 City of s6 junction planning commission meeting on Thursday, October 5th, 2023 at 6 31 p.m Any additions to the agenda or changes of note that anybody would like to make at this point? I'd like to I would like to give a report on the capital projects meeting that was on Tuesday and I will also update Chris and I are on the steering committee for the strategic planning. So We'll give you an update. All right. I'm just going to put you under staff updates as Scott updates time to do All right, that sounds good And I have a question. Did we I didn't see it on the agenda Did we Did we get a volunteer for the housing commission? From the planet no not yet Two people who tended to be recently were going to volunteer like just Unable to meet All right, I'm thinking one thing that would make sense just to beat up the planning commission This also I mean effectively housing issues with the residents Probably to give a face. Yeah, I mean if there's only two or three That would make us what a committee of seven or nine or something like that The only thing that I'm thinking about is if we go back to the four priorities we had from the comprehensive plan um The other two of those at least are not housing related so um So that would be my only concern is that um They would be involved in discussions that have nothing to do with housing Well, but if we fold them into being planning commission members if they wanted to be then we'd be a planning commission of nine And then those priorities would become their priorities as they join our commission So it wouldn't be necessarily a joint housing planning. It would just be a planning No, I'm like if i'm understanding well, yeah, that's sort of just A concept I I have thought a little bit about but this is something that's Sort of they get And right city council All right, um, and then in terms of a volunteer from planning commission to join the housing committee um, I know meetings gone past. I've said that my Uh availability is sporadic, but if we don't have a member and the housing committee is okay with my Coming goals for probably the first six months here. Um, I'd be more than willing to uh volunteer just knowing that It might it's gonna It might be a spotty attendance for the first six seven months is Could we have could we have a um I don't know what the term is anymore a replacement for you for the meetings that you're not able to go to I mean a stand-in or whatever you want to call it. Yeah, I certainly could I mean I I can't by any means begin to predict the future, but I mean who knows what's going to happen I'm expecting my next child in November. So that's what that's the reason why my attendance is potentially spotty for the first six seven months and then I anticipate by You know probably come next june or july. I'll have a little bit more availability capacity to join on a much more regular basis but it could be that afternoon something happens and You know gotta Assist my wife and you know, we also have a three-year-old So I gotta keep that in mind as well that I can't just walk out on them if something happens that day Okay, I'll keep that in mind But yeah, if that's if that works for the housing committee, I'm more than willing to uh to do that if they'll accept my sporadic availability for the next six seven eight months I will talk to magina and uh And uh, and uh, yeah decided how to move forward Yeah I think it's great that you would do it because you have the most relevant experience I think of anybody here. So thanks. Yeah Yeah, I guess well understanding there's going to be a lot of further discussion My only concern with folding housing commission in planning commission is just in terms of numbers and obviously being One of the joint jr. Most numbers of planning commission understanding was that the numbers Of the commission were reduced in order to be able to meet for a more effective way So if we bump it back up like nine then we're gonna we'd have to have five This is so this um If I just like read this was related to quorum when The number of seats that were opened up were to were higher the quorum goes up as well So as long as there's confidence that That's the committee could meet quorum And you know make decisions because even at right a quorum that you can barely make decisions Then then I I think it would still be possible, but This is just very early Yeah, the only concern I would just keep that in mind. Yeah Yeah, I'm well, I mean with that in mind. We just barely make quorum tonight That's who I was Excellent, um If time allows the other only other staff update or thing I'd like to uh add in is Now that we're closing in on potentially the end of the rental registry discussions What's next? Yeah, I agree. I was gonna bring that up as well. That's And I have some ideas. Yeah, likewise We can maybe have a little discussion of that potentially too Um, all right No more additions or changes we can move on to public to be heard Uh, I don't see anyone online I do see uh on gentlemen no comments. Okay Moving quickly past public to be heard on to minutes from uh, september's meeting We'll need a motion to uh To accept and I'm looking at the only two other people in the room I moved to approve the minutes Any discussion changes anything anybody would like to bring up regarding the minutes Darby, yeah, likewise Scott anything nope. All right with no kind. I don't have any either with no comments See a motion to approve the minutes as presented. Um from one of you guys Second all right all in favor I Um, nobody else to oppose we are good minutes past um, we brings us into uh business items and I am Assuming that uh, the new addition to the table is jennifer. So I'll let you guys take over for a little introduction Yeah, so jennifer marble the new city planner has uh joined uh joined us about a month and a half ago now Welcome. Thank you. She's uh quickly getting up to speed on a lot of uh the company developments uh departments tasks and uh taking a big role in uh development review So if you see staffing drb By herself at some point right now We're still both going Um, but yeah, I'll ask it to jennifer to give a few words of introduction Hi, uh, I'm pretty new to the professional planning. I recently graduated with my master's uh this spring summer Uh, however, I have past experience. My background is in architecture So I've worked as an architect. Uh, well architectural draftsperson for something around five years now So I'm a little bit new to planning really excited about the opportunity and loving us extraction so far Excellent. It's really nice. Um, don't mind me asking where you're coming from texas Wow, well texas and norway. So yeah, uh grew up in texas. Uh, went to norway for my master's program and my husband is from there Okay Also, well my school is the university's devanger. So it's devanger a bit also a bit very nice Well, welcome. I think I mean, I don't want to speak on behalf of everybody, but I'm excited to have you. Thank you Yeah, I'm excited to be here and wish you wish you the best of luck to your role All right, uh, moving quickly through the agenda onto item b. I suppose here, uh, global foundry solar installation letter Um, so there were two letters correct because there are two technically two distinct projects Okay at the same time they it was the parking lot one in the field one. Correct. Yeah. Yeah um Yeah, so they're the letters are almost the same except, uh, one of them mentions the uh uh The master plan that they have mentioned is now out of date. So Yeah That that that only applies to uh group b. So that's why that's only out of that letter Yeah, I read through them both. I didn't really have any Comments or it all made sense It's like good Good letters Uh, I would recommend that if the planning commission supports the letter that's uh, that's You move to have patrick sign on behalf of the uh Uh The committee and uh We can just have one signature then Happy to do it. Um, my only question was um So we have the authority to do this not the council the council doesn't have to do this They they can have a separate letter. They they are approaching. Yeah each Mutable body can like I said, we're saying this is on behalf of the planning commission. Okay, this right It's uh, yeah, it's a letter of support from the planning commission for the yeah, that's fine. I just yeah Yeah Yeah, I think yeah, I think that makes sense. We'll need you guys again Second All right, my name's all in favor. Hi. Hi. Excellent. I will happily sign. Thanks for drafting them up All right, and that brings us on to see Rental registry inspection program updated ordinance draft ordinance and uh potential rental units data analysis update Um, so I will put up what we like the the uh Uh, the updated ordinance draft ordinance on Uh, the screen right now But the changes were Were limited to what we had uh Talked about or what what the commission had talked about last time um I guess as I put this up does anybody have any comments or questions about it? Um No, just that I didn't really pick up on it before but now that it looks like you've changed it to instead of Residential rental properties calling them rental housing units Seems more to be you the industry term than I'm used to so I appreciate that change Yeah, and I was trying to make sure that was in line with, um I think this was the the uh national language in the code. Yeah, right. Yeah My only question was related to Comment a4 Which is if we don't have a building code And are only enforcing the rental housing code. I'm not sure we have the authority to inspect for anything Yes Could you explain that please? Uh I am about to it's a little bit of a concern Yes So this is um What was it? What was the section you're referring to again? It's comment a4. It's on page four section 20.04 inspection cycle So Yeah, this is one uh This is a difference between the Winooski Ordinance that's uh that this was based off of and what we are able to do And yeah, we don't have we don't have building we don't have a municipal building code Yeah, uh, we depend on the land development code There are Zoning um But I guess zoning regulations that's uh, that's We already have the power to to enforce um But uh, yeah, there's no there's no building code. So this is not some Subject to So it would be enforcing the rental housing code on behalf of the state. Yeah, that's