avenue of requesting a variance from this board? If that will allow us to put the roof on the structure where it is, yes. Well, we have no guarantees that that's the outcome of the process, but I think as the chair, that's the closest that we think we can get to maybe getting there. But the ordinance is not clear on this. The ordinance is not clear on this, and so we're trying to bend things to make them fit. But you still need to get at least four board members agreeing and voting in favor of what's going to happen, but we're trying to find a path forward. So for board members at home, and you can see it up here too, the general variance column, so criteria is one through five are what need to be met. And to me, some of these seem clear yeses, but some of them, it's going to be up to the board to figure it out. Okay. Well, I think we just start with number one, and we'll discuss it and see if it fits, and then we can go on to the next one. So I'll just read it again to help myself anyway. There are unique physical circumstances or conditions, including irregularity, narrowness, or shallowness of parcel size or shape, or exceptional topographical or other physical conditions, peculiar to the particular property, and that unnecessarily hardship due to these conditions are not the circumstances or conditions generally created by the provisions of the bylaw in the neighborhood or district in which the property is located. So when I read this, my take is that this is more for a variance from not instances related to maybe this situation, maybe board members have other take on this, number one. Yes, can make sure the microphone's in front of you. It'll help the people on Zoom as well as the minute taker. Okay. So it does seem to me that the situation, why we have the trash area where it is, is because of the physical condition of the shape of the land. So, you know, it's a long thin piece of property, and we have the parking spaces on the left as you go in, and then the condos are on the right. And as you go toward the back, the parking area gets more and more narrow. So there really isn't another place we could put the trash other than that spot. So if that's at all what that's implying, which I think it might be, it seems like that could be a yes. So remember if there's, do I have an image of the full parcel in the staff report? I think you do. Yes. From above an aerial view? Yeah, I think there was. Yeah. Well, I know that we don't know. Maybe in the landscaping? Yeah. If you go to the landscaping, so page 13 of the staff report, you can see how the parcel and the parking area narrows to the back, and how it would be difficult for a trash truck or garbage truck to get back in there to get to stuff and be able to maneuver. Yeah, it makes sense to me. I'm okay with number one. Any board members have any comment? I'm good with number one as well. Yeah. I mean, I think that the circumstances are such that we can use number one in this particular instance. Does anyone want to take the lead on number two? I think my read of number two is the key point here in my opinion is the reasonable use of the property. And I think the reasonable use of the properties you're seeking a safer environment for people to get to and from the trash. And so it's, you know, I see this as two as being, you know, aligned with what you'd need to achieve both challenge and checklist. I would second those comments. And Rob, if it's okay with you, I'll take on number three. Yes, please. And unnecessary hardship has not been created by the appellant. And clearly that's, you have not gone out there and created ahead of this situation. And so, yeah, this is that would not be a necessary hardship has not been created by you. Do you have, you guys can see this right here. Do you have any comments on two and two and three? You have not created that. Well, the unnecessary hardship is that if we have to do that, then that's, that's not to me because of the cost. I'm thinking your safety is more important than the cost. Safety is the biggest reason that I care about it. But if, if we have to move it, it's, you know, the others. But the safety, the safety is the main concern. The safety is definitely the concern. Yeah. Well, I don't know if unnecessary hardship is, is this intended to only refer to the property owner or also to Jason, I think you have the letter of support from your neighbor as well, saying that this addition of the structure is in fact an improvement for them. Yeah. It's that, that comment helps. No. Okay. So, number four. Variants of authorized shall not alter the essential character of the neighborhood or district in which the property is located substantially or permanently impaired. The lawful use or development of adjacent property reduce access to renewable energy resources or be detrimental to the public welfare. Any thoughts? Seems like this one kind of speaks for itself. And I would, I would agree. It's not going to change the character of the neighborhood. And if anything, it'll, it'll improve the, the presentation at one Franklin. No. There are any other like performing structures we know of that are, you know, set back on Franklin Street? Not sure. The thing is what, even though I'm saying this is changing it from a, a, a structure that has a different type of setback requirement, it's not like they're building something new. Right. Right. So I don't know is looking at other structures on the street is really going to, that that really matters so much. I mean, it's that we have clearly have support from the neighbors. Sure. