 Each item Scott will give access to the applicant and members of the public who want to participate in each item. We will swear them in as appropriate for each item. We also ask that people give for follow-up and party status. Just state your name and address and that's for follow-up for notification of word decision. I think everything has been posted at this time. Everything that I've received up and through about 10 other additions in the last 10 minutes. Projects that's on. Can I chime in? I wanted to tell you I posted something correspondence for 2-14 King Street this afternoon. That's posted on the site. Just an email correspondence from the state representative. Okay. And there's a few documents for 75 Cherry, Brad, that are posted. Is that what we get there? I guess. Minutes. I don't see Ali here at the moment. Is Ali here? I don't see Ali yet either. But minutes are minutes from the last meeting are posted online. Okay. And she will. Watch the tape and produce minutes from this one. It is being recorded right now. And I will multitask and text her. Okay. Very well. Okay. There is nothing on the consent agenda tonight. And so we get to our first public hearing item, which is. 251 253 South Union Street. Is the applicant here for that? I see. Okay. I'm seeing double. I'm seeing two Alex. I see one up there. I had some Alex wanted to display. So I'm going to let him do a share screen. Do we have anybody from the public? Who wants to participate on this one? Do we know? If you want to testify on 251 253 South Union, please raise your hand. If you're calling in, you do that by pressing star nine. I see four folks with their hand raised. Okay. Two, three. Alex have power. He's up there. Is there one more person? Okay. Everyone's been enabled at this point. Okay. So we have Tom Higgins should be there. Pardon. Tom Higgins should be on your. Alex, Tom, Rebecca and Joseph. I'm going to ask and, and Jill. On this one. No, our Jill is 428. So. That was premature. Right, Jill. I'll bring you back up later. Okay. Okay. So the four people I have right now, I will ask that you swear to tell the truth and hold truth on the pain and penalty. Would you say I do. I do. Yeah, I do. I'm going to say that it is. So. There were some questions on this one relative to the. The presentation. I'm going to go back to the beginning of a residential building being converted at this point. So I guess Alex. You have a presentation. You want to make on this. I have a screenshot. He wants to present. Alex, you are up. You can hear us. Alex. Okay. Are you still there? We're not hearing anything. Is Rebecca Weissman still on the line? Can you hear us? Yes, I'm, I'm here. And if we can't get Alex. So let's start with that if we can. Hey, Rebecca. I'll switch you to be able to screen share in a moment. Okay. Let me. You're on mute. I'm stalling in the hopes that Alex is figuring out his sound. Okay. I'm just. Yeah. All right. Let me screen share here. Okay. Okay. Can everybody see this? Yes. Okay. So the proposal is for 251, 253 South Union street. This is a street view. And right now the whole building is being used as a law office. And this is a little bit. The whole building is being used as a law office. This is the. The district map. You can see this from above. And then we have the. In the proposal that we sent in that. Upon further investigation, we realized there's, there has been no residential space unit in this space. At least since the 1980s. We have Tommy again here who can speak to that a little bit later. So basically the whole building. You can see this from above. This is the front of the building. The rear of the building. And I just want to point out that the rear of the building, the lower level. Is. Entry level to the parking lot. But if you look from the front. The first level that street level is above the parking lot. So there's lower level, first level, second level. And then. Basically what we're, this is the square footage. And basically what we're proposing is to. Convert. The general office used to neighborhood commercial. Use to be more in accordance with. Current zoning. And our intended use is as a therapy. And then. Physical therapy. Massage therapy, yoga therapy. So those fall within the health studio and medical office. Designations of neighborhood commercial. And you can just see again, lower level, first level and second level. And the areas down here that are. Inhabitable storage space, such a basement level or lower level. Storage space. So this. All comes to about 5,625 square feet. And. We recognize that this is above the. The letter of the law in terms of what neighborhood commercial. Allows for square footage. And we're, we're just hoping that we can make this an easy purchase. We don't, we don't own the building yet. We're, we're looking to purchase this building. And it's, it's pretty turnkey in terms of turning it into office space and. I think. I can, do you want me to keep this up or I can stop sharing. You can talk if you don't need anything up there right now. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just to say. Comments on this too. Scott, can you hear me now? Yes, Alex. All right. That's amazing. I can, I could see. I couldn't speak. So that's an amazing job. Yeah, I can just add in jump in, but that was, that was a great overview. So. Go ahead. Yeah. So I think that we can talk about the size of this and the existence of the apartment. Which is not permitted. The lack of the apartment, which has never been permitted to get rid of the apartment. And I think that it has in fact been permitted to get rid of the apartment. And I think Tom Higgins is here. Who can speak to that. Yes. Can everyone hear me? Yeah. Thanks. I have worked in this building since I believe it's November 1989. When I joined this law firm. The. The building isn't exactly the same. Condition that it is now. No material changes. I've been made, made to the building except for repairs and, and upkeep since then, I think, you know, it was close to the biggest thing we probably did. Other than like rebuilding the porches and things like that. Whereas like adding an air conditioning unit. The. When I joined in 89, there was, there was no apartment in the building. The gentleman that owned the building. It was a partnership of the partners in this building, which was a law firm. And they were, you know, At that time. And, and at all times, fastidious about permitting and, and doing things correctly. Both Doug Pearson and chip bottoms were on the board of Alderman. Through the 70s and 80s. And, you know, wouldn't have not. Permitted. Participated in the permitting process. You know, we, when I first became an owner of the building. In night, in 2010, we had a title search and full zoning. Review done. I have been pouring through those files to try and. You know, get some indication that the permitting. That, that whatever change might have been done in the 80s was included in there. I have not located any. All I have is a title opinion, which says, you know, like what zone, like when you get your zoning certification, that there's no claims against the building and no outstanding or threatened zoning enforcement actions. You know, that's, I guess, I don't know what the, what the rules were back then. I just. Feel very confident that. Back at that time, they would have sought and conducted the permitting properly. And I can just tell you that there is no apartment. There hasn't been an apartment. Since I've been an owner since I've worked here. And since I took over as principal owner. You know, several years ago. And if you have any questions about that, I'd be happy to answer them, but. I'm not certain what I can add about the details in the 80s. Yeah. And Scott, I take it you looked through and didn't find any zoning permits for the. Voting that changed the apartment. Well, there was a zoning permit to establish the office. And then there was another one subsequent to that. And 77 to expand the office space. Because at that time you were allowed to expand in nonconformity. And they got a permit for it. So great. But the upside of that was they still had a single apartment remaining. In addition to the office. You know, all that said, that's, that's more or less beside the point about what we're talking about tonight. And they're seeking approval to convert the nonconforming office to a neighborhood commercial use. So that's a good point. I just pointed out that should this be approved. There, there should really be an apartment there because there's no permit to get rid of it. I can speak to that just momentarily because we, we did have a little bit of language in our proposal. And I think upon further investigation. We really are asking to use the whole building, both for financial reasons. And I think that would be a good idea. And I think that would be a good idea. To turn that to, to turn that second floor into a residential space would require some other. Kind of access, which would be exterior work on a brick building. Which we're not that interested in doing. And I don't. We haven't investigated the zoning around that. So it would be a big deal to put in residential space there. And I think that would be a good idea. And I think that what we're looking to do, and I don't think anyone can speak to this a little bit is just. The impact of the building that what we're looking to do. And I know neighborhood commercial doesn't. Singuish fully between these types of things. But what we're looking to use the building for is not so. Different. From what it was used as in terms of. Impact on the surrounding traffic. Parking. That would be a neighborhood asset. Yeah, I think that's our. That's our base request tonight is it's been used as a. General commercial use for the last 30 or 40 years. And we're requesting that if there's a space for a conditional use to take it over as a. Health studio neighborhood commercial use. And it's saying shape and form with no modification to the outside. And that's the, that's the ask. And Scott health studio is a different. Use than office. I take it. Correct. Right. And a medical office. So, you know, if I may just briefly here. So. Aside from the missing apartment, right? There's basically three. Problems here. One is the entire space is too big more than 4,000 square feet. The other is. They're proposing more than just the street level, which is a requirement for neighborhood commercial. And the other. Is that in order to convert to a neighborhood commercial use, you need to have one right now and they don't. And, you know, I did speak to the applicants a couple of times beforehand. And they said, you know, maybe that's the, the ray of hope here in terms of the use, not the location of square footage, but in terms of the use. You know, one could argue that we're changing a non-conforming use to something that could conceivably be conforming. The problem, of course, as I just said, is the zoning code doesn't say you can change a non-conformity to one of these. But they wanted to move ahead with the application. I think the reason, I think the reason we wanted to move ahead with the idea that. If this was a proposal to put law offices in there, the understanding that we wouldn't even. Need to talk with planning and zoning that it could just go back in as the same use. Yet this is neighborhood commercial, which is a preferred use by today's zoning ordinance. I think that's a good point. One would assume that the traffic would be different for this use than the law office