right That that's what I was wondering um Has do you think that? So do we think that we need? uh I might have I might have uh There might have been a little mix up over here and that was with um, I think this was supposed to refer to the uh short term housing uh rentals Because short term housing, uh, uh, by it doesn't fall under the the rental housing code. Oh, okay So, uh, I mean rental housing health code of vermont. So Yeah, if because we don't have building codes the only thing we can we can require them to register but we The the the inspection that we do, you know, wouldn't be any anything beyond What you know, uh, zoning Inspection might be like, um As for for the short terms Or short term. Yeah, but for but for longer term. I mean regular rental units. We have the authority. That's right. That's right Yeah, this must have been a this must have been a Misattributed into into another section. Yeah, okay No, I was a little bit concerned that we were having a registry and we couldn't do anything with it. Yeah Exactly That's just gone before our municipal council At this point for like, I'm sure that question would be answered by them White question You're uh, whether or not we have the authority on short term rentals because we don't have a building code that has The uh, town's attorney city's attorney. Oh, I haven't actually I haven't Checked on the specific issue with them, but I was just looking at No, it's a fair question to raise a highlight for them to yeah for her. I think right. Yeah, that's to ask her Okay, yeah, that's uh Yeah, I would double check on that just yeah, just yeah, no, it's a great question. Yeah But even if we can't There's still the term rentals and we still take the money We're still right, but I'm just also thinking too like it also ensures that it's a Legally allowed within that district within that zoning area Is they'll still have to abide then abide by those zoning laws that we have in that place I don't know like if other definitions within there that makes Like what makes it a single family home or a to like is it the number of bedrooms bathrooms? Would we still be counting like So it'd be like a watered-down version of the rental housing code basically is what I'm getting at In terms of the zoning laws You know what defines a housing unit within that to allow it to be within that zoning law that zone You see where my question is going at all. I think I think I do I I do think though we still I didn't measure it here, but they're like the the uh departments of community development can always do Zoning compliance inspections, right? Uh, and this would At the at the minimum be that Right. I guess that's what I'm saying is like it would still like when they register our inspection would then be like Okay, you're not just renting out a closet like this the way it sits like as a zoning unit This is considered a housing unit. It's not just a closet within somebody's home that you're renting out for Yeah, whatever whatever but like That the short term rental they have access to a safe bathroom a safe kitchen Right, but actually there's some of what you mentioned might be beyond what like the requirements for for uh, the appliances and kitchens and bathrooms that's actually part of the uh rental, uh, the the uh, Vermont rental housing health code um We define in in zoning what makes it you know A housing unit Right. I guess that's what I'm Kind of going Is that they would still have to they'd still be beholden to some kind of law and we would be ensuring that they meet The basic requirements for that zoning district. Yeah. Yeah But but if it's a single home single occupied home in a single home Area that's defined by single home and they rent out a bedroom. Are they still complying with single home definition Does it become a multiple unit because they they're renting out a bedroom or no? No, no, I don't think so There's at a certain point it might it might be defined as a booming house, I think Right. Uh, that's the phrase I was looking for. Yeah, when you hit like five or more Yeah, there's a certain threshold there, right Um, but remember now according to state law, it's what? Three plex four plex are allowed four plex up to four plex. So they they could split the home into four separate apartments and Which is but Remind me is that only s100 is only for the village. I mean the neighborhood development area No, it's four plex. It's anywhere that has municipal water sewer. Okay, which is our whole city Yeah, okay any other Comments or questions about the latest version Um, I think it looks great. I think you've done a great job. Chris. Um, Yeah, I'll clean up all our deliberations Yeah, yeah, but um, I'm wondering Whether or not you want to have the p schedule included in the ordinance or if it's a separate document so another Well, I mean so here it's it's it's included, but is it just included for our discussion? It's just included. Okay. That's fine Yeah, and we have to decide which one we want of those two at this point or no well, we We don't have to immediately, but I think we had a with uh We had we had there were some thoughts shared in everything right meetings about it, but I think there's A lot of the feasibility of this will come uh of either Uh options or something in between will Will depend on uh the results of the analysis on how What's the spread of rental units we have and uh, you know, how many You know, large owners with Uh with many units within the same building or or otherwise and actually jennifer has a presentation. That's uh um She will be able to share Okay, next item. Okay. Cool. All right, so I have no other comments. I'm fine with it. Yeah Good Now move on to the council Yes, the the intention was to to move this to council at joint meeting between the housing commission the planning commission and the drb and the council at this point, you know, if we're unable to fill the housing commission, uh We may have to see if that can go straight to council But either ways like this is ready to move forward So do we need to Do something with this approve it for submission to the council or something? Yeah, you know, actually that would that that would be a good idea probably just like finalize it. Yeah All right. Um, yeah You can motion tonight. Yeah the draft or We're considering consideration by the council. Excellent. Do we get a motion to approve the draft for consideration of the council by the council city council I saw move Excellent, uh all in favor or any more discussion No, all in any, uh all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed eyes have it uh draft origins is uh Sealed and can be delivered to uh city council Okay, just one comment. Congratulations guys. Yeah, that's work everyone. We've been working on this a long time Yeah, well when you only meet once a month No, but I'm Yeah, nice work on it. I'm very happy Yeah, that's great Excellent. Um, well then moving right along Uh review of recent drb decisions. Uh, hold on potential rental units data analysis. Oh, oh, sorry skipped over. Yeah I apologies. Yes. It's got very interesting stuff to show you. Yeah, cool Okay, let's do it. So the reason why this is not in the packet is because it's hot off the press Uh And we had some previous version that had that that had more issues that we had to we had to coordinate back with ccrpc to to uh to update the analysis and Jennifer Did a really good job of iterating the analysis and uh and making some sites about this And we put together a map that shows where we think the rental units are. Oh, cool. All right Yeah, why don't you uh throw that on the screen and you're ready Sure thing and just before I start presentation or anything and also a screen share in a second Uh, we have a comment from the chat. Uh, just asking if, uh, Elijah just Like a little bit more whenever you speak Yeah, I forgot about it. It's got a fan out there All right And now seeing if we can actually properly do screen share and see Yeah All right, let's speak up people I will enable it right now. I'm usually accused of speaking way too loud Okay, let's try it again There we go All right. All right. Yeah. Oh, yeah, good idea So, uh, before I get into the new numbers or anything like that, uh, just heads up some of the data may be a little bit out of date Uh, I'm not sure exactly when it was but we know of a couple of larger developments that have, uh, you know Started construction underway all that stuff. Um, that aren't in this data set So this comes from the grand list This was based on a comparison of people's Uh, the owner's addresses and the physical address Okay, that is On that property. Yeah. So if your mailing address is separate from the physical address of the property Uh, that's what we determined like, okay, we're going to assume you're renting them Seems like a fair indicator. Yeah Uh, so just some overview of numbers. Uh, we came up with 258 uh, estimated total rental rental properties Um, sorry. I also have to adjust my mic then. Thanks Uh 1,904 estimated total rental units Uh, and out of all the condos Um, we estimate that 116 are, uh, currently rented out. Oh Interesting Oh, I didn't just thought that the number for condos would be a little higher. Yeah Sorry, was the 116 Included in the 1908 or not 1904? Uh, it is. Yeah, it is. So the total number of units is 1904 Which actually puts us pretty close to the census estimates of around 2000 Yeah, right. Yeah, and that could Might be I don't know. It looks like everyone else is muted in the zoom chat. Uh, I can make sure people Oh, yeah, there's one more there There we go Hello humans Hello What is Hi Could you please mute yourself? Say someone by the name of Bernard Green They keep on unmuting themselves. I might have to I may have to Sorry, if you can't keep yourself muted, we're gonna have to remove you because it's a disruption at the moment I don't know if it's the case, but I've heard these recently getting hacked On zoom All right, I'll take care of the presentation if you can just watch chat. Yep. Um, okay, great. So, uh Yeah, that does include the total total number of condos does include. Sorry total number of rental units does include condos Um, so categories of rentals Actually addressing just that The pie chart on the left, uh, that's by property count and one on the right, which Is almost opposite is by unit count So