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, sure, sure. Well, I think I will add, I just know that, you know, previous applications we have identified, maybe not on this street, but in this neighborhood that there are certainly, you know, buildings that are, you know, non conforming when it comes to the front yard, you know, setback. And so I would check that in the box of, you know, not altering the essential character of the neighborhood. I don't know that. You look at the most of the, most of the architecture down there is, was certainly built before the zoning regulation was in effect in 1971. So, you know, there's a lot of non conformity over those older buildings. Yeah. All right. So we have to meet all the criteria. I believe we've gone through, early through four of the five criteria. So the fifth is the applicant is proposing the least deviation possible from these regulations that she'll afford relief. I guess maybe I would pose this as a question, you know, do you see any other other ways at which you could fix this? And this is, this is the solution that we felt was the most affordable and also the one that's going to be most effective and not change the, really the nature very much of the appearance. Yeah. And I think when Dan spoke to, you know, we're not talking about putting like a big shed roof or closing it in or anything. It's just only as high as it needs to be to provide the slope for the snow to come off into the parking lot and still be able to walk in there. So it's just as, as small as it can be to do, to serve the purpose that we're hoping to provide is the safety. And there's plenty of air circulation. Good idea. We actually looked into getting, building a structure, I mean, not, you know, buying a structure that, and then we realized, wait, you know, there's going to be garbage in here. So there's reason to have it very aerated. Yeah. I mean, I guess one aspect of this is to make sure we sort of, you know, dig in is that, so the existing fence, you know, it's a pre-existing non-conformity when it comes to the height. I believe that that's in the staff report. Everyone see that? What page that is or what's the height of the existing fence? Is it like seven feet? Six feet. Six feet. Six feet, but the front yard under the current rigs, it's 4.5. But the structure, right? The roof has a 35 foot max height. Sure. Just, just if you're starting to go to the height. Sure. No, I mean, I think what I was getting at is that, you know, is there an angle here where we can maybe reduce the non-conformity of the fence, build, you know, build a roof and whatnot. I'm just throwing it out there for a discussion to, you know, an analysis here that, you know, I think that the fence can be, what, four and a half feet, but it's the same 10% waiver. Is that right, Meredith? Um, yep, that's right. Now, just, uh, hold on, hold on. Yeah, because it's the side and rear yard fences where the board has greater discretion for taller fence. Um, that front yard fence back is usually your fence max height is yeah, four and a half feet. And then theoretically, you could maybe use the 10% waiver. Yeah. I guess because fences are mentioned in 3003. Right. So like five, a five foot would be. Yeah. We've talked, we've dealt with that before. It's just under five feet. Well, and I, and so, I mean, just to talk a little bit, I think that the reason behind that was, you know, was sight lines on the, on the road. And so is, is there a driveway like just on the, what would be the north side of the? There's, there's a hedge. I mean, there's quite a bit, there is a driveway on the right past us. Right. Yeah. I, and, and I've talked to those neighbors. Yeah. And they're making those. You didn't see the edge? This is the, this is a large secret edge, but it separates us from the neighbors. The, actually, the cedar goes kind of right. So it, I don't have to say this, but it's, it's, you know, they're, they're really, they're close. It's in the boat. Yeah. It's in the cedar comes in at the, at the right of the side. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. On the front of the staff report. Yeah. You can see this ahead. Oh yeah. I mean, I think my only, my only concern of the existing is, you know, is, you know, it's potentially a sight line, you know, for that, for that driveway and, you know, safety of pulling, you know, pulling out in the fence in the way. But I'm just throwing that out there for, for discussion. Not that I, that matters or feel either way. So four members have any thoughts on that? It's not really. Yeah. No, I think with the sidewalk and then also the, that planted area there, there's plenty of room for a car to pull forward and see around just about anything that's put there. Yeah, you're right. It's, there's no problem. The way the garden is there, the sidewalk, the little garden, you can easily see up north of North Franklin. Plus there will be some structure obviously to hold the roof up, but they're mostly going to be some, you know, vertical four by fours on either end of that wall and something in the middle. There won't be a lot of extra wood there to block view. There will be some, there wouldn't be a lot. It wouldn't be a wall there. The height of the, the height of the fence would, would be the same. Okay. Well, I guess you all do a straw poll here. We've gone through the five criteria. Do board members feel that the testimony we've had discussing these five constitutes an application for a variance, you know, pertinent to the proposed project? Not saying whether we approve it, but do we feel that we have complete information for it to constitute a request for a variance from the applicant for this project? I think we have as much information as the applicant can possibly give us. And we are now tasked