 Oh, I started one there. What are you asking for? Email and phone number? Email and phone number option. We'd just like to know who's here. So welcome. Thank you all for... Welcome. I'll call this meeting to order in a few minutes after 7 o'clock. This is a public hearing of the Middlesex Planning Commission on our draft of the town plan. The draft is dated May 15th, 2019. There's a hard copy there. There's electronic copies available on the Middlesex website. Thank you all for coming. We're here to listen to what you all have to say. The town plan is the plan for the entire town of Middlesex, and it's great to have input from as many folks and hear what people think about the work we've done so far. We've been working on this plan for a number of months, and it was a fairly quick process based on the information that came out of what's next Middlesex that happened in the fall this past year, and also sort of building on what was already in our town plan. The town plan for many years, but the town plan had expired, and without a valid active town plan, you can't apply for grants, you can't change your zoning, there's a lot of things you really can't do, so it was pretty important that we get a new town plan in place and move forward. It can always be amended, and that's something we can do going forward. So we're here mostly to hear from you. I'm Sandy Levine. I'm the chair of the Middlesex Planning Commission, and I'll have the other Planning Commission members introduce themselves. I live on South Bear Swamp Road. My name is Mitch Oczewski. I'm on the Planning Commission. I'm also the zoning administrator at the French Road. I'm D.O. Kennedy. I'm on the Planning Commission. I live on Shady Realwood. My name's Gartner. I'm also on the Planning Commission, and I'm Culver Kilmer. I'm the Galvinian Planning Commission, Mr. Senator Rowe. Do you all want to introduce yourselves? If it's a small enough group, do you mind? I'm from the Allegra. I live upon the General. I'm from the General Stanley Springer. I live locally. I grew up locally, and frankly, I'm here, you could say, of just latent flat-out self-interest, because my family has a dairy farm of 200 acres of land. And farming's going through transition, and I had a couple of thoughts that I wanted to sort of run by the Planning Commission to see how it would fit in with my vision for town. I'm George Monner. I live on East Toll Road. I'm on the Conservation Commission. I live on my culture. I live on Follahill Road. I'm Michael Levine. I'm on South Coast. And I brought some snacks. Feel free to get up whenever you want and help yourself. So as I said, we're here to listen. So thoughts, input, any ideas? Welcome. A couple of comments. Most of them related to the conservation. I'm page 39, and I just want to thank you. It's a great and impressive feat to follow. On the town forest portion, which is on page 39, you mentioned that the town forest stewardship committee does the work on the town forest. Actually, it'd be better to say the conservation commission now that David only worked. There are two remaining members of the forest stewardship committee. They're the same people as the conservation committee. Okay. But it's going well. You might, I don't know if you mentioned it, that there are the trails. We're going after the one, YCC, these conservation programs to go to trails on the town forest. And it also has a cabin. We have no idea what to do. A what? A cabin. There's a cabin up there. Oh, a cabin. I think he said a cavern. A cabin. Sorry. Some of you built a cabin and we're trying to figure out if there's anything to do with doing that. A cabin. Okay. Is that one cabin or two cabins? There are two. The owner, the former owner, who has a 99 year old. I don't know if you mentioned the forest at the ashore. That's something to think about. And the conservation commission is doing an ashore just along the town road. Can't possibly enter the ashore. But it's going into the town forest. So the thought is there what to mention that that's an impact that we should be mindful of and recognize the conservation commission is doing a survey? Is aware of that. The trees have to be cut down on the waterways. I thought that was a good exception. It's on page 42. I don't know if you've noted though that the town just between the trees and the headwaters, the current piracy and the mardons, that's an impact to the select board in the country. So the water quality of those trees is not a problem. You might mention in Martinsburg, I was shady real, there are two water quality problems that we're getting grants to fix. I think of a full bank. The Gnuski River contribution was to fix it. As long as it crosses the school, you can't see it. There's something about the grain of the road in the street. And the other grant is for Shady Road 5. To move the, as you stand there, to move the picnic tables back away from the street. There's a lot of them. And are those things that are ongoing now? Those are ongoing now. They're working on the start and how they're happening next year. I'm sure it's going to be a little bit of a while. That's a lot of work because it's not a town, it's not part of rights for conservation. It's not a city, it's part of the agency of Nashville. Quick fact, the Army Corps of Engineers created that back when the Riceville Reservoir was built. And it was sort of designed as a flood spillway. And the, basically the, I think it was the Corps of Engineers when they built it, the state was required to maintain that in perpetuity. And a couple of times they've tried to stop doing that, but Colin O'Neill keeps finding the documents saying that they're going to keep taking care of it. So they're still taking care of it. It's almost wrong. It doesn't seem to be a good enough, but the town actually approved 5,000 dollars and then the state was out of it. Anyhow, that's going to be upgraded. I thought the energy section was good. You might