about 19 percent of properties are listed as commercial units Uh, seven percent are listed as condos. Um, everything else there's, uh A variety of things that all these different rental properties are, um, categorized as so the Largest kind of categories that I could like separate out and kind of distinguish with, uh Some amount of accuracy would be commercial condo and other Um, so although there's only about 19 percent are commercial Uh properties about 79 percent of units are commercial She can know you Um, so thank you Next up Um for all of those online on the chat, uh Wonderful, um great All right, we'll wait while we have some technical difficulties Okay, I have Is their name associated with that at all that we can capture and maybe pass on to s6, please Yes, we have uh, we have uh I'm gonna have to switch this to i'm gonna have to remove everybody and uh Switch this to waiting room only Thank you. Uh, just a reminder for all those participants online that this is being recorded and all of your actions and everything you are saying, uh is Public and will be shared, uh as needed with s6, please I don't have a control capability. There's another person joining right now. Thank you okay, um There are a number of people on here and, uh All of their participants, uh Abilities, I have I have a blocked their ability to uh I will now Make you which Yes, usually city bus extension Is there uh, I know you're able to mute them. Do they have the ability to raise hands or type in the chat? feature And that allows only people that are like on the council City council only you can see them and then when it's like public hearing time You can allow people to speak and Unmute their mic. Um, so that that kind of stuff doesn't happen. Um, so I would maybe look into that But yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, I always uh a little bit much. Yeah um I seem to have so normally I can set I can make a co-host So that co-host can share as well, but you could share the presentation. I will just do it just to save some trouble. Yeah And I was just trying to think of anyone who might have Questions or comments that are appropriate. Yeah, they would have the ability to raise a hand or Just to make note of them to unmute It'll be a little bit difficult to uh It's gonna be a challenge Any questions so far about the data that we have? Haven't gotten to get through most of it Uh, yeah, sorry one question. I'm not sure it's not for you Jennifer, but um When you scan two was it 2,000 units or 2,000 renters rent or landlords Couldn't remember. Was it 2,000 units? Yeah, I'm just trying to I'm just trying to make the comparison between the last year I've got a breakup of all the different landlords as well as uh, I I do have charts on uh, all the different landlords small landlords versus large landlords people who own uh, own um Anywhere from one to four units and then five and higher Oh for for s6 junction. Oh, I was just trying to compare it to when you escape. Oh, okay. No, that's okay. Never mind It's okay. I'll look I'll look it up later. We're able to take public comment. I would imagine you had a question When you mentioned condos, this is only 120 condos in s6 junction No, that's condos that we believe are being like uh, are owned by one person and rented to another. Oh, okay Or not not owner occupied like your third wife. Sorry Sorry, it's facing this direction now. It's all right All right, are we all set? Yeah, okay, so Showing thanks Okay Uh, yes, let me try Sorry, it's okay I'll handle it. Just fine. Um, oh actually Chris, could you stop sharing for a second for the presentation Because I'm not sure exactly how they were able to draw over the thing that I was presenting Oh, no, it's that's so that's disabled. Okay. Just wanted to be sure. Yeah. Okay. Good. No, that was pretty interesting Yeah, I could say that. Uh, okay, let's see Okay, so categories of rentals by property count and unit Uh, can you switch to the next one? There we go. Uh, so here we have a map Uh, showing density of rental units, uh, across s6 junction levels for, you know, more units at that location Uh, blue ones are for commercial yellow for all other categories and The pink are for, uh, condos that we believe are rented out So when you're saying commercial here You're referring like a just how it was designated in the the data Um, I'm when I hear commercial I think of a like a retail shop But in this instance, it probably means like a large real estate developer something like that Because I'm looking at the Yeah, you can kind of tell by 200 to 500 which we all know down in the bottom. Yep. Is that large development of Autumn pond and I believe it's riverside is the other one, right? Something like that, which yeah, we all know is all housing down there. So, okay. Yep All right, nice So this is the makeup of, uh Rental sorry, hold on my follow up with my notes over here Yeah, so this is um The breakup of how many units percentage wise by rental property count So, uh, about 53 percent of the units are just single units being rented out And this is just by counting properties Oh, sorry Okay Um, and then you can compare that to the following one, which is the rental unit count. So They're from the legend, but sorry So large landlords are defined by the new state. It was anything five or more Yes Yes, uh, so just categories of any one who owns uh five or more units um So conversely if you're going by unit count That's quite different. Uh, so of course those larger properties that have 30 or more units whenever you count up the units Right. So that's 83 percent of uh individual rental units Are controlled by landlords who own five or more properties All right And 61 percent or 31 or more? Mm-hmm. Well Okay, yeah Yeah, there's those few large developments. Yeah a lot of units and yeah, and uh A further breakdown of that. Uh, I investigated the you know, just list of landlords whoever's you know names started showing up more and more and The llc's that I kind of put a name to and I came up with the top four landlords in s-extruction um By my count Interesting. Yeah And this is by unit count not property count. Um, I believe Kurt Montgomery I only had information for one specific property whereas Gabe handy. I had seven ish Something like that and that makes sense. Like yeah, we we know the way the llc's are divided up and everything Yeah So there are a few I would just uh caveat this with the uh The point that said there Are some llc's owned I think by Gabe handy. That's uh that currently are just like a small There are just a few units in there. It's like an old house We haven't gone through and Added all of those in Yeah, you have to filter through that but it's not in terms of unit count. It's not going to make it go up that much Yeah, uh so Okay, you're good. Uh, that's actually the end of the presentation Uh, and at any point we can go back to any of the previous slides for any questions Oh, well, this the the map. Yeah, the map's a good one. This is a good good thing to stare at for a Sorry a little bit so Those individual landlords um Are those commercial entities or the llc's or the llc's or It varies individuals It varies we we have some that are just uh individual people renting out. Um a secondary, you know House or apartment something like that, uh and a good quantity of llc's as well I mean court Montgomery is um LLC or is it just an individual who owns 455 units? Uh, that's an llc. Yeah, that's and that is This video so things are not completely to scale because as you can see it It goes up exponentially so that Yeah It's just to show confess, but right But I didn't make it dark Yeah, I did talk to Yeah Categories here And so just for sake of accuracy with the the names up there Kurt Montgomery was the name that I had to associate with uh two two two Franklin Inc So that would be the company that is in charge of that I believe Kurt Montgomery was one of the names on the application owner something like that Or a developer I don't remember Exactly that I think one interesting thing here is that we uh Is that there's so so many of the units are Are owned by Not that many people in terms of making of uh Rental registry and an inspection program if we You had to say about how if we targeted the top if we were able to get if we just talk to the top four that is 54 percent of all rental units of just like well all of your properties solve the units, you know hand out this Form document, whatever we're trying to get out, but it does mean that the much of the efforts would uh go towards the smaller uh, you know the smaller landlords that's uh Don't make up that many Yeah, so the top four um Did you go to that slide the last slide? Yeah, Patrick we have a Comment question people in the waiting room. Um, okay. Let me just ask my question quickly here Uh, are any of them any of the names that were causing disruption? I don't remember you can change your name You can change. Oh, yeah Okay, um Uh, so those those four still seven Sorry Was it there's still seven people from the same the same number from four ever it's increased Well, there's five in the room right now including oh including us and more now two people in the waiting room Jake z and Dennis Tebow and now lexie Yeah, I think that's just okay. I'm okay. Yeah, I can't Uh, sorry your question about the yeah, so Kurt has one particular geographic Location Is the two of the others or is some of the are some of these split out over? Multiple units in different places. Let's select a handy. This is ours units spread out or units are a little more spread out Uh for brad rubman, I've got two different llcs. That's in the neighborhood of the autumn pond development the circle towards the Oh from other high school, right for the north. Yeah, and for brek grubowski. That's two different llcs located on park street Yeah, but brek grubowski has not actually that many it's not spread out over that many properties right now He is you know in talks Uh For future development there there are there are things in the pipeline. That's uh that he's developing right now Gabe handy has More properties and they're in more prominent locations, which is probably why Uh, you hear his name, uh more often. Yeah, but I think how do you remember how about how many Properties gave handy was spread out over. I've got the data in front of me. Uh, so this