since you would have people coming from Harvard. Many practitioners were there for appointments every hour, whatever. So that. It does have a different impact. We did talk about that. And I think. Rebecca and Tom can act. Yeah. I think I can speak to it a little bit because we, we did talk through this. Yeah. Yeah. Tom informed us that. When that building was fully occupied, there were 20 employees. Plus clients coming and going all day long. Now we wouldn't have anywhere near that number of employees. We would probably have 10 and given pandemic times. Anybody who's doing in person counseling or therapy. We have to have a lot more space per person. Like we would need all of that space. So we would have fewer employees and. I think the coming and going of clients would probably be. About the same and there's. I think you saw in that. Overview it there. There is plenty of parking in the back. So there wouldn't be. A need for street parking. What hours would you be operating your business? Well, we, we're, we're thinking that when you. Looked at that floor plan of the three levels, there's basically room for about five. So those would be separate practitioners. Most of those would be. Nine to five kind of regular, regular hours. The yoga therapy. That could potentially be. A little bit more of an evening time, but, but again, pretty much regular business hours. Rebecca yoga therapy. That's different than a yoga class. Correct. Well, there's a variety. I think yoga is a sort of tricky word. I find because it puts different images in people's heads. Like some people think, oh, it's like a gym. So this is not, not like that. This is more. It is small classes. It's public classes. But it's also a lot of one-on-one therapeutic work. So I saw in the application, you'd want to operate till 11 at night. Is that right? Commercial. Okay. Okay. Maybe I'm maybe I misunderstood that. Yeah, we wouldn't be operating late at night. Yeah. Yeah. To make sure I understand the Scott that they need that they would commercial to. To be the use that they want to be. Right. So neighborhood commercial use is predicated on. There being one already. The alternative is that the building was originally constructed for commercial. And it's historic, but that's not the case here. We had a thing about. A lot of commercial use. A lot of commercial use. A while back. And I'm trying to remember where that came down. Was it was the 15 year limitation. Now applied to use as well as. Other things. So. Yes. Yes. The 15 year statute of limitations applies to use and physical things. So that the idea that this does not have an apartment. It does not. It does not. An issue. With not having a permit that we can find for that use. It's possible, but you know, we need to demonstrate that it's been more than 15 years. Well, we heard tonight. Suggest that, but yeah, all I can say is that the record doesn't show a permit to do it. Right. Right. But I think we can get a lot of people who occupied the building to. Seems to be willing to testify to that. And I think we can get a lot of people who are willing to testify. To testify. To testify to that fact. So. Does that. Change anything in terms of. Converting it to the neighborhood commercial. Does it change anything. No, on the fly. I would say I don't think so. And I only say that because the overall square footage is more than you could permit tonight. Anyways. Right. So said another way that apartment that was there would have been a lot of people who were willing to testify to the neighborhood. To the neighborhood. As I recall. And you, I'll ask the applicant this. You want the. 5,625 square feet or whatever it is. Not 4,000. Yes, that's the ask. Other questions from the board. I want to make sure I understand too. So it sounds like it's fine as offices. I guess what I don't exactly understand is. Why this would have to be neighborhood. And that there's not. What makes it not an office? I guess. With the proposal. I can answer that and say that health. Health studio and. Medical office. Our separate uses. In the use table in the CDO. As compared to general office. So the law office right now is general office and that could be. It doesn't have to be a law office. It doesn't have to be any sort of general office. Without doing anything with zoning. Then is the yoga therapy. I mean, the counseling. Counseling falls under health as well. I will let Rebecca make that pitch. It's a good question. Because I think when you look at the different neighborhood commercial uses, those are really different. There's a lot of different types of uses. My understanding and Scott, you can correct me is that. Mental health therapy, psychotherapy, mental health counseling is medical. And physical therapy is medical. So that's that would cover that. We've also. Massage therapy. I'm not exactly sure where that falls in actually. We didn't, we didn't pursue that rabbit hole. We didn't pursue that. We didn't pursue that. We didn't pursue that. We didn't pursue that. Although we would like to include it. But yoga falls under this, this health studio. Category, which I think is. Maybe left a little intentionally. Big. That's consistent with practice. Caitlin. You know, for all the yoga studios, Burlington has, we don't have a real good boxer to fit into. So we typically call them. Health studios. We have a public here who is, and that's Joseph. I want to see, did you have something you wanted to add to this? Yes. Okay. I would like you to speak. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Members of the board. My name is Joe McNeil. And with Francis Murray, we own the two buildings. Immediately to the south. We own the two buildings. 257. And 271 to 275. South Union street. And we do not necessarily oppose this application. But we are somewhat confused by it. And wanted to. Get clarification. From the presentation, it sounds to us like. I think it's a little bit different. But I think it's a little bit different. I think it's a little bit different. But I think it's a little bit different. From the bottom to minimizing. Of the uses within the building in that. It is going to be leased out. If I heard correctly, five separate. Organizations. For. For utilization as. Health studios or yoga studios. Therapy, et cetera. That raises in our mind is the question of what indeed will be the traffic pattern. In and out of that building. And since our building adjoins it. And there is an emergency opportunity. Under the, under the. The easements, the reciprocal easements to use. Our space for egress and access. To the public. Which historically has been used in inclement weather without difficulty. We would want to know. What the use pattern will be in the back. And very frankly. What we've experienced. Historically with the law office has not been any problem whatsoever. The. In the morning. The department of the lawyers and the staff. Has been by nine o'clock in the morning. And typically. The departure has been by six o'clock with the exception of when they're on trial and. Working late. But the. And the. And very frankly. Because they represented primarily insurance companies. Customers, if you will, we're very few during the course of the day. So I would. Like on behalf of ourselves just to. Have a better understanding of what this actual use pattern would be. And I'm. I'm not sure that I do yet. And it would have been great had we had a conversation. But we didn't. So. That's, that's why we raised these questions here. And at this point there. They are simply. Concerns, not opposition. Can we get your mail address Joe. 271 South Union street. Thank you. Rebecca. I think you could talk a little bit about that. Also that, you know, there is an option. If the rest of the request was to be, you know, acknowledged as possibly acceptable, we can certainly prepare a, you know, a traffic study to illustrate what that would be. Yes. I'll just reiterate what I said earlier that. I think what, what we're looking at is maybe a slightly different rhythm of who's coming and going. I think you're right, Joseph, that. We would have sort of more. Regular regular clients. I think, I don't know. Maybe Tom, you can speak to that a little bit more. What it was, what it was like, what your rhythm was like when you were there, but fewer employees and. I sort of see it coming out as a balance. So for example, if I were to walk you through a single day, I might teach a class in the morning and have, you know, seven or eight people who would be coming, but then there would be a big chunk of quiet time until. The evening class. So it's, so I think that the, the rhythm and how many people are coming and going, I think would end up being about the same as it, as it was. This is Tom Higgins. Hi, Joe. How are you? And I'm, I'm in the office right now and we're still. We're still operating here. Obvious on a much reduced level, having, you know, the old firm having largely disbanded. And, you know, through the 90s and 2000s, when we were, you know, 10, 11 lawyers and, you know, 12, 13 support staff. We, you know, the traffic was. We had to be consistent all day every day. You know, we did, we did have primarily insurance company clients, but we also did, you know, it was also a general practice law firm. And I can, I can say that we were, there were people in and out of here every day all day. But it's, you know, I think, as Joe knows, you know, we have a lot of parking behind and we also have parking. On the, that you enter through the building to the north of us. And that. Tends to be a. The traffic is largely invisible, especially from the street because you're at a lower level and the parking is all behind. You know, I think a lot of people are at a lower level and. There's a lot of traffic in the building to the north. And, and, and Tim, if I may, Mr. Chairman, very frankly, our concerns don't relate to the. Impact on the street level. That has. That is managed well by the law firm. I don't have any reason to believe it wouldn't be with. Whether there would be impact over into our parking and operation. And if, assuming that's not the case, then we wish you luck. And, and we're, we're happy to be your neighbors. I just want to get a, you know, a better feel for what that flow would be. I would note that there's nothing on the application that indicates using anything off the site, like your property for parking. And we don't have a, we cannot approve them using your property for parking. So as far as we're concerned, it's a separate piece and not part of this application. Yeah, I was probably not clear, Mr. Chairman. The, it isn't so much that they'd be parking on our property, but the concern is the volume of, of cars that may need or want to transit through our property for ingress or regress to the subject property, if I may. Isn't it grass between your two parking lots? It is, but there is a, there's a wintertime pattern of use. And if you observe down there, there are two metal poles with a chain. And between the two law firms, whenever, whenever it's been snowing or we anticipated a need for plowing, those chains would be removed and the easier access instead of up to steeper roadway would be through our property. And, and it's not, it's not a constant thing. And I don't want to overstate it. I don't think it's particularly at this moment relevant to our deliberation. Okay. It may be to yours, but not to part. And I'll see to the, to the board, any members of the board have any questions for the applicant at this point? Because I think, you