know that the town passed that resolution, the town was controversial, but passed by only one. Non-binding. Toothless. The two big energy uses. The Hill Sands are the two big leaders. They're high-eighty-mall in the whole community. And the other comment was on the Village District. We talked about this in consultation. Putnamville is really different from this one. A good convention that needs to be addressed, but there's not really any specifics. I think the residents there should not. I've heard from residents of Putnamville. And they said with respect to the survey, they don't care what the town thinks, but they view themselves as a village. And always will no matter what we designate them. And I assured them that this is only a town plan. We're not rewriting any zoning regulations right now. That's down the road. And we will certainly seek lots of input before we make any substantive changes to that document as well. We always appreciate input. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that. So, actually, I mean, what I'm interested in, I don't own the land, but, you know, my family has a dairy farm and they stop milking cows. And there are, you know, 200 acres of land along the river. And there's, you know, a question in the family's mind about what's going to happen. And looking at ways that, I mean, my mom is happy right where she is, but, you know, bankers do have debts and they do want to have them settled eventually. And the level that she faces with farmland is that, say, for example, put the sum of farmers right now, the land the farm stand is on, the grand list value is $58,000 an acre. And the field-based site, you know, that's just the way we refer to it, is four or five acres of land. You know, people over the years have been interested in using that as, well, you know, some kind of industrial use. And I guess I'm kind of partial to finding what you've done. And I also, you know, been following the river, it's letting, you know, all my life. And it's gotten, but years now that I've seen it go over the banks and have an idea of a way for my family to pay down this debt, which would actually improve the floodway. And I've been looking at the state of Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, BNC, and there's all kinds of work being done at the Lake Champlain watershed. And one of the ways that the farm could pay down some debt would be that field in front of the farm stand. You could take out approximately, say, half a million yards of sand and gravel there, and you'd still have farmland. And you would, in fact, have increased the floodway. And the other thing is, and I've been watching the discussions about storm water runoff and how to manage it. And one of the thoughts I've had is actually to take these fields and instead of trying to keep the water out, I mean, actually bring water in to filter. And as a way of also, well, you could be reducing the erosion on river banks, but the first thing that I need to do is to sort of run the idea of, well, to be able to say to the bank, okay, well, we've got the source of revenue here, and the town does reap sand and gravel. And the real question is, well, would you rather have commercial and industrial stuff going on there, or would you rather have, well, something that could be created and innovative because, you know, the science is evolving. And the other thing is I'm looking at that as being a small part of what's going on in the middle sense because, I mean, you're right. I mean, the town needs plan to be able to look at these finding sources, but, I mean, my family's got the land along the river, but then there's, you know, 250 acres of James Colby's up at the interchange there. And I'm frankly kind of amazed that someone has done something to adapt, but the idea of somehow or other, I mean, that is right at the interchange and you could do so many different things, you know. And, you know, at the price, I've seen it's like, you know, $950,000, but, you know, I mean, that's a lot of money. I mean, I don't know. I don't know about that chart, but for a project that could be huge, and then you've got Betty Frodo's property, she passed away this year and there's a couple of hundred acres of land there. Then you've got Steve Martin, the person he's from. I mean, there's some pieces of land in the middle sense and I mean, I kind of, you know, dream, imagine, whatever. I mean, not someone telling these landowners what to do, but somehow or other, you know, almost like a club you could be a part of, that you could draw on collaboration and, you know, what's going on if we can't meet. I mean, it's just, you know, a tiny sample of, you know, what's possible. You know, you get the bill list next door and that's coming along. The farmers stand down here at the corner and I've warned them, you know, that they need to be prepared for success because that is a phenomenal location and frankly they are doing a wonderful job. They're really good for hard work and then frankly, you know, good bearings for them. That's, in 48 years, my mother's sister used to call it, you know, Diverview Resort, but as far as a place where something could be done other than milk and cows, I mean, I'm not happy with it or anything, but you know, maybe, and then there's a land going down to 100 B. And then there's another, you know, in the post of 48 years, you'll get a good sale. So I don't have the answer. I mean, you know, my first question is, you know, approaching this person from, you know, the natural resources about, you know, the idea of sand and gravel, which would really just basically die by an infinite time. But that could just be the beginning of, like, what do we do about these footings? Are you looking for ideas of what's beautiful land? Well, I mean, well, I mean, right now, I'm exploring the idea of the, that field staying, you know, in climbing and, you know, taking out sand and gravel. But in the process of taking