is a filter that I kind of went through And this is only, um things that showed up Uh, let's see two or more times, but with gave handy. I had to do a little more digging and try to get everything in Uh, so I have his name on let me see four. That is eight Separate properties whereas everyone else on the list has either one or two out of the top four Yeah, uh, so a little more dispersed. Yeah, I was just trying to think of Where problems may arise You know, so if you have a if you're over in franklin area off park avenue park street And those are relatively new units. I mean they're what 10 years old maybe if that right You're probably not going to have Potentially as many violations as some of the units that are smaller Which is the area that you know the other whatever 40 percent Um, so I'm just trying to think about and it comes back to the discussion about landlord incentives and so on So I'm just trying to in my mind picture what this looks like Any other questions about uh, any of the data any of this data is so I guess just in terms of Steps And there are Uh In addition or beyond is Is there a next step in order to like Like checking in let's say with these landlords and like you actually have 134 units I mean, I guess Yeah, it's kind of like now that we actually have Numbers right so from this we can get a mailing list Right and a bunch of addresses that that we can hit up and for the commercial The the commercial landlords that's you don't need to talk to that many of them to to to really double check this data but it's a I think the the challenging part of this will be after everything is passed and we've said a deadline for registration is we would be I think the the sensible thing to do would probably be to mail um Mail instructions to everybody that we suspect might be a landlord Um, and then if they are not they can check off a thing and so explain the situation and Then you know if it seems legit that Would let that go uh, oh right and if we need to investigate further we would um, and of course there would be a There would be some kind of enforcement mechanism involved if you If you are renting out and you're not Uh, you're not registered when it says the the ordinance what what uh the penalties would be so Yeah, I think once To like the the purpose of this data is to create mailing lists to reach out I think it's great. Yeah, nice work. Thank you Yeah, and I've got a lot of other information. I was able to glean from the data. Um, this is the stuff that was most relevant to this um I'm just looking at the the densest areas and stuff. There's about Uh, 15 properties that have 25 or more units um after that it kind of drops down and then the majority of them are Uh, less than 10 As you can see in the pie chart Uh, majority of properties are less than 10 units. I should say But yeah, that's I think that's everything on that All right Thank you All right, so that now concludes the rental registry portion All right, I don't want to jump ahead again um The uh recent drb decisions and policy implications Yeah, so The the agenda for this meeting was relatively thin and I thought this this could be a good time to just provide some updates on What's uh, the the drb has been up to now. That's uh, the drb and planning commission are our separate bodies I think it is it is important and useful to uh to To know what what what the impact of policy is on the ground um, I've listed a Bunch of different projects here and if there's anything and and I'll I will I'll just give you a little introduction on what what I think were interesting in the decisions And if you have any specific questions, we can pull up we can pull up illustrations and maps Jennifer can can can help with that as necessary, but there are a lot of things that have been approved or uh Or at least discussed by the drb over the last six months or so. So we don't have to go through everything in detail um, does that make sense to Everyone yeah, okay so the first thing that was approved by the drb This year was autumn pond two This is the um This is uh, I mean you pull up the little maps to I can't screen her so That's just by the high school, right? Yeah by the soccer fields Yeah, I could just borrow the other laptop correct. I will yeah, I remember autumn pond one Yeah, and this was uh, this would be Adding this would be building 117 units But it is in place of 48 existing apartments Um, very similar to autumn pond one. I think I think they made a Very strong case that there that autumn pond one worked pretty well for the city And the the drb seemed pretty keen to uh To approve this You know since it was it's basically the same design So one thing I thought was interesting was uh was a discussion about the private streets and uh and and how And the pedestrian entrance to uh, uh to autumn pond Pulled up Uh decision itself But um, you know, we have in the ldc certain standards or uh You know for for road design even if it's a private road you're supposed to Builds to a certain width Include a sidewalk included uh enough shoulder. It actually doesn't specify bike lane, but it makes it wide enough so that effectively you can have a bike lane um But in this case there is currently no sidewalk. Uh, they are proposing to expand the road, uh to widen the road to meet the city's requirements for for uh Road width like the driving portion, but there's no sidewalk um This goes through wetland. So I mean in some ways it was perhaps kind of reasonable Mm-hmm that it would be hard to expand it further but On a related note, there's also no lighting over here by the The uh, I guess the the the ldc States that you're supposed to have lighting unless approved by the uh city engineer and the city engineer Just yeah threw it back to the drb In this case the the drb heard the argument that it is Things have been working pretty well the way it is And uh, and that the there hasn't been many complaints. Um, and the this decision in the end was uh to Require striping on the uh on the road To delineate some space for pedestrians, um on the shoulder, but uh No sidewalk and no lighting. So I thought that was kind of interesting And you know it Whether or not that was I was clearly not the intention of uh of uh the the ldc You know as a whole but uh, you know in the context of things but that was the interpretation all right That's yeah, I mean in some ways it's kind of Grandfathered in did we make those changes? I wonder to the ldc with the new or The original road was put in under right that didn't fire it at that point in time well, I mean anything that is approved and It's it's basically grandfathered if it's approved and and and it's built I I don't I didn't do the research as to whether or not I was yeah, but then Because the condition of phase two was that they had to improve the road made like One argument would be that it should be brought up to two to uh current standards, but also The other argument would be that it's it's already there and You're only doing minor minor tweaks, which is uh Yeah in the end It was a kind of It was part way in between Yeah, any questions about this one, uh, I have a general question sure Remind me as the ldc been approved by council Okay Good to know And you're talking about the existing road that comes in by the cemetery correct the red line the red line. Yeah, okay And the phase two is going to be in that corner over by tap street these these um These buildings with the different roofs basically small smaller buildings these these would be replaced with buildings that look more like uh What's up there? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, so I think that's Yeah, the summary of autumn park. Yeah I don't know if there's any way that we could or if you could address me ldc or anything like that But I think when they originally came in They said that it was almost a hundred percent occupied I'm just curious as to what's happening with the residents that are being displaced as a result of the project If there's anything we can do to help mitigate any Right, we don't have rules that require Right, right a first refusal for right for a it's a hard thing to I think probably put in Yeah, but there are some municipalities out there some particularly the larger ones have have Had projects with that with phase development There was a way to offer New the existing residents a new place But then at the same time, I think it could be without certain incentives that could be difficult over here because they You know all the housing stock tends to be cheaper and I think the price Is likely to be higher So I I have a Before you go on to the next one Chris. I had a general comment when I read through this First of all, I was shocked at how many units are being proposed across all these different applications But was there any discussion at the d rb at all about affordability? affordable housing versus market price I mean, I think the d rb is Rather limited in In being able to require anything unless it is in the lbc There was I know in the past there's been there there was a there was a There are certain bonuses available for you know, if you meet the The affordability requirements And now in the newest latest version of the ldc that's There is something about uh, you know the the height bonus that is That is a heightened density bonus. That's the state requires all municipalities provide and that is linked to affordability um That's kind of the extent to like they often ask but Yeah, I was just wondering if there was any discussion at all, you know, right there They would often ask when when there's a chance, but it's not like they could Decide any differently right right just wondering The d rb also often asks about the spread the the spread of the types of units So, uh, second what I have on here is one Jackson street. This is an industrial building. This is the It's Flex flex seal the their previous you know when one flex seal was here. That was a big manufacturer of industrial parts That building like that business no longer operates here, but That building is used by chase moving and storage right now They the owners are looking to add six units on the second floor of that Just kind of adaptive reuse adding adding kind of another level within within the existing building that That got through d rb approval Pretty easily There were there were concerns about