with looking at that need against our ordinance and seeing what we can do. And as you say, Rob, we can't in advance saying, say it's approved, we have to go through this process in order to make it in order to validate the process. I'll just make a general comment. I'm a newer member of the board. I think much of the criteria is, you know, it's broad. It's open to interpretation by the board members. But if we're ever discussing a criteria, I think the key point today is safety in hazardous water events. And it would be great if that was addressed more specifically, too. I think that would be, if there were to be a revision here to criteria, I think that's a worthy additional criteria point. So it's easy to read that in from these more general criteria. Absolutely. Yeah, I think, I think Catherine's comments are spot on and we should move forward. I'm not seeing anything from anybody zoom. Okay. I guess maybe just out of out of interest, one, one last question. How many of the units are like ADA accessible? Any of them in your condo complex? All of them? Well, no, we have some that are. Yeah, yeah. I don't think any right now. So I guess what do you? Well, I mean, maybe not handicap accessible, but, you know, accessible to an elderly person where it's, you know, no steps maybe, you know, going into the building one level or whatnot. The condos are each two story. There's a very small step from the driveway up to each thing has about a 10 foot long or eight foot long walkway to the front door. And then you just step, you know, six feet from six inches into the house. So it's definitely not, it's for old people. So we're all getting old now. And some of them you go right in and then you're into the hallway into your kitchen living room. Some steps down, like two steps down to go in because of the way the land is. So like numbers 13 and 14 at the far end, you just walk in and you're right in. Fine. And yours when we go in, you have two steps down to get to your living room kitchen area. But there are none of them that are ADA accessible. But you've had a number of elderly people living in these units over the years that need to access these trash receptacles. I don't know what elderly is. Yeah, it gets later every year. Meredith, what are we missing here? If everybody else is good with the variance discussion and other things, the only thing I would need the board to make sure they don't have questions on is the whole landscaping question. I tried to parse it out to, I think there's enough here, given what the application is for. But I took a little bit of a little, I don't know, I used a little bit of my discretion, which I'm not really supposed to have on how I'm applying the total site landscaping. Because I didn't, I have some authority to wave in some instances, certain application requirements, right? So pieces of paper that get submitted with the application. So I did not require a full landscaping plan for this application. Because the information I was able to pull seem to show that they had, you know, at least very, very close to the total light site landscaping requirements, especially given that they're not proposing to change the total impervious cover. And there's not really room to add more landscaping on this parcel. But the board would really need to back that conclusion up. So if you feel good with what's in what I've pulled together in the staff report, then great. But if you have questions on that for the applicant, or if you want to explore the potential condition options as to whether or not you would want them to submit a full landscaping plan ahead of the permit. If you were to grant a permit, you know, there's just a little bit there to maybe just make sure you look at and see if you have any questions on. I just had a question about when you say landscaping, are you talking about like that we have a small garden in front of it? Is that what you're talking about? So well, it's really everything. So when the regulations were rewritten in 2018, they took a look at landscaping as trees, shrubs, perennial gardens, you know, all of that and and had a new calculation for how much planted area should be on every parcel, depending on how much impervious cover, right? How much asphalt gravel buildings are on a parcel. And so the more impervious cover you have, the more landscaping you should have to soften it and to, you know, keep things cool, screen it, all of it all together. And so I tried to pull from Google images and everything, get a count of the different, the heads you have, the different trees that are on the property, things like that and tried to come up with a calculation to see where it would lie. And it looks really close to meeting this total site landscaping requirement. It wasn't, you know, I didn't go out and actually count everything and measure everything for height to figure out if it was a tall or a medium or a small tree, but it did a guess, educated guess on it. So that's just it's one of those requirements that comes into play every time somebody is making a change to the site when it's something that's more than just a single or two family home on a parcel. But when your condominium development was created, it didn't have to meet these standards, right? So this is really the first time you've come back since we've had these standards that we've had to look at them. And we have quite, we have a very, I don't know if you went and looked, but there's there's some, we have a lot of gardening. Yeah, well, that's the I pulled in here into the staff report that you have, I mean, you have the gardens out on across street. And then we also have a large garden and on we there were we had