know, I mean, I, we'd have to do some deliberation on this. I will honestly say that it concerns me, even though I understand this is a hundred percent office right now concerns me having something that's oversized in a residential area that's committed to a use that's not necessarily approved at that size gives me some pause. But I don't know how everybody else are feeling with the discussion. I'll go unless the applicant has anything else to add. At this point, Brad, I would just, it's Alex. I just reiterate that, you know, that's the primary ask. There are two subsequent descriptions in there. One would be to do the 4,000 square feet on from the street access, which I would consider, you know, both at South Union Street and you can drive down around that. So you don't have to go in the building or on stairs. You can get to those two levels from the street. So that would be the 4,000 square feet. The lower level and the first level. And then the upper level would be an apartment. And Rebecca said she does not want to do that, but that is in the request in the application. And then there's a third request to do the 4,000 square feet as. The. As the health studio and then let the remaining square footage upstairs be. General office, just as it is today. So those are the three questions and. Application. I will say, I will close the public hearing at this point. And I don't know typically we're. Deliberate at the end of the meeting. We may have a long meeting. So we'll have to see how that goes. At this point. Yeah. Also, Brad, you should know that I have a, I have to go to the South Burlington DRB at seven tonight. So you're recused from one of the items tonight anyways. So. But that would affect our, it may affect our deliberations. I may be there for a few hours. So. Rather than here for a few hours. Okay. Long zoom tonight. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Everybody who participated in this hearing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So then we have our next item, which is 428 South Winooski Avenue. And the applicant. Joe. Sorry to slaughter the name there. I know she was here before. Oh, there's Jill. And do we know if anybody else wants to participate in this. Agenda item. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I am 428 South Winooski. And Jill, you're on. Hi. So this is to convert your car. To use your current house as a short-term rental. Two bedrooms. When you're not there. Yes. I guess I'll. I should swear you in just to get started. So there's nobody else. Speaking on this one, right? Scott. Yeah. I would recommend it for a consent approval, but somehow it didn't make it on the consent agenda. Okay. So I will swear you and Joe, and would you ask you to swear to tell the truth and whole truth on the pain. Yes. Okay. I actually have one question, which is really for Ryan. The staff member here. Ryan. I'm confused by something. And maybe you can clarify it for me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think the B and D is allowed. And an owner occupied. Building. Right. Correct. And this is going to be used as a B and B when the owner is not occupying the building. That's the idea. Yeah. Absolutely. That seems to be a conflict. Am I. Isn't that the six months, Ryan? Right. So yeah. Occupancy or yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think we've gotten that far. And Scott might be able to back me up on that, but I'm not sure we've gotten to the. Weeds about. If you're actually. They're present to, you know, essentially let a guest into the house or not, or to actually sleep in this name house. Well, guests are there. I don't think that ever got to that point. So I think the full time. Residency of the property. I think that's where we're at right here. And the six months as AJ points out. And I think that's where we're at. The owner has to be there. One day more than six months. It needs to be their primary residence. And that translates into half the year plus a day. And we'll look at their homestead declaration to confirm. They don't need to be there. Well, it's being short-term rented. I agree with you, Brad. I'm a little bit confused. I think that's where we're at right now. I think that's where we're at right now. I think that's where we're at right now. And in the past. So many of the applications required. The owner to be. Present and operating. The bed and breakfast. That's because we're looking at it as a slightly different. In a different way. Trying to understand that. I don't recall. All offhand. But the general rule is primary residence. Qualifies as owner occupied. I know. I think that's where we're at right now. And then I'll say fairly common instances wherein folks are having to do stacked parking because of. Most of these things are in homes with regular driveways. Having a requirement that the owner be present there basically to deal with the parking. But in this case, the owner wouldn't be there. So the parking is really a non-issue either would be used by the owner or the guest. That's my recollection as well. The parking issue really raised the attendant question. So I would ask the applicant a question then. How will you manage the. B and B when you're not there, how does that work? I'm fortunate enough to have a partner who lives in Stowe. So I go down there and stay there. And if anything comes up, I drive back up. Oh. And they leave a key there or something for them to get in when you're not there. They have some access to code or something. Okay. Yes. Okay. Not sure. Does anybody else on the board have a question for the applicant on this one? Okay. Let's do it. Let's do something else you want to add at this point. Nope. Thank you. Okay. Then I will close this hearing too. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So our next item. I imagine there's a few people here for this one. 75. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Great. BTC mall associates. It's an amendment to an existing permit. And. I'm recused from this matter in the next item on the agenda. Okay. Recuse from this matter, but not the next item on the agenda. Let me just make sure. No, I'm okay on spot on the dock. But I do, Brad, as you know, I'm not going to sign off. I'm not going to sign off. I'm not going to sign off. I'm not going to sign off. I'm not going to sign off as well. I can try to double up, but it's going to be tough. We're third on the agenda. South Burlington. So. We'll see how it goes. Yeah. I'm going to, because I'm recused. I'm going to sign off and then sign back in. I'm going to leave my office. With us. Maybe we'll. Be done before seven. Yeah. Sign off as well. And Scott, if you deliberate, if you could maybe just send me a text. I'll try to check back in as well. Okay. Okay. We're going to die hard to hear now. So I see Jesse Beck is here. There's probably more. From the applicant team. Yes, sir. Jesse, who do you want to display if anyone tonight? Myself. We have a short PowerPoint and on it is some of the people will be on the call. And who is that? We have. Myself, Jesse Beck from Freeman French Freeman. Jesse Robbins from Freeman French Freeman. We have a civil engineer, Kevin Warden from engineering ventures. We have Jen Connelly from BHB representing traffic. We have. The ownership group. With William Fells from Devon Wood. I believe Dave Farrington, Farrington construction. And I can't see the whole list of who might else be on there, but Don Sinex may be on. Al Seneca and Scott Ireland. And I believe I've got most everybody. All right. So Jesse, I'm going to promote you to be able to do screen sharing. And while I do that, anyone else on the applicant team looking to speak to this, just raise your hand. And I can enable talking that way. Oh, I also forgot Brian Dunkeel from Dunkeel Saunders legal council. I am going to start with the applicants team. I know we're going to have other people here, but I'd like to start with the applicants team and swear them in and ask. I know you have about five or six different people that you would swear to tell the truth and hold truth on the pain and penalty of perjury. You'd say I do. I do. Also sort of stipulate that anybody from the applicants team who speaks, I assume that they have made that declaration. So. I guess I'll let you do your presentation first. And Jesse, I guess I will say one other thing. I don't know how long I'm. To some extent this is an amendment. So it's perhaps somewhat simple, but it's a big project. I imagine there's other people who are going to speak on this and those are the issues people may raise. I'm assuming we will get through it tonight, but there's a chance that we could continue it, depending on how late it goes. So I'm saying that I'll let you get started. I'm not hearing anything. If you're speaking Jesse or anyone else. Jesse Robbins either. Can you hear me? I just unmuted my microphone somehow got muted. Okay. From when I was speaking before. So anyway. This project is an amended permit to reduce the size of the project. The look and feel of the project is very similar in many ways from what you've permitted before. Same materials. Same city block. Same new streets. And so what I'll do here in a short presentation is to walk you through the project application and some of the changes that. Are within it. So like I said, it still is about Cherry street, bank street, and the two new streets of the new St. Paul and the new pine street. And the building like before has a North building in a U shape. On a podium of retail. And a South building. On the same podium. And the project is all about housing. No more office space. As previously permitted. For public access and access in and out of the site. We have our full build site. With a change from the parking entrances from before. They are now located off the new pine and the new St. Paul. With pedestrian access. We still have the primary loading dock to the South. Between 100 bank and the South building. And we have two new smaller loading docks. We also have a West loading dock. To service the North building. To the West and an East loading dock to service the North building to the East. To go over the program because there is a slight program change as there is no more office space in the South building. It is primarily 426 units of housing. With a commitment to 20%. Inclusionary for the 85 affordable. We've reduced the retail square footage. Still the commitment on the new streets. We have. Right size of parking garage to come to conform with the new planning and zoning requirements. At 422 parking spaces. We've been in front of the DAB and the conservation board. To review some of this information and get their advisory comments. Which are in the comments. So we have 348 bike parking spaces. With 75 short term, which we've committed to put inside the garage. And the total square footage is from over 1 million down to 703,000 total gross square feet. The cross section from North to South is very similar from before, although it's not 14 stories. It's 50 feet lower. It's a nine story building to the North off cherry. And a 10 story building off the South. Of Bank Street with mechanical. Space on top. It does surround a three level parking structure. With 200. In 14 parking stalls below grade. And it has on ramp parking within that parking structure. For three levels. Just quickly going up through the, the levels. This is the below grade parking for 214. With a very mechanical entries and utility entries. You see 100 bank in the, in the Southwest