lighting You know, that was at a time when lighting was Was known to be a relatively uh sensitive issue because of a another Recent project that's on maple street that right that had some issues but um, yeah, so They're still work like they're approved. They are they have not pulled the permit yet Any questions about that one? No 227 per This was this along with um Many of the other projects are are of places where I've noticed that there are dimensional Requirements in the ldc that's We almost never meet and it doesn't seem like we want People to always have to meet like for example the for parking lot Isles we would acquire. I think it was like 20 24 feet in width for two-way travel. That's that's an interstate highway And every time the the uh applicants would propose something more reasonable and every time the d rb would say Like what what the after engineering review would say that is reasonable So that is I I think an area that could be worth um tweaking, uh, you know reviewing best practices uh dimensional standards And yeah but this 227 maybe put it up under just uh existing It's for 227 or 229. You can just throw up on google like what the existing Oh This is gonna be a 34 unit uh multifamily residential in uh In a multifamily uh mix use one zone This was also One interesting thing about this project was that I uh was the first time in My tenure here Uh noticing uh and uh the There's a requirement that you you have a 15 foot buffer between multifamily or commercial Development and a single family Proper so it's that's based on use And in this case the adjacent property is single family so They had met they had met a setback requirements Uh for the side setback requirements of about eight feet, but they weren't 15 feet away from there um In the end we were lucky that uh It was possible To re-engineered the whole site and shifted building a little bit. Yeah, but um, yeah, that was something that uh that I had not encountered before and i'm not sure other You know that that has been something that that has been uh carefully looked at For some other reviews so the applicant uh wasn't aware of it. Um, but Yeah, that's certainly something I think as you know it and think about across the board through all zoning districts or do we have it to Dependent upon because I mean I can see the reasoning why is so that the multifamily doesn't dwarf and overpower a single family Yeah, that this is a requirement in all zoning districts except Uh for village center When you are beside another property that is also in the village center Zoning district, right? There are some technicalities about that. You know exactly eight the eight railroad uh case will uh Will reveal But um, yeah, it is everywhere Any questions about this or the policy? No, it's just I was surprised I could get 34 units on that property Yeah, it's I mean if you look at On it, this one is this this one is even more I think uh with Things of this size are which which one is it up there? This is the game handy. This is the game handy No, no, but which one is Hold on. I'll just Yeah, is that it? Oh those. Gotcha. Yeah, that's right. I bet I just I pulled it up on google maps and Yeah, it just looks small. I mean the only ongoing watch I was gonna kind of ask at the end But I guess I'm gonna ask how I'm going as you're going through them Is is there a breakdown of unit type within each building? Yes, um These so this one Oh studios, please. No, it is somewhere in here There's this one. I think it was a mix of One and two bedrooms good. Okay There's actually one recent application where it was a mix of studio one two and three great. Yeah, I just didn't like seeing those 34 40 60 I think it's like 60 studios in one building or something like that. That's right What are we doing? And autumn pond I'm guessing is probably a mix Yeah, there I think there are plenty of two bedrooms in there. Great. Yeah I think we're we're seeing a long along pearl street though. Where's there are more uh, you know and along the thing this is transit corridor. Um There are more studios being being built at because I think there's Yeah, it could be that's uh, that's The demographics are of people who are going to be you know living car free and uh over here a little bit different Yeah, it's just you know Make sure that a mix of uh unit types are being built across the city and so open 161 Put up the the site Show the applications the renderings And also the decision So, uh, yeah, there's 161 pearl streets. Um This one is beside Uh, this is this is an 18 unit multifamily residential building opposed uh beside the existing strip mall with the subway And this would require shared parking. I just was going to use the the the parking in the back of the uh That subway building um What was interesting about this one, uh Oh if when when I When we when we're able to pull this up, uh, we'll put the uh, yeah That's that's draft decision. Yeah about So one site plan decision Yeah sign There yeah go up go up and show that image. Gotcha. So yeah something interesting about this was uh that through the uh through the review process I found that's uh the There are two entrances. There's the front entrance and the rear entrance the front entrance required steps. Uh, it also required, uh squeezing between parked cars to get to it, um But the rear entrance is the accessible but in order to reach the accessible entrance, you'd have to use the neighboring property and go all the way around uh, and in the end the the drb required that uh, they reconsider that and and The final site they uh, they have to the approval had a condition that they had to modify the The front to have a more accessible uh pedestrian friendly entrance Makes sense. Yeah street facing Any other questions about that? Nope. All right Eight railroad Maybe throw up put up the The site the newest site plan All right This is the property that burned down. This is the property that burned down. This is along the crescent connector right um, and it is right beside Uh gains court, which is a private drive um And this is an interesting case because gains court is owned as individual lots, uh like it's actually the the uh, it's Portions of gains court is is a part of each property. Oh, I see instead of being its own right of way But in this case the the uh, but two two things happened over here It was first Brought to the drb and it had to go through design review because this is in the village center zoning district and now design review is Throughout the the five major corridors The drb had issues with the design and uh, as that the applicants rework some of the The the architecture The architect, uh Change a few things brought it back, but upon review upon closer review we found the We looked at the wording of the 15 foot buffer requirements And it looked like there was no way to get around that unless Yeah, there was a waiver available a few if you could determine that there's no adverse negative adverse It was like significant adverse impact or something um on the surrounding neighbors But yeah, because this proposed building isn't the vc district But the buildings beside are in a multifamily mixed used area And some of those happened to be single family houses The rule kicked in saying that you had to keep a 15 foot buffer at least from those Property lines, right? Yeah um, and because the property lines In this case with gains court starts at The other side of gains court right you just on the edge of the room wouldn't be able to build all the way up to the edge as was originally Yeah, sorry. I'm trying to get through it. Um, are you looking all the side time? Are you looking in dropbox shipping jobs? Oh in dropbox. I was looking through the shared drive Okay, I'm just Interesting Yeah, I'll throw up this one. This was a relatively interesting one. So I'm just gonna throw up here Yeah, the site plan is pretty good Yeah, I've got Stuff pulled up on my laptop, but switching back and forth All right, so here Is So yeah in the end this was this solution um You can probably guess what it what it was originally proposed to be Originally, this was uh supposed to be more more a rectangle um They had actually thought about three floors um And the and the rectangle going all the way to the back of the property But uh with this redesign they've gone up to four and actually increased the the unit count to 39 Um Parking ratio is like it was low. It was remarkably low. It was like 0.6 or something. I think we've got 20 28 spaces for 39 units Um, but there's no parking minimums in Village center. So that's right. That's how yeah That's how this was this was a Able to get through. Um, one thing I did suggest was uh The possibility for tandem parking spaces for the the two bedroom units or like, you know, whatever unit Multi car units You know, if it's the same unit that has more than a household same household that has more than one car You can you can arrange it and some some municipalities explicitly allow this We can allow this through a waiver Have a double length parking space. Oh, it's they can park one in front of the other. That's right. Yeah And with this awkward layout with your car elevator so they can pull it up and park underneath the other I've seen them. I've seen those before Yeah, um Yeah, but this this was how this was reworked to uh, keep the 15 foot buffer Uh, the the building in the front is actually multi family Uh, so that's why the 15 foot buffer didn't apply to that portion of something towards the back. That's right. Yeah Um, so I'll show you what the what the this is what the design looks like. So I was looking at the old design Yeah, it's changed a bit. It's changed dramatically. Um, kind of like that facade. It's kind of neat It's better than the old one the old one was uh Uh brick facade or at least like full brick Um, the bottom looked the same but now it looks like this. I don't know what what you call this barn barn style I think it was a Something like yeah, yeah, that's a thought of being on the g. Yeah, I like it Well, yeah, that's gonna be very different. Yeah Um, are there uh with all these being approved This past spring, right? I think I saw a timeline to construct and break ground. Do we know what that is for all these projects? Uh No, no, no, we're actually I do know I see when some of them are going through act 250 Uh, and so autumn pond Was going