out sand and gravel, I mean, that's just sort of the means to take it to an end because there are people in the natural resources planning community that, you know, looking at, you know, how could these footings be managed differently? And, you know, there's always, you know, phosphorus is always silt going into Lake Champlain. And, you know, it's just washing away. And, you know, you can fill it in or maybe you can, I mean, in the dairy farm over there. I mean, if you, I sort of joke, if you want to see what a million dollars looks like, drive over there in your two harvesters hours, there are those round, new farms that used to call them new jewels. But, you know, they were the dairy farm, but frankly, you know, industrial, scale, you know, materials processing things that could be whether they're processing things from other farms. We know this, but, I mean, I'm looking at the idea almost of, like, the interest of ideas. Ideas, yeah. Yeah. I'm not assuring this land to anyone. Yeah. Well, I mean, frankly, the folks over in Champlain, you know, one of them is apparently experienced in doing public events. You know, we used to have the pump and show that the farms stand. But, you know, the idea of, you know, whether you put in your corn maze or you do, you know, whether it's there or somewhere else. But, well, I guess I'm sort of looking at the dream of, you know, working on something that, you know, create, build synergy so you don't have, I mean, ideally, you know, James Colby, I don't think the guy's looking to get rich, you know. I mean, he's, you know, his 70s or something. You know, we came from town, but he's got this land. Something's got to be done with it. And there is somebody who I would just think in his heart and his soul would never, I wouldn't meet a pretty nice guy for a song. But, you know, we generally think people are good, you know. If you're given the chance to contemplate, but, you know, you can sort of let things happen or you can sort of take steps and, you know, make some work by yourself. That's good. Other folks have thoughts or input? Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, folks. You're going to know the work you're doing and this village, I mean, I mean, one of the things that would be great if the planning commission would review it. I mean, I've heard about it before, but I've been kind of in the same city or what it's called, but almost like a playing game. You know, they say, no, for kids in education, you know, learning, you know, manipulative, you know, but most of all, you know, you know, there are all these different houses, you know, in the middle sex, and, you know, but I just learned from Jimmy that Bucky were cat-passed away. And, you know, down behind his house, they mount power on it, and it's, you know, Jason can't leave there. I mean, it's the primeval, primeval wilderness paradise. And this is something that nobody knows about. They've done, you know, that piece that we did in some of these other ones. But it's, well, I mean, you guys are leading the way. That's good. Thank you. What you've done, you know. So, I'm a supporter, you know. I just understand them in any way they are. Thanks. I thought the current U.S. paragraph on page 35 was kind of, I mean, I refer to it as a popular program, but it's only 60, 80, 60 properties enrolled. Because the main restraint on the enrollment is that you need a minimum of 25 acres, which is not mentioned as being important. In fact, that's the big factor that people cannot overcome. If you develop that property with a house, then you have to take this enrolled to two acres for giving the house a few more years. So, I just thought that could be better. And also, what the land, once it's put into current U.S., the state's in current U.S., whether you sell it or not, no problem. If you remove it from current U.S., you have to pay a penalty. Does current U.S. have a time frame like 10 years? No. There's no time frame. So once it's in there and stays forever. Once you maintain the requirements of the properties, you can include some cardistry plan and actually do it. Thanks. Well, there are actually, I mean, from the look, you would know the stick from the Grand Biscuit work, but there are a couple of huge prices of land and intercepts. Right? Yes, 2,000 acres of land. And I remember, you know, preparing this radio program, talking about the carbon collage or something, you know, the idea of, you know, pooling land together. Whether it's, I mean, you're talking about the current U.S. thing, well, looking at working with ground facts that you could, in one hand, sort of wash the other and keeping it in current U.S., but you'd also be doing the housing and there's two types of current U.S. It's supposed to be an agriculture. Of course, your family is an agriculture and that's a much better view of current U.S. and all of our buildings. Also, they're not going to have to be powered. Yeah. Well, then the thing is, in the open land, one house, where that's for $1, both for the land services. Okay. Other thoughts or input? Thank you. Just a question on that. This was really interesting to read. I learned a lot from you. Can you, I'm assuming people know you, but can you introduce yourself? I can read it just. I move around the way to read it. Thanks. And I was really fascinated by page 23 and there's a paragraph in there under commuting and I just, I raise it just because I'm wondering if going theories are about it. In the third paragraph under beyond commuting, it talks about the fact that 60% fewer middle sex residents used other means such as the bicycle to get to work and the number of people that worked from home dropped 55%. And I'm just, I'm curious what different theories might be around that. I mean I have one, which is related to broadband and for what it's worth. There are some very interesting things going on such as a lot with the work being done with the CUDs, the communication