corner. On the right, you'll see a diagram and you'll, you'll see the cross section move up the building as we, we go up through the levels. Retail does front. Cherry, the new St. Paul. Bank in pine. The entrances to the garage. Are off. The new pine, new St. Paul. We do have the public. Entry. We're going to go up with an elevator core. The lobby to the South and the South building will service the public amenity spaces in the South building, which we'll see as we go up through the building. There's an interstitial level of parking. And now we have capped. What we call the podium. With a full roof so that all of the parking is covered. They look down onto a sea of parking. They look down on roof structure. So the South building is where you'll find the. Community space, which is part of the new amended development agreement. There are some co-working space. And amenities for the South building. On the North building, the U shape building. Is the, the housing for this level. And then you'll see some new amenities for the North building. And you'll see how there's a demising wall. Splitting the Northeast from the Northwest at the elevator core. Which is part of our phasing plan. Going up the building, the next level, you start to see the green roof areas. More residential, both in the North building and the South building. So that's where we're going to go. Now we get to the. Form based code part where there's a step back requirement. So we're pulling back 10 feet. On the North building. The South building happens to pull back a bit more. But you can see that the unit size changes with that step back requirement for the top five stories. We're jumping up to the top. And you'll see the mechanical and closed mechanical. Buildings on top of the building. To the South building. You'll find the restaurant. With the public observation deck, which is part of the development agreement serviced by the. Elevator core and stairs on the South building. Will be a open restaurant with kitchen. And on the North building, there's more green roof. When you start to see our commitment to. To the South building. We'll run through a quick series of, of renderings that you've seen along the way. This is just illustrating the lowering of the height of the building by about 50 feet. This facade. Is still the red brick with bay windows. Retail glass around the street level. Our commitment to great street standards. You get a glimpse of the South building, which is a change in materials, which we'll show you in a minute. So we're looking South. And West in this view. Down pine street. Just without the top. This is changing the view, looking up. Cherry street, looking towards. South and East. You start to look at the new pine street and how it. Goes by the new Burlington high school. Formerly Macy's. And a glimpse of both the loading dock and the entrance to the parking structure off. New pine street. Again, we're accessing with a salmon colored brick. And the primary material is a red brick, traditional red brick. And you can start to see the foreign based code elements of the step back. The facade changes. And you can see the new pine street. And you can also see the cornering. And the articulation. Of the building. A little closer view in so you can look down. New pine and start to see 100 bank and how that influences the new great streets. Closer view of the loading dock. Retail glass. Garage entry. Moving around the site to the South. We're going to look at some of the. A change in materials. Little change in mass. This is the South building, which is 10 stories of the mechanical penthouse on top. The limestone. It'll be limestone base for those first two levels. And then we're changing to a centered stone. To mimic the limestone. In an Adair limestone look similar to what you see up at here. We're going to look at some of the new elements in the zoning reports. Which has been advised as an approved material. For the South building by the DAB. And a little closer and look at the streetscape. The South building 100 bank and the character of the street across from that. And so that's the end of our, our presentation. We'll go back. And that's the final. Group based code takes president over a lot of for this project on a lot of the visuals of the project. And so. I do have. I'm going to ask if there's other members of the board of questions for the applicant at the start here. Just a couple of very small. Jesse, thanks for the presentation. I saw on the coworking. I saw a coworking space on the one level. That would be managed as a space to lease, yes. And then the community space itself that would operate the same way that's not just for residents that's for anyone to reach out and lease that space for their activities. The community space is for city use and public use to be scheduled. And when it's not scheduled for public use, it can be used for private use. And then the restaurant space will just be released just like any other commercial restaurant to whichever provider wants to rent that and open up a restaurant at the top of the building. Correct. And our elevator core has doors so that the public does not have to go through the restaurant to access the public observation deck. And does the public have access to the residential halls or through the residential parts of the building through that same access, or would they be limited to public would be limited to taking the elevator up to the public observation deck or the, the community space floor. The residents the residence halls are secured for the residents that live on that floor. Yes, correct. And the last question I have is on the cat for the parking structure that everybody is looking down into. Is that is accessible by the public or is that done. No, that is that is not a public accessible space it's for the residents and the green rooms area, and there will be some mechanical sense screen and sense areas, but no that is a private space. It's an accessible space for those that live there. Yes. And what are the materials I couldn't quite find it what are they like with the materials be looking at the rendering on page 32 I'm just trying to understand what that might look like. So there's a combination. There is a, there'll be a terrace, just an open terrace with with pavers that people can walk on. There'll be a green roof area which is sedum. It's not. It's not to be walked on is to collect rainwater. But one can walk through it with some walkways, similar to what we did at the airport green roof. We want people not to walk on the sedum plants that they're low hearty plants. And then the rest of the roof will be a membrane roof, which you will not want people to walk on because it's to manage rainwater and keep the rain out of the parking structure. Those are my questions. Thank you so much. Thanks. I'm going to jump over a couple of questions, Jesse. I'm curious about something I was looking at the parking access off of Pine and St. Paul, and especially the one on St. Paul Street. I'm trying to figure out, you've got the pedestrian access or pedestrian sort of walkway through the garage. And that comes out and doesn't look like it comes out to the street through that entrance. But the entrance is sort of offset on this target. So it just seemed odd that the entrance is offset. So cars coming in are going to be sort of scrunching that walkway area. Am I seeing that accurately? Well, that's one of the relief areas that we're asking for the DRB is the form based code allows you for 24 feet for your garage entrance width. We're asking for the 20% relief on that to get a little larger opening so that you do have no conflicts between pedestrians and two lanes of traffic. So we have gone through turning radiuses for Ford 150 vehicle. And we're working with Department of Public Works. We've had several meetings with them to illustrate how there will be no conflicts between those elements in the turning. But you would like them a little larger. Is that what you're saying? Correct. Yeah, form based codes limits you to 24 feet. And in our application and in the comments from planning and zoning. We've requested the enlargement of that. To what? We're showing between 26 and 27 feet, Brad, and the increase in width at the request of the DPW staff who reviewed these documents. They were concerned about the egress and ingress of the garage. So the extra width of the offset is to accommodate the traffic management things that an island for the parking control gates, etc. And still allow for adequate protection of the pedestrians and for vehicles to be entering and exiting in a controlled way. And the drawing looks like it's showing 26 feet. Yep. And that's what you're wanting or is that. Yes. Okay, so you're two feet over the 24 feet. Correct. Which is within your 10% realm of 20% maximum relief would allow up to 28 feet nine and nine inches. Thanks very much. We have other physical, you know, things to deal with. So the 26 we feel, feel make a very comfortable opening in protective pedestrians. There are a few columns in there. Yes. The go through stories up. And you're parking on the below grade level you're parking 214 cars. Yes. And there was a question from the public works about the area ways. I guess in the sidewalks, are you able to get those in the building or was that being looked at? It is being looked at where we're in discussions like we had before we had a whole series of discussions on the great streets, the area ways and other elements on the prior project. And we're working towards having those areas as an encumbrance. We're still having those conversations and they are shown on this application. We've agreed to see how we can minimize the size of those area ways. And we've made a commitment to look at if we can eliminate one or two of them. This size of a building in this kind of mixed use stacked mid-rise situation really does require a certain amount of area ways in the outside of the footprint of the building. And these are great. I'm going to be flush with the sidewalk. I take it. Correct. Very similar to what's around Burlington now. I guess I've got two other questions I'm asking about. One of them is I see that there is commitment to a lead certification for the building. And you've got a lot of solar panels on the roof. Are these, is the heating cooling for this building using fossil fuels or is it all electric at this point? Well, we are going for lead goals in the new development agreement. There is a request for us to look at an electric based system. Yeah. And so once we move beyond this step into detailed design, we are going to pursue how we can do that. Well, it seems to be that's where the future is. And see where the future is in the, is you've got a big building here that now you have to do with compost. Is that part of your design aspect now to somehow address that for the residences? Correct. We have the three loading docks that you're shown in this plan and we've been in conversations with Gisela and DPW on what equipment is going to be in those locks. We have the three loading docks and we are committed to composting for the facility. And we've committed to compactors for both trash and recycling to minimize the number of truck trips. I will say that, you know, usually we don't get to say anything about the streets, but because they end up being in the public right away, but they're not in the public right away yet. We get to make comments on, I think it's, I was wondering how the streets are going to be laid out and everything else. I