through act 250 that takes a while 227 pearl was going through act 250 The other ones do not require act 250 right, but None of the ones that have been approved have pulled permits yet. Okay. Um, but Yeah, and and sometimes things are approved and never built and you know, they come back Do something different. Oh, uh, chris. Yeah, uh, we have a raised hand in chat. Oh, great. Um, marcus Um Marcus has his hand raised. Yeah, marcus. Please go ahead. I think we'll have to unmute them on our end Um, I've Press the button. There we go. Great. Thank you. All right. Um, quick question In that setback There was a discussion at one point as to whether or not the 50d Was a radiant or a straight straight line Um, I don't remember whether the results or the decision Um, that was at the time and I don't know if this was made or if there were any discussion. Thank you So, yeah, that was uh, that was something I had brought up Um, as you can see in this on the site plan that I that I put here Like strictly speaking if you're standing from this corner of this single family house in the LT family mixed use district Uh And practically touch the other building you can still touch that building because It 15 foot should mean radius and I think actually the the drb mostly agreed on that But they also agreed that the impact what the recent changes the the the uh, uh, the the impact as I think They were they were very specifically, but they they thought it was acceptable and uh, they The applicant asked for clarification Just to make sure that they can move forward as is in the drb's The all the drb members presence Said they were comfortable with it The mechanism for how they would allow that Could be uh through a waiver of this specific This section that you can you can give a You can waive this 15 foot requirements if if you find there are no Undo adverse impacts right on the adjacent properties um Any other questions, but No, and did you say with this one that they were able to add the second level so they added that bit of affordability According to the new s 100 no or no. No, this is for this is four floors four stories, uh So No, there's okay. Did any of those meet that this that recent requirement or I guess these no nothing yet We have been in right around the same thing We have been in preliminary talks with uh and with a developer about something In a village center zoning district that that may great. Uh But nothing that actually has materialized yet Excellent All right Oh, there was one, uh 132 perl this one this one is all you know 132 perl is uh Relatively small Oh, like, you know landlord that's that that is Looking to to build um This was 18. Yeah, this was 18 apartment units uh He had come to the city in and created plans to build something around 18 units about a year ago, but at the time uh The parking requirements prevented That from happening and he and he was going to try to get uh get a lease agreement with the rail railway behind him To get some to lease some parking space from there to be able to do 18 that fell through so he couldn't do it Yeah, good one came back with a second proposal which drastically cut the number of housing units um to meet the city's uh Parking requirements, but I knew the changes were coming to To the parking requirements that were going to drop it down to uh One per housing units So I told him about it and and he went back and held off and uh came up with The something closer to the original plan is 18 units. So that's what came for conceptual Uh, I found the folder. I'm working on it. It's gonna take a second. So Do we know how many units are on that property now? Or I think it's around Or Units right now, but not they're mostly not occupied. I think only one of them is actually being used Okay, and he's like ready to tear that down. Yeah But this is a mix. This is the one that's a mix of studio one two or three bedrooms, uh, but By his reasoning the the only way he could fit that in Was to actually to to build within the setbacks uh The front and rear setbacks Uh, which in the highway arterial district is what was that? What's the front setback remember? It gave Oh, yeah, that's on here 20 foot setback in the front 20 foot setback in the front and He was proposing to build Within that 20 foot setback, but not any more than the existing building so Our normal interpretation of the LDC is that's if you uh If you tear it down, you're starting from scratch then you have to you have to abide by the setbacks the current rules Yeah, although if you look three properties down it's a transit oriented development district Right, uh, where there are no setbacks and actually you can't have right up there. There's yeah, you can't have too much setback there Yeah For some reason we have the highway arterial districts, which I I really think we should we should reconsider at some point um, we can That's Yeah, so this proposal would violate those setbacks, but the way the drb elected to think about this was as a pud planned unit development, which gives flexibility for things like setbacks It creates a waiver for Setbacks if you meet all the other qualifications if you meet all the other qualifications Which this one meets some but not all but there is the potential that if with some adjustments it could And just for a point of clarity, it's a little hard to see on the screen here But the light blue line There's a square in the top left corner and then a more odd shape over here Yeah, uh, those are the footprints of the existing building. Oh, right. So it's like in terms of how It exceeds the these setbacks is not more than the existing buildings It is but but it Uses up some of that area and and and he says that was necessary in order to be able to create those Three, uh, three bedroom units. You know, you could cut our our buffer zone in this within the setback. He's gonna Look nicer than good stuff What was that? It's gonna look nicer than what's in front of good stuff. Yeah, right Right that uh with that water catch basin or whatever, which was probably supposed to be in the back of the building or something Oh, okay Yeah Well, sometimes those features like Rain gardens and whatnot can be nice. Um, but yeah, no, they can be they need landscape landscape architect would Need to put some effort into it this If this is to be approved as a pud it would it would definitely need landscape architect To draw the plans that landscape plans they've already got a pretty good, you know, basic idea plan over here You can see all the different Oh, yeah, different uh kinds of plants and stuff and then Yeah, yeah So, yeah, this is at the conceptual stage and some conceptual ideas approved at a conceptual stage But technically an approval at the conceptual conceptual stage doesn't mean anything. Um, it's just Uh, yeah We like where your comments. Yeah. Yeah, right. It's like a pre-application. It's like a certainly sounds like that We give you the approval to apply. Yep And to give you a heads up on anything that could be an issue down the line. Yeah All right. Yeah, any additional questions about No, thank you for the overview. Uh, oh and then there's of course, there's eight half street Which is not the development application, right? That's it That's uh an appeal an appeal of uh, of uh administrative officers, uh Zoning by law enforcement decision I don't know if you've already read enough about about uh eight half street to uh to Oh, right. Do you not require? Uh, the uh, I can't provide this is cannabis and delks Right. Nope. I remember when you originally came to planning commission Yeah, uh year half two years ago or something It started the conversations Yeah Something like that. Yeah. Well, so just procedurally I guess I'll I'll I'll update you procedurally as to where this case sits um this Was and there was an appeal Like so so staff and uh Did not enforce the land development codes prohibition on these two land uses uh farming and and uh and cannabis because the general understanding among the planning profession here is that the uh, this is uh overridden by state statute which says we're farmed We're right to farm states and anywhere that's anything that qualifies as a farm which the state wrote a farm determination letter for uh Is in state jurisdiction but the wording of that is very Uh, you know very specific and the the lawyer of the appellants made a made a compelling case and The the drb actually sided with the appellant for the for the docks um Saying that the city does have the the rights and uh and duty to Prohibit what's supposed to be prohibited in the ldc, but uh the drb decided that's uh That does not extend to cannabis because it's they thought it was very clear in in uh statute that's uh Miras palades did not have the power to prohibit cannabis outdoor auto cannabis So that's where this uh, that that's where the appeal landed and the official uh Decision is being passed around right now. You'll see it posted what it's all signed and there's a good overview of the findings of act and and uh and uh conclusions of law And the conclusions of law was yeah, I think is worth paying some attention to Certainly, okay Yeah Thank you for that. Yeah um, yeah, no, I mean by my account that's uh about 221 Uh, I actually I guess I can't say net new units to be constructed because I don't know how many being demolished and replaced at autumn pond, but um, you know, that's that's great autumn pond aside just 3418 3418 It's good to see new units coming on And good to see a mix too So I know I've been vocal about studio only apartments that seem to have been popping up but I like to see the one two three bedrooms to Have those opportunities for larger families Yeah, good distribution All right Any further questions or discussions regarding, uh What was just presented No, but I appreciate the presentation. Um, it gave me a chance to understand more what the drb's been doing And I was quite surprised that there were new units that are being proposed Well, my office is uh available any time to answer these more questions about any of these Contact any of us We'll excellent keeping abreast All right, moving on to the reading file village center renewal uh Congratulations to uh Chris Regina for your successful reapplying On the city's behalf Yeah, it it was a simple renewal of the existing Or another eight years. Yeah, although we we will