unions districts and that could make a difference in middle sex and I hope that it will. I hope the next town plan will talk about how that might have impacted that. But other than that, I see, unless you're nodding, but I'm wondering what your theory is. I'm also thinking that the numbers are so small that how many people is that really? I'm looking here, we have nine people walking in 2010 and 18 in 2016. Right. The other thing to notice, these numbers, I think we have a bunch of caveats, we have to have these numbers in the town plan. They're extrapolated based on prior census data so, and when the sample size is so small, don't read too much into it. Understood. I would have just predicted that there would be a lot more people working from home. We talk so much about how that's a thing and we know we have our challenges with broadband, but anyway, that... There may also be, I think there's, I can speculate, there's more people out in the workforce than not staying home. And as part-time workers, that might also be part of it. I mean, to me, it really comes down to the broadband. I really think that, over the years, internet applications require more and more internet speed and ours hasn't gotten any better if anything, it's gotten worse for most people and that you can't, most houses and middle sex don't have an internet connection. You can work from home. Tell me a general comment. On my comments, I'm much less interested in your comments, but I thought that the section, I tried to make a note of it so I could be efficient here, achieving the vision. I thought that was such a helpful section. I personally, for what it's worth, would have liked to see that move up further in the beginning. Even if it was just a little box, because I thought the info in it was super good. Like, this is going to last for eight years and, you know, whatever the little pieces were. And it did just a nice job setting you up for how you did the roles, strategies, and objectives, which felt so good. And it's always just useful to run that through up front for your reader, just a sort of a hand-holding photography. I think I know where some of that came from. And I guess the other thing I would say is I personally am so excited about all the work that Mike and colleagues have running through their minds with Planetary Matters. And I do wonder what exit I will look like in the future. And I know that there's been some talk about, you know, light rail. And I like how you folded it in saying it's a no longer term future. And there is a study being done to look at light rail and there's a federal piece that's going with it called positive train control. There were those terrible crashes that took place in the Pacific Northwest. And so that may end up making use of rail much more complicated because of what is required, as I understand it, which is very little, but of the tracks and of the equipment used on those tracks. But I think the Budcars that have been talked about potentially for recent for a month, and just all... They're sitting in the rail. They're ready to go. I know. They're going to have to go to the project because money is not theirs. Completely. Well, and actually, one of the other resources that we don't mention there, and sometimes people with their politics is very good, but I don't... But I like the politics of life because you interact with people and they're... We have much of it. And if there's anyone who would have an interest in supporting, you know, the future of Middlesons, I mean, of course, you have to work with Washington, but it's hard to do. You know, to maybe prop a food chain, but you know, you can't go to the University too. But it's much easier than you usually slow down. So for us too, it's been pragmatic about not being a crazy dream. It's great. So I have really just want to thank the Planning Commission. I came in with a very long list of very specific suggestions at the last meeting, and I appreciate them going through each one. Very carefully. Didn't, you know, agree with all and that's fine, but there is one that I would like you to reconsider. All of those. And I just feel like the word is kind of inappropriate. It's... And we were talking about Putnamville. And the sentence reads, with recent successful development focused along with two, and closer to the interstate, Putnamville has seen little change. The end of that, it's obviously popular. I just wonder, if you have a word like successful, what's your criteria for that? And it just seemed like it stuck out as a, you know, somebody's opinion, but not really belonging in the plan. So I would just say with recent development, rather with recent successful development. Michael, could you imagine the old page that was on it? Yes, it is on page 66. Thank you. Here in competition with a fan behind me. Okay, thank you. Mike, there's no attention to detail minds. Thank you for your input. Thank you. Any thoughts, comments? You guys did a phenomenal job. Once you have this in hand, and that's where the achieving vision was, yes, achieving vision, you then, how might this be used in a way that might be different from how past plans are used? I don't know all about how past plans are used, but all plans, how this will be used, it will help guide any zoning changes that we might consider. There's been talk about changing some of the zoning in town. It would guide continuing work on energy siting issues. I think we're looking at doing an enhanced energy plan for the town and working with the Regional Planning Commission, and this is one step in that process. What really got us moving in this direction is we had looked into getting a grant for some transportation improvements, some sidewalks, streetscape improvements along through the Middlesex Village here last year, and we weren't even qualified because we didn't have a valid town plan. We got kicked out before we could even really apply. We were really interested in seeing if