think they look good. It's exciting to see that happening in this, the streets will be running through. And I'm sure there's a lot of people are quite happy to see the building lower. So it looks like a good project this way. A question for you on the phasing, you mentioned that sort of party wall on the north side. Correct. So when you build, and I know it's, it's, you've got four phases for this thing. When it's constructed. And I don't remember it's east to west side of that that's constructed first, which one is it. We on our phasing time on the TCO plan. We start out with the, the Northwest L and the full parking structure underneath it. So the east side of that initial building, what's that going to look like. The flat surface, which is that demising wall you're referring to, which splits the elevator shaft. Yeah, that will have a penalized system on it, the temporary penalized system. So it's, it's going to be a blank wall nine stories tall. Correct. Or from the podium on up. So is the podium built or is the podium not built at the street level podiums not built yet either. That's the parking structure and the retail will be built underneath it. So the full retail from St. Paul to Pine will be built on. No, you're correct that the side of the retail at grade will have a panelized blank wall. And then it'll go on up the other levels of housing temporarily as we start to construct the northeast L shape against it. Yeah. So it'll be that way for a year or more. He has 18 months in the schedule. And I guess my concern is if it goes longer and things happen sometimes. Sort of an unfortunate form based code doesn't address that huh. And what what is the question I mean they're allowed to phase. Right, but if they have a facade that's a blank facade for eight stories or nine stories for. Well it's still considered under construction. Yeah, the intent is to get from the start of construction to the fourth end of the fourth phase in a sequence. And it's yet to be determined. You know how quickly we can make it through those four phases. There is a start date and an end date. And the first phase is the northwest side and the second phase of the northeast side. Correct. As planned right now. As per our submitted schedule. And there's a lot of questions still from public works, but I assume you're working with them on. Yes, we've had two sessions we've got three more scheduled after after tonight. And we have responded to the list of comments I believe you have received via the zoning department. We've created spreadsheets with the responses to each one of those items. As well as traffic. Traffic consultant is in conversations with the city's traffic consultant CHA. And working towards the conclusion of all their points raised. Right now. No member of the board has any more questions for the applicant right now. I am going to say that. Scott, if you're letting. There are other members of the public who want to participate in this hearing we haven't. Found any of them yet. There are some. If we're going to transition to public comment. Let's request that you raise your hand or use the raise your hand function. So we know you're raising your hand. So we have a few raising their hands. Can you bring them in and. Get into that phase of things. Everyone in at once or individually. I think, well, I don't know how many people are there, Scott. I see six hands on. And shall we take the screen share down or leave it up? I would take it down right now. How many do you say we're there Mary? I'm counting six. Bring them all in. Okay. Raise their hand is unable to speak at this point. I see John Franco. Barbara. Drew. Maya Dana, Steve, good kind. And I'm thinking that is Sharon. Yeah, Sharon's on the phone. Yeah. So that's one, two, three. Eric Hoekstra is present. Eric. So I've got, I'm going to ask the folks who are from the public, who are wanting to speak right now to raise your hand. It's great to tell the truth and hopefully the pain and penalty of perjury. I do. I do. I do. I do. So I don't know that I have any particular order here. I see, I know that Eric is you are representing a hundred bank street. Is that right? That's correct. I'm going to say, if somebody's not speaking, if you can mute your phone. Yeah, I just, you know, I wanted to make sure that the members of the board saw the letter from our attorney at Gravel and Shea. You know, we, I would say overall, we are as part of this. Part of the downtown neighborhood. We are excited about the potential. For the revitalization that this project presents. But we think there are a number of issues that really need to be looked at more closely around stormwater. Traffic parking. And then a variety of other items. And you know, I'm not going to go through all of those details. You have the letter. You can read through what we've brought up. I do think, you know, there's a major question here. Around what ordinance are we looking at? This is an amendment to an existing application. And new elements of an ordinance are being reviewed. That did not apply at the time of the original application. And I've always understood that. The ordinance in place when you apply is the ordinance. And if it changes later, you can't amend that permit under the new ordinance. You have to use the old ordinance. Unless you want to start over. And you can start over and you can submit a new application, but that's no longer an amendment. Staff. That's not the case. Yeah. And this is. We could get into a mind bending discussion over what's an amendment versus not. The short answer is the zoning code doesn't apply. Right. So we're handling this as an amendment because it's basically what was proposed beforehand, but it's downsized, but it's a new application. And that's why you're seeing it. That's why the design advisory board saw it. And that's why the conservation board saw it. In particular, you're looking at the parking Eric. Is that right? That's one element. Yes. A major element at that. Yes. They can change the ordinance too in the last few years. Okay. Right. So, I mean, I think there's a big legal question here. And Scott, I respect your view on this. I'm, I'm, I'm just not sure that that's correct. I think it's either an amendment or it's not. And, and, you know, I think we've seen plenty of situations where. The ordinance gets changed to an applicant's detriment. They are not held to the standard of the new ordinance that's detrimental to them. In, in that case, right. You can't have it both ways. You know, if the ordinance has changed to your benefit, you don't get to pick and choose that. Oh, I get to, I get to use the beneficiary. But if it's detrimental, I get to lean back on the old ordinance that was more beneficial to me at the time that that was in place. And, and there is a major distinction between a new application and an amendment in terms of process, in terms of fees, in terms of the number of things. So I do think it's a, it's an important element that needs a little more review. I, I would say one thing in that is that, we've been advised by the staff that we're complying with the full zoning ordinance as it stands currently, and it's not picking and choosing. Yeah. If I may briefly, we've seen a few amendments, you know, especially with Eric Farrell out of Cambrian rise. And that project has been around for long enough that the zoning code has changed. And when it comes in, it's reviewed under the standards that are in effect at the time. So Eric's right about vested rights. You have vested rights when you apply for your permit. And again, what you're seeing tonight. Okay. It's an amendment with a lower case. Hey, it's a new permit application that you're looking at. So we go through this and I don't know how I ever get to go through and what others have to say. Who wants to speak next in terms of the public. On this application. See John Franco's up top with his hand. John, do you want to Franco, do you want to speak? I do. Okay. Let me. Got you. Because I'm very, um, not, not comfortable with this part with, with Zoom meetings, but, um, my technical prowess is 1952. So, um, thanks. Um, I really, um, I represent, um, uh, four individuals who were involved in the appeal of the original zoning permit. That was approved by this board on, um, St. Patrick's day of 2017. Um, it's, it's an interesting, um, series of events. I believe the appeal was filed on a good Friday. And the case was settled on Bastille day. So, um, sort of that's, that, that's sort of the sequence of what happened. Um, we had a, we had a global settlement. That settled not only the zoning permit, but the zoning permit. Um, and we had, we had the settlement agreement, and that settlement agreement was also the elements of it. That dealt with the zoning was reduced to a consent judgment, which was signed by judge, um, Judge Walsh in July of 2017. Um, we have no comment or opinion on this. Um, we have no comment or opinion on this. Um, we have no comment or opinion on this. Um, we have no comment or opinion on this. Um, we have no comment or objection to this project at all. In fact, we supported, we support the downsizing, but here's the problem with it. The, um, the overall size of the project has been reduced by a third. That's the good news. The bad news is the parking elements have been reduced by almost 60%. While the non parking elements have been reduced to by almost 18%. And it's our position, um, to support the settlement agreement that we have with the developer or with the consent judgment that was filed by the superior court. Well, by the environmental division. And with all the respect to the, um, to the staff. Um, the case law in Vermont is very clear. Uh, with a number of cases, the most recent one is the Lathrop case, but before that, the Hildebrand case, the Duncan Donets case, the Lathrop case, the Lathrop case is the Lathrop case is the Lathrop case. So that's the one I'm talking about. The Lathrop case is the one I'm talking about. So in those, I do see it's cases that. You don't just get to disregard. Previously imposed permit conditions. When you have an amendment. And there's certain things you have to, certain things you have to show. And certain things we have to do, and we've outlined those. Um, the claim that the parking is limited by, um, the parking that in our, in our agreement, the current ordinance does not put any kind of cap on public parking, what we are seeking and we have sought was mitigation of a loss of the 567 public parking spaces when the old Cherry Street parking garage was demolished and that has been demolished and that was demolished in reliance upon the permit that was granted by the settlement and the consent judgment issued by the environmental division in 2017. So they've actually acted on that, they've acted on that and they got the benefit of that and they got the benefit of my clients forbearance about not contracting the case with litigation in the environmental division and appeals to the Supreme Court. That cannot just be willy-nilly overlooked now. And so in a nutshell, this proposal is seriously out of whack, it's seriously out of balance in terms of the amount of parking that should be provided here. I mean, I don't have any dispute that if there is a reduction in the scope of the non-parking elements, there should be a pro-rata reduction in the amount of parking, but that's not what we have here. And it's our basic position that they need to go back to the drawing board with the balance of non-parking and parking elements here or