bring something forward in the new new future proposal to expand the Nate uh the the uh, the neighborhood development area But yeah, an important step to make sure we don't lose the designation first and then have to start from scratch That's right. Yeah Excellent, uh anything else to be said in their comments from anyone Nope Yeah, uh that brings us to uh Members updates which I realize I just wrote my note in the wrong place. Um, I think that goes to my scott updates times two All right, I'll start first of all with the capital project committee meeting on tuesday Um, mostly was a discussion of the local options tax And how it could be applied Um, I don't have the number right here But the projection for fiscal year 2024 is about a million dollars To the city is a basic junction, which is um A lot of money quite obviously coming in Uh, we had a discussion and I think the last meeting I said I would bring up the idea of the landlord incentive program We had a discussion mostly about how it can be used. Um, and the discussion uh came down to When when this, uh, proposed Use of the lot was on the ballot The meetings that were prior to the balloting or the ballot initiative um, the city felt very strongly that they had they had in Implied that the money would be used for capital funds So the objective of this initial Amount of money is to have it for capital funds and there will be a policy presented to council um using a format that was um Developed by one of the members of the committee Um, I did bring up the idea of using it for something else such as, um I set a grant or loan program since we don't really have concrete ideas Um, there was a little bit of objection to the idea of using a loan program Because of the difficulties of a city or municipality Managing a loan program, but I I mentioned that if it was Uh a program for landlords that it would most likely have to be under the housing trust fund or something of that nature And the housing trust fund requires An outside body to manage the trust fund. So it could still apply Uh interestingly enough, I think I passed around the day after that amber had had passed around that link to the city of ruttland developing a loan program for rehabilitating old housing for rental units It's not completely analogous and I do I think ruttland has a housing trust fund as I recall I think that pretty much I think they do that could be wrong But anyway, um, I didn't get a chance to read the article, but anyway, I'm glad that amber shared that with us um, they did feel that The potential for using it for something like that could be interesting in the future So it's not off the table, but initially the the lot will be used for capital funds capital projects because there's a fair backlog of capital projects already for the city Second update, um, and I see marcus is online as well, but chris marcus and I and others um, had the first steering committee meeting for the the city of esic junction vision and strategic plan um That was tuesday and noon. I recall trying to remember everything I did this week um, and I'll give you a quick summary of the results of that if I can find it right now um Yeah, so um future iq is the company that was was contracted to do the the strategic plan And they did a presentation of the sort of steps that are involved in in the next Eight months nine months. I think it's due in march next year. So it's a very very tight timeline Tomorrow is going to be the launch of the project So there will be a initial survey that goes out Um online and most likely will also be a paper copy to be delivered to places where people are not necessarily online Or other options. There was a long discussion about public engagement Both for the online survey or for the survey itself and also for um The second step, which will be a think tank On november 2nd and 4th. You should probably put in your calendars. That's uh, going to be a Two to three hour session on thursday night the second and saturday morning the fourth And the objective of that is to review the results of the survey and listening sessions And then to allow stakeholders in the room to Come up with ideas for moving forward Uh, once family So november 2nd would be our next Ah First thursday of the month interesting Um Ashley is going to be Preparing there is preparing a communication strategy for this Which will start tomorrow. There's going to be she's going to be interviewed. There'll also be public releases In sx reporter and other media On the vision in strategy The survey will be released tomorrow online There's also a project portal that's been developed by the consultant which will go live tomorrow So it'll be I guess on the website on the sx junction website. I assume the portal Yeah, there will at least be a link to it. Yeah link to it. Yeah um There is also a project logo Which will be launched tomorrow as well And what else chris anything else you want to add I've forgotten or marcus who's online Marcus says his hand up. Yeah, go ahead marcus Would you get unmuted? Thank you clarification Let me just add two more things quickly Um, so the the next steps is the stakeholder survey tomorrow for the consultant stakeholder survey That'll be out there for one month Um, as I mentioned, ashley will be putting together communications approach and there's been identification initially of stakeholder groups Um, and there'll have to be some sort of volunteer efforts to get this out to organizations that are not going to be responding online For example, some of the commercial enterprises and in the center of and along pearl street Um, senior says senior centers schools, etc So there's going to be probably some hardcore volunteer work getting out to these organizations to make sure we get a response Think tank and they're looking so the survey they're hoping to get a thousand response A thousand responses I think that's going to be um A little bit ambitious, but hopefully we'll get her think tank is 80 to 100 at each one of these sessions So there'll be a lot of small groups discussions Then they're talking about a charrette Yeah, on the 9th of december Or following it up again And then on the 23rd and 24th of january Of focus group discussions The final is I finalizing the strategic approaches and actions Mm-hmm So it's quite exciting. Yeah Thank you for uh sitting in and for the Little rundown and I I will uh add that For this survey, we are uh Going to subset or be able to subset by zones Where people are answering from and this This was just you know, roughly this this was quickly created for the survey, but it could have Implications for future use By our other initiatives if we for public engagement Certainly, this is like roughly correlated to our zoning, but It looks much nicer in color I just saw the black and white version. I couldn't figure it out. Oh, thanks Yeah Excellent um I don't know if there are any Updates the only other item I think that um, you know that I threw on there that I think scott's kind of seconded was What's next conversation for about 10 minutes or so just to see where we want to potentially go from here as a Planning commission some some ideas. Um But we can if there are any staff updates we could hit those real quick and then get into a nice little 10-15 minute discussion before we adjourn I don't have any additional staff updates um I have a few ideas, but I'm still learning about like how everything works and getting plans together, but uh As I get more used to you know attending these meetings. I hope to have things in the future Sounds good All right Looking at the three of us here. What's next? Well, why don't we go back just a second and talk about what we had proposed before Um, I think we came up with four stroke five If I remember correctly first was housing and rental registry. That was number one priority Uh, number two. I thought was business development number three was no Well climate change adaptation was one and five five corners five design or design five corners was another one I don't remember if there was a fifth or not. I thought there were four But then I was thinking design five corners might have been a separate one Anyway, um I have my own personal priorities right now And I'm just going to say given Given what we're seeing in terms of weather regularities and also um, some of the efforts being proposed nationally And I actually just heard a bunch of things on the radio over the last couple of days I wouldn't mind um, I know they're all important, but I wouldn't mind if we did something relevant to Looking at combining design five corners and something around greening or climate change adaptation Actually, that is related to something I've run into in the last week. Uh, it was what I was thinking of but Don't have enough together to present anything on it yet. Uh, but I attended a Was it like a video conference thing earlier this week? Um with a couple of the other municipalities and uh actions in the state um Talking about climate change mitigation measures Uh policies things that we could introduce and adapt to try to be more resilient in the wake of you know, Floods um excessive heat during the summers. You know mitigate these these things long term, right? Uh, and you know possibilities of putting together a plan for future action, I guess um Yeah, and that's one of the things on my list to get to eventually try to develop that a little bit more And figure out the best way to implement something like that. Um, I don't know if that would be a planning commission thing or Who goes somewhere else? I don't know I'll see it There's been a number of discussions recently nationally amongst a lot of municipalities about Trying to make it more pleasant to live with our rising temperatures in urban areas so things like Shade shade shade bear and that what he called shared. Yeah shade Harps and stuff around various places making it more work walkable and accessible Which is consistent with the biking and walk committee and our sort of approach um, but then also just looking at other things which we talked about before which is trying to In IBM is a good example now trying to maximize the opportunities to put in more solar In areas where it doesn't take up additional space parking parking barriers on that Become parts canopies and stuff um looking at buildings that have flat roads trying to