we could get a new town plan in place so we might be able to apply again next year. That's one of the things that I think we're looking to use. This year. That was an excellent setup. I'm just going to add on to that. I attended a workshop yesterday held by the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, and one of the presentations they did was about the state's municipal planning grant program. They talked about funding. They actually said one of their concerns is that funding has been cut in recent years and they are trying hard to get that back to historical levels of funding. And they mentioned some things. I will go through this in detail right now, but if anybody wants to talk to me about later, I'm happy to. But they mentioned that the program that they are running for is to do municipal grants up to a maximum of $22,000 for a community or you can do $35,000 if you work as a consortium with a neighboring community and it's basically a 10% cash match can come from any source so for example we could apply for a $20,000 grant to do we were talking last year about a street scape feasibility study and there's a bunch of things like that that you're eligible for we would have to raise $2,000 and we would be eligible for a $20,000 match and they have some quick statistics in here about last year they awarded $450,000 and they got 67 applications they awarded 29 grants and they had $950,000 requested and they basically were able to fund about half of the projects and we were one of those that got cut out of the pile right away because we didn't meet that really basic criteria and September 30th is the deadline for an application for this year so our goal is to have a town plan approved before September 30th so that we can apply for a grant and they had some really helpful information yesterday about how to do this grant writing and how you can reach out to community members to help polish up your grant and they said you know some of the people forget about it every town has got a bunch of people who are terrific writers and you sort of start this stuff and you don't have to do it yourself you just reach out to your writers in town and they'll step up and focus stuff like that and one of the big takeaways was that things that you identify in your town plan as goals, objectives, tasks those are the sorts of things that they look at and say oh they've addressed this in the town plan they're ready to do this and it's almost like a shovel ready project that's the sort of thing that gets you the point that you need to kind of get moving on this so that's one of the reasons that a well thought out town plan is important because it can help identify the kind of things that these folks are looking for when they review a grant application that'll help and you know one of the guys that talked to us yesterday said that he's been doing this for 10 years and he gets a grant almost every year you know 5,000, 10,000 15,000 whatever and he said that after a while he just gets to be a game and he just keeps doing it so we've historically not done that sort of stuff in town and as Stan mentioned there's a ton of opportunities in town there's people already doing some things like Mike and his group and there's tons of opportunities and we're not telling landowners how to use their land but if people have creative ideas I think part of our goal is to help one of the things I'd like to shout out on Field Planning and Planning Commission is the whole what's next middle sex process brought many people together to talk about opportunities in the town and kind of recognizing the need for a feasibility study for the village center was kind of a precipitate of that process and those groups are ongoing so we have the economic development infrastructure on trails, communication and the fourth is spaces, building spaces I think yeah so that continuing work I think this is a formally more public hearing we're here we're very glad to get comment but the ability to have ongoing input through some of those other community groups I think is a real deal and you know I know that economic development infrastructure is meeting tomorrow night and we're going to continue to try to kind of figure out where there's a synergy between private folks and the formal planning commission and just to be clear next steps in this after the public hearing shortly we'll then meet and talk about what changes to make on the town plan it then is passed off to the select board they will review it themselves they've provided some feedback already they have to have their own public hearing on the town plan and then it also will be reviewed by the regional planning commission in the next couple of months so there's still a lot of process to do but a lot of the ground work is laid and thank you all for your help and input I just like to suggest to you guys I mean don't let the enemy of the village and you've got so many products here and you know with the timeline that you mentioned it so I encourage you to stay in this like you were with us right she doesn't get enough credit but a planner from salt came out as a consultant to help us with this project she did a lot of the work as well she got paid for it very first meeting that was one of her takeaways was to perfectly be the enemy of the good yeah and this is you know I mean you mentioned the timeline so people can keep coming working on it people have less of this so they'll speed it up well I think in line with that it's not perfect now that means we keep it a living document which means we all keep it revisiting and not that I'm competitive or anything but I did just see something in Time Gargantz a few weeks ago that counter-proven just adopted a new town plan they got an award for their town plan okay if there's nothing further I will bring a vote to a motion for a vote to close the public hearing public hearing a second all those in favor aye closed okay public hearing is closed