it's just not a compliance with the court order that's not complicit with the settlement agreement. Okay. That's it in a nutshell. Lastly, I would say, I know that the developer's attorney filed a letter late this afternoon claiming that under the Taft Corners Associates case that controls and that they can go into the new ordinance. That's not what Taft Corners says at all. Taft Corners was a case where the, what the Supreme Court said is that you are bound by the law in effect at the time that you had a completed application. And the Taft Corners, that's a case called NRA Ross, which was a case where they didn't have a completed application. And that's why they were not bound by the previous regulations. And Taft Corners itself was a situation where the application was denied and they said, that doesn't create any vested rights in the previous ordinance. But that's not what you got here. You've got an appeal, you've got a settlement, you've got a consent judgment of the superior court that was ordered under the old ordinance and the developer took action in demolishing the major part of the previous mall under that permit. They can't now say, oh, golly gee whiz, new day in town, my bad that I tore down in the old parking garage, we don't have to deal with the mitigation impacts. And the last point I wanna make is our appeal was based not on the minimum parking requirements of the ordinance, it was based upon the major impact provision of this learning ordinance. And again, the impact created on the downtown off-site parking capacity by the demolition of the old parking garage. So that's our beef in a nutshell. And the fact that the city looks at parking differently now than how you look at it at that point doesn't impact that view, right? Yeah, I mean the city may, but it can't, the case law is clear, particularly the Lathrop case. But again, the new parking ordinance does not prohibit and does not affect the requirements of the 2017 decision for 967 spaces simply because there's an exception in the current ordinance for public parking spaces. They're not subject to that limitation. It's right in there and I brief that. It's right in the brief. So that's really a non-starter. It's really a non-starter here. We're talking about the compliance, the compliance of this project with the previous court order. The court has questions for Mr. Franco. Otherwise, we have a few other people who want to speak. I'll give the applicant a chance to follow up. I'd like to hear the public comments at this point. I know there's a few other people here from the public. Somebody else want to speak at this point. Let's see, the list keeps changing. Let's go with Myer Dana. Myer Dana, are you here? Can you hear us? Can you hear me now? Yep. Okay. Sorry, I'm not so technologically savvy either. We own, our family owns the building immediately adjacent to the old mall entrance on Church Street, where Atlee and Zinnia Jewelers is and also across the street where the man of Republic is located. I've got two questions. First of all, did I hear correctly that there are only gonna be 75 parking spaces available to the public in this new facility? Well, let's keep going with your questions and we'll try to get the applicant to answer them. Okay, I think I heard that correctly. The other thing I wanted to just find out is is the existing mall entrance or the configuration of it on Church Street is gonna remain like just a one-story building as opposed to being a high-rise? That is not part of the project at this time. So that's staying the way it is. At this time. At this time. Okay, that answers that question. The other issue is the parking issue which I think is a major impact, not only on us but on the rest of the city. I mean, parking is, since that garage came down has been a terrible problem. I don't think anybody would argue that and not replacing it or tearing it down and then letting it sit for two years is just abysmal. I grant you more people are riding bicycles and stuff but not that many, especially in the winter time. The other, one other question I had is are these apartments gonna be proposed to be regular? Like separately, you know, the income limited ones. Supposedly gonna be regular market rate apartments or are these probably gonna be student housing? I think it's a prohibition case of student housing, so. Good. Okay, that's fine with me. Jesse, can you follow up on the parking and the housing issue? Yeah, the housing will be market rate housing with the proper inclusionary amount of 20%. I understand. There's a whole mix of studio one, two bedroom units that are available to everyone and the inclusion look and feel just like the rest of them. Excellent. And if a student wants to rent here, they can rent here. I see. Okay. And the parking, public parking. Can you rephrase that one? He was asking how many public, how many parking spaces are available to the public? Well, this is a private parking garage. So the first spaces to be leased will be given an offer to the occupants of the building whether they be the dwelling units or the retail leases. So they will have first dibs on the parking stalls and what doesn't get, there's also a commitment to spaces for 100 bank in this agreement. And so whatever is left over will be offered to the public. How many total parking spaces are there to be? Let me answer it here right now. Okay. So whatever is left over from the private garage will be turned over and be used by the public either on an hourly or daily basis. I mean, could that number could be zero? There's no commitment to any of that being available. Correct. And it's 422 spaces, is that the right number? Yes. There won't be any available for the public. Realistically. Realistically, you could be correct. With 426 apartments? And retail, and there's no way the public, there will be no public parking. And there's a hundred spaces for 100 bank street? Maybe I'm mistaken, but my understanding was way back that there was going to be a commitment in tearing that garage down that there would be public parking. Am I mistaken? I have a question for you, Jesse. Okay. There's always been a private parking structure. There's never been a commitment to create a public structure. Wasn't the parking numbers in excess of what was required for what was being constructed or was it always based on exactly what was being constructed without any available for the public? It was always based on the requirements of the planning and zoning formulas. So you reduced the size of the project by what, 25%? Yes. How many parking spaces were supposedly going to be built under the original plan? I don't have those numbers in front of me. 900. So you've reduced it? I'm asking Jesse, is that the realm, was it around 900? Yeah, I don't really have the exact number in front of me, so I can't answer that. I'm looking up the exact number so that I can answer the question. So 900 was a peak parking capacity with valaying and other considerations. A tandem parking happening. So I'm gonna get you the number of striped spaces that was in the original design as it was finally submitted to you guys. All right, seems to me you've reduced the parking as the previous speaker said, far more than you've reduced the size of the project. Well, currently we're meeting the ordinances that are in effect for parking, which has a zero requirement for housing, a zero requirement for retail. And so we're actually building close to the maximums that are allowable at the 422 amount. Seems to me. Well, nobody cares about my opinion, but frankly, I think the city really dropped the ball on that. And that's, I guess, all I have to say about it. It's a parking disaster. Can we get your mailing address, please? 1340, 1340 Center Street, CENTRE, Suite 101, Newton, N-E-W-T-O-N, Massachusetts, zero, two, four, five, nine. Great, thank you. Okay, Jesse Robbins is looking up the numbers. I'll see who else the public is wanting to speak right now. Are you still looking for what was approved for parking for the original permit? Yes. 961 spaces in the permit that was issued in 2017. And Jesse Robbins was looking up the number of spaces that did not rely on the, I think, the valet parking aspect of it. So Steve, good kind of up next, Brad. Okay, Steve. I should be, I'm unmuted, correct? Yep. You're unmuted. Okay, just want to note that the parking plan that was last submitted, the one that I guess exists now as approved, almost none of the parking spots in that plan actually conform to the requirements of the city for dimensional sizing. Almost none of them did. It was approved within a few hours on one afternoon. I don't know how it happened, but I think this time it'd be wise to find out are these spots been checked for their compliance with the requirements of the parking ordinances for as far as size and any dimensions that might involve lane width and whatever? Last time it wasn't, and I tell you there were 900-something spots, but I think 800 of them failed to meet the city actual requirements for parking spots. I know that someone has looked at that this time and is on the record. I have looked at that, Steve, and I've acknowledged it in the staff report. It's what? This is Mary O'Neill. I looked at those parking dimensions and backup widths and I acknowledged that they're conforming to the revised parking requirements. I'm going to step out for me. If you can give me a second, Mary. You can chair for a few minutes. Thank you. Mary, you're talking about the current plan now that these ones conform? Yes, the current plan, and it's been compared to the revised parking standards of the recently adopted parking zoning, parking amendment. And I have confirmed that they are compliant and I've written that in the support of staff report. And just for curiosity, are any of them tandem spots? Yes, there are. There are tandem spots. We have a very limited amount of tandem in the basement. Most of them all are single park stalls. They all conform dimensionally correct. And it's similar to the airport parking structure, same dimensional standards and requirements. And I'll just note in closing that our settlement, which John Franco talked about earlier, that was where the public parking on this project was included. And our spots that we required were to be public spots. And that settlement, I think, as John has said, is really going to be at the heart of what happens with this project in the future. But that's the place the public spots were preserved. So that said, I'm done. Mailing address, Steve, please. 2-6-0, Ethan Allen Parkway. Berlin. Great, thank you. Thank you. And we still have a couple of people from the public who have not spoken yet. Barbara and I think Sharon. Yes. Sharon up next. Okay, who do you want next? I guess you're both unmuted. I had Sharon up next, Barbara. Okay, I have to leave a little bit. Got, she can go first. Okay. Okay, Barbara. Thank you. Thank you. Really, basically John Franco speaks for me. I want to make sure my address is recorded. And I just want to underline what Steve just said that we're fighting for parking for the church street marketplace merchants. And I wish they would say something to the city if they feel as the man who just testified does. But I just really want my address so that I get the mailings on this. Do you have it, Scott? We probably do, but why don't you let us know again? 