look at an incentive programs and so on Anyway, it's just that would be my priority As opposed to I mean design five corners is going to go ahead pretty much anyway Business development. I think we're getting pretty nervous to business development right now So I I wouldn't mind if we kind of skip to the climb change stuff I I have a little more input on that as well. Um, my my master's thesis was actually on the topic about, uh, best practice practices for implementing solar in dense urban areas Uh, so I've got a little bit of background in that Um, excellent. We didn't talk before Yeah, we tap into that. Yeah Um, yeah, some of my ideas were just around little projects and whether or not they fall within the purview of the planning commission or not. Um, and You know, I've heard filth say Things in the past about public art was one of my ideas that I had is Could we get more public art somehow would that be something that the planning commission Whether we're writing grant applications to the vermont arts council, um to receive funding to hire somebody on there are two spots that Immediately come to my mind that I'm not entirely sure what the approach would be or how we would go about it But I'm thinking about the two concrete walls um Right as you come up to a from williston right past the dam On the right hand side on the river side There's that concrete retaining wall, which I think would be just a wonderful spot to put some type of public art. Welcome to sx junction Um, sort of thing there, uh, and then just here on Lincoln street, there's a smaller retaining wall, but it's also concrete too And could we do something kind of similar maybe the same artist could tie the two places together? Um Because I was down in a prattle. Yeah, and there's beautiful Yeah, I was just like Yeah, yeah, I mean my preference would be a mural, but you know, there are there are some certain like sculptures and stuff that and other Municipalities have done on similar places, but you know, I don't know what the steps would be for I mean Probably have to approach the property owner and all that good stuff Happy to head head that up a bit Um, but that's one thing. Um, and then another one that would be a larger One, but years gone by we used to have a farmers market We don't anymore. Would that be something we'd be the city would be interested In starting up again. And is that something the planning commission would need to take or want to take a lead on trying to help coordinate? Um Now would probably be a good time to start those conversations. So come next spring summer We might be able to implement a small one and see how it goes or something like that, but and that's another thought and then just Along those same lines community development Bringing people together showing what design five corners could be which could also spin I know you want to put business development on a whole but could also spin some business development With different pop-up events, but holding some more community events And is that something the planning commission would potentially assist city staff or whomever Please in charge of kind of organizing that stuff. And is that something the planning commission would want to head up as well? I think those all fit very nicely in a green green community. Yeah It could be a combination here. Yeah, absolutely. I mean you you can use some of those events to show potentially What it is we're going towards we're aiming towards And get more of that quote-unquote community buy-in on some of those things potentially as well I mean the other day we were talking I was actually Marcus and I were talking after the meeting about All the new Restaurants and shops that are opening to the village center Including the nice little grocery that's going to open up down the street There's a allow shop that's opening it down on buck But you know this whole idea of Making it more walkable making it more bike friendly making it more community focused I think it fits nicely into the whole objective So is it possible maybe Thinking about combining some of these things without a doubt for sure Bridges encompasses Yeah, yeah, I would agree my sentiments. I wouldn't have just gotten enjoying Some of my initial questions were actually specifically what happened to the farmers mark because I don't I don't have that Historical knowledge like what happened to the farmers aren't writing. Why is it here? Right? There's like the short answer that I've got was like oh, we just turned into a bunch of like craft vendors No, it turned into food trucks food Used to be over on What's that street by Murray's tap? Oh, it goes from railroad to Lincoln It used to be there and it was the whole street was blocked off and it was great because it had a combination of vendors with produce and food stalls Then it moved over behind fire What's it called fire firebird cafe firebird cafe in that public parking lot And eventually it turned out to be four or five food trucks and that was it So we lost and and the people selling Distilled liquor from Johnsburg So it was It lost it lost the vendors and I don't know if it's because it wasn't enough of a market For for the farmers to show up or what but it'd be interesting to find out why it really So and then related to that related to green I'm also interested and also related to today's discussion about we have these concentrated Uh rental developments that have very large norms presidents thinking about community garden space And and and just like explore the question First of all, is there interest in having more in the city? Is there is interest? Is there any way that we can? What would it take to find space in proximity perhaps to some of these high density locations where we have a lot of people that don't have a lot of space Uh, I don't just think things along that nature are I would be very interested in exploring. I don't know how we begin I've got a couple ideas. First of all, I'd like to start doing that research Yeah, but this is good. I mean this is kind of what I was hoping that we just get some of these ideas out Out there so we all kind of know what each other's thinking about a little bit as we move beyond the rental registry I think the visioning the Well, that's going to be a really good yeah, we could watch very well not only watch participate Bring these ideas to the floor. I mean, these are things that I think would be beneficial to to bring up during the the visioning exercise Yeah, and then of course, there's always the inclusionary zoning that the housing committee works hard on That we don't want to lose too much sight of either at some point to pick up conversations around But you know, there's a lot of things we just kind of mentioned and of course Maybe next month we can spend some time Yeah prioritizing a little bit more and figuring out what Where resources might already lie and where we could begin to focus on tackling some of those things Split up a little bit start smaller committees or small small groups or something to head off on things But no great. Yeah, so originally I was talking to philip to uh Try to see what the last item today should be It landed on this review of recent drb decisions, but some of the ideas I had Were that and also To work on a wish list for prioritization for future ldc amendments It's like we're great. Yeah, but it but my thought was that a lot of these things Some of the some of them would end up having to be A next amendment of the land land development code Uh, certainly doesn't hurt to have a a bunch of proposed changes Like in on the back burner ready to go fully discussed and like ready to recommend Um, even if we're aren't ready to push out the the the next version of the ldc So I think some of these things that we're talking about could be that um I also had an I proposed item about exploratory discussion on whether or not the highway arterial zoning district really makes any sense Although the ccrpcs long-awaited to the study could provide some If we just waited long enough Um, and the last item I had was a exploratory discussions on five corners redesign like intersection redesign And if that could be a pilot project and uh, you know, how would you make that? Not mess up transit operations because the way it Yeah, that that as it stands right now as as it's drawn right now it would require buses to cross over the the rail tracks twice and um It's yeah, it would probably get pushed back and Be difficult to to do without some other changes to the routes So the bus would have to go down maple and then turn on railroad Yeah, that's right. And then cross back over the cross and then make that difficult turn there Is there um in terms of the crossing connector project Is there a time for when that's supposed to be completed? Yeah Yes, next construction season is supposed to be the final one So it takes two construction season to to really finish it up. But I think it's supposed to partially open like Yeah, this uh This year. Yeah, interestingly. I just walked it today. I don't know if I was supposed to walk down it or not But it poured some sidewalk It was wide open. Yeah, and it looked inviting. So I was like, yeah, I'll just take this um Yeah, it looks like it's already more or less completed. Well the The engineer at the last capital capital projects committee And the previous meeting Said as chris said that it'll be finalized next construction season because What they want to do now is make sure that it's plowable and drivable for this winter Right and then next year they'll put in the traffic lights And then make it operational. Right. Yeah, no, I was uh, yeah just to kind of finish my thought it was It looks more or less completed into the parking lot of Yeah, the existing businesses back there that drive now from Pearl Street straight into the parking lot Oh, wow That from the parking lot to maple has not been built. Yeah. Yeah, just see that it was big machine sitting Right. Yeah It looks nice opportunity for a lot of shade trees. Yeah And more apartment buildings Mm-hmm, which was the original vision. Yeah, let's go happen. Okay Excellent anything else anyone going once going twice I move we adjourn Any further discussion on the adjournment? No all in favor of closing the October 5th 2023 planning commission meeting of the city of Essex Junction say aye. Aye. Aye officially closed