two real very large trees that were in the front on on North Franklin that we were getting dangerously large. We cut those down, but we replace them with other trees that would not grow as large. And I am a passionate gardener and I have done lots of gardening. Yeah. So I tried to pull everything like that that I could into it. So it's just something where the board has to figure out because it's also, you're not building a new structure, right? Not really kind of, but you're not adding to the impervious cover. So my question is, I've seen the, seen the pictures that our staff report indicates that your landscaping is, is probably better than many other similar properties, you know, in Montpelier. Would you be amenable to a condition, you know, of the sense that sort of required you to keep it maintained to that, you know, to that level? We do. We do. That's what we do. Yeah. That would just be a condition within the. Oh, yes. Because we're not going to not do that. So it might be might be have a actual landscaping plan filed with so for future zoning permits. We actually have that on record or just because I don't know, I understand what you're saying. I would, I would say we could condition it so that the plan could be submitted post construction to give you folks some time to put it together and not requiring the services of the license. Yeah. Just just so you just would, you would want a just a drawing of the landscape both in the front and the back of what's there. Yeah. I'd be happy to do that. Yeah. What I like to say this, we love colored pencils and eight and a half by 11 people and show us where things are. We have lots of photos too. So so, so when do, when do you want that? Well, you'll, well, well, you find out if the whole thing is actually approved first, which I'm guessing will probably be a deliberative session. Yeah, we will. Every application, you know, in this format, we've sort of discussed after we're in a deliberative session. So we will, you know, discuss and know what you want. That's a COVID response where we're working under COVID rules. And so everything gets adjourned to the special session, whereas in before times and hopefully in the times to come, we would make those decisions tonight. Otherwise. I'm just wondering, are we at a point where we're going to tell us our next steps? We'll, we'll get there. We've got to get there. I'll just do one more. Board members have any other questions or a motion or a comment or anything? I guess I would give you a few minutes to if you have any closing remarks or whatnot. So this is a really nice conversation. We'll take that. We're going to take and develop in this room. Yes. And, and the fact that the landscaping part came up is extremely important to us. More so than most any other condo association I can imagine. But that yeah, it's a safety that that's the thing that's driving us crazy. And so we're getting older. And it's, I worry about just even any time falling, you know, but especially with with the ice and snow there. And I'm not the oldest person there. Mr. Chair, I would make the motion to close the public hearing on one Franklin's North Franklin Street and adjourn to deliberative session at the end of our meeting this evening. Motion by Kevin. Second by Joe. Second by Joe. And all right, we will go for the vote. So I get my list up here. Kevin, how do you vote? Yes. Michael. Yes. Joe. Yes. Abby. Yes. Catherine. Yes. And myself Rob votes. Yes, that motion is approved unanimously. And we will take this up at the deliberative session at the end of our regular meeting. So the next regularly scheduled meeting we have of the DRB is on January 3rd. Nope. We don't have an application for January 3rd, but we weren't aware of that until Friday. So our next meeting will actually be Tuesday, January 18th. Oh, perfect. Great. Well, we thank you very much for coming out this evening. And is there anything else you need from us? Or we just wait to hear what your decision is. Meredith can brief you on the exact timeline of when you'll get a decision. Just one second. I've got to send something else. So the chances, the deliberative session is going to happen right after this meeting. And chances are good, there'll be a vote. I'll be in touch. But the actual decision will be a written decision that I'll need to come out. So there'll be some time on that, especially with the holidays, but we will do our best to get it to you as soon as possible, but you will hear from me verbally as soon as I can, just so you have a sense of what to expect. And then obviously we're not going to do anything until the spring. We can't do anything until the spring. So you can't dig holes here to put the roof up. He doesn't need to take holes. I know nothing about construction. You get that covered as fast as you can. Just gardening. Well, so after a decision comes out, there's a 30-day appeal period after that, but nobody has been here to contest it. So I'll talk to you, but it's unlikely that there would be anybody who would appeal. Thank you so much for hearing us out. Take care. Thank you. Good luck. Have a lovely night. We've already talked about... Was it to adjourn? Yeah, and I just sent out the deliberative session link to everybody who's on via Zoom. Good night. Thank you. Yeah, no other business. Okay, so then I'll make a motion to adjourn for this evening. Second. We have a motion by Kevin and a second by Catherine. Kevin, how do you vote? Yes. Michael. Yes. Joe. Yes. Abby. Yes. Catherine. Yes. Robb votes yes. We are adjourned unanimously. All right. Check your email if it hasn't come in yet, but you should get the link to the deliberative session and we'll see you there.