76, St. Paul Street, apartment eight NW is a Northwest in Burlington, ground zero for the project. Thank you. And Sharon. I'm unmuted now, correct? You're up. Yes, I've been going back and forth. I apologize. Good evening. My name is Sharon Busher and I have been following this project since the get go and spoke on the original application and would like to just enter, have you enter my comments on the amended application, which I'm going to speak in support of. I support the reduction in height, the elimination of the hotel. I was happy to see the TDM proposal. I don't think that's finalized, but with the bus passes, car share, the five spaces that are dedicated for a car share or a service like that. And also, I was also happy to see that the cost of parking is not included in the rent being charged. The other point that I wanted to make was, as far as things that seemed going in the right direction or the green roofs, and the fact that the parking now has a cover on it so that residents won't be looking down at just a sea of cars. I really think that that is a vast improvement. Now, the things that continue to concern me with this project and one of them is something that has nothing to do with the applicant, but the fact that it's so limited with form-based code. I find this frustrating. I never embraced form-based code because of this, but anyways, having said that, I think it's a huge loss that the commercial space is no longer part of this project and the UVM MC component is gone. I also continue to be concerned with the ever shrinking retail component. I know the attitude of some is that retail space is no longer wanted, but South Burlington builds retail space and people go, people go there. And it's very frustrating that after all, this sits in what was once called our marketplace. And now the retail component is barely visible so I'm really concerned about that. It's unfortunate that a project of this magnitude, even an amended version of this application has to go through during these times where there are Zoom meetings and people can't actually come and look at the project. The original project, we had a scale model. I mean, there was a lot of attention, there was a lot of opportunity for the public to really embrace and give feedback. I know everybody wants to fill in the hole. I want to fill in the hole, but I want it filled in with a building and a structure and with uses that we all really want in our downtown. It's still multi-purpose, I like that. I like the residential component. I really didn't, I don't really, I never really envisioned having it mainly residential. And I think that that's, I think some think that's wonderful. I think it's a little bit detrimental to our marketplace. There was one other thing that I did try to, I tried to read through all of this and I was concerned around the reduction in parking spaces. I know you've heard that at Nausium now. You know, and I can't go back to the minutes I could but I didn't go back to the minutes from the original application. But I was always under the impression that there were going to be enough spaces for the public to use that, to access the retail, et cetera. And now I feel that there's going to be none of that. And so I don't think that really works for downtown. And like others have said, I think it will put added pressure on the merchants and I don't know how you remedy that. I really don't, but I'm certainly hopeful that the applicant will remember the agreement, the legal agreement and hear the comments about the need for people that want to utilize the retail that's part of this building, these two buildings. I want the applicant to understand that people are going to need to park in order to take advantage of what they're going to offer. And I'm disappointed that that has been downplayed and it's the way of the world in Burlington, but I don't think it's the way of the world everywhere. I'm an environmentalist also, but we also have to realize we don't have a robust public transportation system and people do drive to come to Burlington and they need to be able to park their car somewhere. That's it. Thank you very much. Thank you, Sharon. We have one more member of the public, Brad and then some folks on the applicants team and public works. Okay. Yeah, the member of the public is? Karen Long. And we like to allow Brian Dunkeel into the meeting so that he may speak later. Yep. Karen. Hi, thank you. I just wanted to ask the question because I think I heard this correctly that 100 spaces of the 422 spaces are set aside for 100 Bank Street. Is that the free press building or what's 100 Bank? It's what just be seven in Burlington Square, wasn't it? It's not the same building. Brown office building at the end of Bank Street. It was where you entered the old parking garage through on Pine Street. Okay. So is that correct? So 100 of those spaces goes to that and then there's 320? Are there other questions they have? I'd like to get them all together first and then have them respond. Karen. No, it's just mainly that that came up tonight. And I wanted to just ask what I didn't understand that part. Jesse or Jesse, do you have a? Yeah, 100 spaces will be offered at market rate to that building with full access to our building. So they could take 100, but they made it, they could take less. Correct. Okay, thank you. Thanks, Karen. I can also update. I was going to ask for your mailing address, Karen. I'm sure we have it somewhere for the record. 55 Henry. Yeah, thank you. Street. Thank you. I can also update that the plan at the end of the previous design when the settlement agreement occurred had 766 striped spaces, but of those 527 were self-parked the way it was classified. And truly there were 288 spaces where you could not be blocked in potentially by another car. And then there were another 200 so that was dealt with a valet parking. Correct. That's how we got to the 961 number. I have just a general question on the parking since the footprint of this building is the same as the footprint, basically of the original building, more or less. Is it different to the parking that the original parking went to the perimeter of the building and this all this parking is generally not going to the perimeter and it's one level less, is that correct? Yes, physically, yes, you're correct. There's only a few places at the entries where it goes to the outside perimeter. And the original building, they did go to the perimeter so you get more spaces per floor. Yes. And as that summary noted, the previous design had a significant number of stacked and tandem spaces we now have very few, which would be, we imagine primarily for residents who have two cars who are paying market rate for their parking. Are those tandems part of the 432? Part of the what? Are those tandem spaces part of the 422? Yes, they're shown on the plans and you can see them in the basement level. I believe there's roughly 20 that are tandem up. We've really tried to minimize and make this a lot easier to navigate in and through by reducing the amount of tandems in stacked triples. I see that Brian Dunkeel is here. Brian, did you want to add to this discussion? Yes, Mr. Chairman, Brian Dunkeel for the applicant and I have six comments that I'd like to make in response to what you heard through public comment. First, I'd like to remind the DRB of its role in jurisdiction and its role is primarily to review the application before it under the current zoning ordinance. The zoning ordinance instructs you and case law while the zoning ordinance instructs you to interpret the zoning ordinance literally and the ordinance and the case law is clear that that's your role. Apply the ordinance as it is today. Number two, the DRB has no jurisdiction over private disputes. Several of the issues raised in 100 Bank Street's letter involve private issues between private property owners and this DRB has no jurisdiction to resolve or get involved in those disputes. Number three, Attorney Franco's read of the vested rights law in how applied to this case is just completely wrong. The applicant concurs with the city attorney's analysis that was provided to you in a memo. And I guess I want to just take a moment to I guess note the proper terminology to be used for this application. This is an amendment application proposing a substantial change to what was previously permitted. That's the proper terminology to use of what's occurring. New project, old project, that kind of doesn't really have I guess a basis in the case law that has been established over the years by Vermont's Supreme Court. And so what is before you is a permit amendment application proposing a substantial change to something that was already permitted. And under the Vermont Supreme Court precedent that is absolutely allowed. There's several cases where the Vermont Supreme Court has affirmed making changes under these circumstances including when there was a settlement agreement in place. The next point I want to make is that this DRB has absolutely no jurisdiction to evaluate the settlement agreement. So in some ways I'm making your job easier for you because you could disregard a lot of this stuff. Very generous of you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. And then I guess this notion of public parking, private parking, this has been a proposed private parking garage. It's always been a proposed private parking garage. Actually, I'm not even sure whether this applicant has the capacity to build a public parking garage as a legal matter, but this is a private parking garage. And in fact, the settlement agreement is silent on public parking. I'm not sure what Mr. Goodkind or Mr. Franco was referring to. And I guess the last point I would make is that it sounds like several members of the public just don't like the policies that have been put in place with regards to parking management under the zoning ordinance by the city council. But those policy decisions are up to the city council and there's a whole process that leads to them setting the parking policies in the zoning ordinance. Your job is to apply the zoning ordinance as it's been promulgated. And the zoning ordinance is unambiguous. There's no parking required in this district. And in fact, if you look at the zoning ordinance section 8.1.3C, it actually allows projects that have in this district that have previously permitted required zone parking under the old zoning ordinance to get released from those permit obligations as long as it's not public parking. So the zoning ordinance is really crystal clear over what you should be doing with regards to parking in this circumstance. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we'd like to wrap it up because we know the night's getting long and just say that we've reviewed all of the staff comments and feel that we have met the ordinances in place and we're willing to accept the comments as written and only request your relief on the two items which is the width of the garage entrance and the centered stone material for the south bills. So those are the only two things in those zoning comments that need to be part of the deliberation. We have to approve the height also. Oh, yes, you're right. So Brad, we have Laura Wheelock from Public Works looking to speak and then Eric Hoekstra has his hand up again as well. Okay, Laura. Public Works. Yep, so Laura, you're on. Yep, hi, this is Laura Wheelock, DPW. I just wanted to speak on a couple of items. The applicant had followed up with DPW late yesterday with some responses to the comments that were submitted to the board. Neither water resources or technical services inside DPW have had a chance to really review those documents to date that may or may not respond to the comments. I do want to acknowledge that in the meeting discussions that we've had with the applicant, some information about the loading docs that I don't think is in your submitted materials was discussed that the loading docs that trucks while they're using that, accessing the compactors or possibly the loading docs will obstruct the city sidewalk during that use. And that is certainly a concern that the DPW has about making that be a time limited activity. So that's just something I wanted to bring to your attention. The other is obviously regarding the areaways certainly something that we've discussed at length with the applicant many times and still are working towards the removal of the areaways within the city right away. Also acknowledging that the streets for Pine and St. Paul are kind of in an interesting condition that they weren't in your original application that they are in the middle of a settlement agreement. And while I'm not purview to those details could be an escrow at the moment to become public rights away sometime this year. The last is just around the traffic. The comments and responses to our initial questions came back late in the day on Monday. We've not had a chance to really thoroughly review some of those. I think the only large concern that we still need to look more closely at is some of the levels of service for the intersections of main prospect and Colchester prospect. Okay, Laura can you elaborate a little bit more about the loading dock relative to truck access? Yep, and I would also welcome the applicant to speak to that but one of the sketches that they provided us shows the compactors inside the loading docks which really resemble more of a trash and recycling facility based on how full they are but they're definitely their estimate of the size of the vehicle that's needed for there will obstruct the city sidewalk during accessing those. And is that true for other deliveries too or is it just the compacting and the trash haulers that are gonna be blocking the sidewalks? I can answer that. Our loading docks are two bays wide so that the trash was like in compactors on one side and the other side is open. So when the truck comes up backs up to grab the compactors and bins, the cab, the driver's cab is the only thing that will be on the sidewalk. So it'll be partially in the loading dock and partially outside of the loading dock just at those times for pickup. When someone is moving into the building the size of the truck will be able to back into that second bay and be out of the way of the pedestrian right away. You say what size truck? Oh, your typical box truck. Box truck. And when you say the cab of the trash hauler is blocking the sidewalk, how much is it? I mean, is it five feet or is it 10 feet? Well, we have the great street dimensions so it's probably bigger than five feet, maybe less than 10 feet. The sidewalks are a minimum of 15 feet. So some of the sidewalk is still passable, is what you're saying? Yes. And we do have one dock that accommodates a bigger truck. South loading dock is a much larger dock which can accommodate. A tractor trailer. And that's been all vetted with videos from the city's civil consultant on the loading and unloading of that dock area. And you could have time restriction on the pick up of the trash, right? That would... Because Gisela prefers early morning, any regardless in the downtown. So we have been talking about early morning and with the compactors it really does limit it to how many times a week they actually show up. So we're working everything that we can to minimize the number of times that that cab will be parked on the walkway. It's to the project's advantage and the city's advantage to minimize the number of pickups and the discussion we've had with Gisela is that they do 10 plus daily pickups on the two blocks south of here. We're looking to limit our pickups to once a week except when there's a lot of movement and move out and especially high volume of activity. But the estimate from Gisela is that they'll be picking up those trash and recycling compactors once a week from each bay, each of the three docks. The question's from the board at this point, the applicant and did you say that Eric Hochstra had another? Eric Hochstra has his hand up to speak again and so does Steve Goodkind. I see Norm Baldwin hasn't spoken yet, has his hand up from the bottom of my heart. Well, I was going through public works and Norm, do you want to speak on this? So Norm, you're on. Great, can you hear me? Yes. Thank you for taking my question or my express concern, just to give you context. We have a transit center that's directly adjacent to this project. It's our expectation that St. Paul Street is going to be one of those primary routes that the transit center will use to service its routes outbound and inbound. And as a result, it's important that the sidewalk and the roadway not in any way be obstructed during those early morning hours when the transit system is really active. And so we certainly don't want to have pedestrians redirected into the roadway when the street's most active with the transit center. So it's important that there be clear conditions about time of day beyond just general agreement. That's what's- That's what hours you're concerned about. Sorry, what? What hours is it that you're concerned about that you're saying at the beginning of the day? Well, whenever transit service is in place, I think that we have to avoid trash pickups. So I don't know when CCTA starts, but we need to look closely at that. So that's really kind of the point of that. Thank you. That's it. Don't want to go through too many different rounds of the same thing. Eric, are you adding something new to this conversation here? Yeah, just a quick thing. There were questions about 100 Bank and the parking obligations. And so there is a deeded entitlement to 100 Bank for 100 parking spaces on the BTC site. I just wanted to clarify that. Does that mean you have control of those 100? That's correct. Okay. I think we've heard from everybody, at least once on this. Steve, who has his hand up? Do you want to go there or no? I didn't hear you. Scott, who's that? Steve Goodkind has his hand up to speak again. Steve, did you have something to add on this too? You're muted at the moment. You're up, Steve. Okay, Steve, you're on. I'm not seeing him up here, Scott. Yep. Okay, well, there you have it. Okay. Just ask, Kenneth, is any other questions from the board at this point? If not, I'm going to ask if the applicant has anything you want to add this time? No, I think we've covered our application, answered the questions and have a full application and we're looking forward to your deliberations soon. We're on a time crunch in a schedule and we have great momentum for this thing. So we're looking forward to starting construction in September. Exciting. Unless there's other comments, we will close this public hearing. Thank you, everybody. Okay, we have one other agenda item. I see AJ is back, but AJ, are you still available? The next item on the agenda is two to 14 King Street. Is the applicant here? Yes, the applicant is here. Let me find him. Jay Beerman, you are able to talk now. Is there anyone else speaking to this item? I think Kelly's on board. DeRosh? Kelly, let me find Kelly. Remind Liampher? Just a minute. Ah, there she is. She'll probably take the lead on presenting. Hi, Scott, can you hear me? Yeah, do you want to present Kelly or no? Yeah, I can share my screen unless Ryan wants to pull it up. Kelly and Jay, is there anybody else who wants to speak on this project besides the applicant? Do we know? I don't see any hands raised, Brad. So honestly, applicant, to raise your hand and swear that you would tell the truth and hold truth under pain and penalty of perjury. I do. Kelly, you muted. Sorry, I do. Okay, thank you. Oh, from Alan, you're there. Go, take it away. Can you all see my screen? Yeah. Okay, this is Kelly DeRosh from Remind Liampher Architects. We're working with Spot on the Dock about expanding some of their exterior restaurant space as well as adding a new bathroom building since the exterior expanded space for the restaurant would go be in place of the current bathrooms, just to get everybody's bearings. Here's King Street, and here's where the ferry comes in and out. And I'm sure most people are familiar with our spot on the dock is. What's shown in green on the plan is the proposed bathroom building. And I'll move on to the architectural since that probably helps explain it a little better. Currently what I have up is a demo plan showing where the current bathrooms are to the north of the building. This is where we're looking to remove those bathrooms to expand the outdoor bar space. The building is currently non-conforming as it does extend out into the 50-foot pedestrian easement around the waterfront. Since it's under the current roof structure, it would not be any more non-conformant than it is now. And then to the east of the building, the current building is where we're proposing putting this new bathroom building in. This blue line that you see is that 50-foot setback from the waterfront. So you can see it's squeezed. A little bit Kelly. Yep. So we can see the whole drawing. So part of the goal for spot on the dock when doing this work is that their main business is all outdoor dining and everybody comes into the southwest portion of the building. So really this back end and this back entrance which appears to be a main entrance to the building is more for deliveries and staff at this point. Trying not to encourage the public to come this way and to move more around the southwest to this portion of the building where the public enters and the restaurant space. As I mentioned before, this blue dashed line is showing that 50-foot setback from the waterfront. So the building squeezes in there nicely. We're only talking about 545 square feet here. So significantly less than the previous project. The only minimal site work really is just utilities for the building and then adding this small asphalt path to get to the bathroom structure. Right currently the existing building is at 100 foot six feet for finished floor. We have to have the building up above the flood zone. So this building will be up at 100 foot four for finished floor for the new bathroom building. Therefore why such a large ramp and stairs? How does the public enter that bathroom? They come around down this path and up this way. Is that patrons or is that the public? It is the patrons of the restaurant. Is it open to the public? It's not intended to. Is it locked? It will be locked when the business is closed and not operating. Is it locked when the business is open? I don't know if Shannon's on for spot in the dock but I believe it will be open when the restaurant is open. You won't require a key, but I would have the owner answer that question. I'm not sure if she's still on. Who would that be, Kelly? Shannon or Todd? Okay, I do see Shannon and Todd for that matter. I'll allow them both to talk. Okay. Hi, I'm Shannon who manages the spot on the dock. Did you hear the question about locking or not locking the bathrooms? I did and exactly what Kelly said is we would keep it unlocked during business hours even when the bathrooms were where they are, how in the past that we, once the doors are unlocked you can't control who uses the bathrooms and I believe it would be the same way. And would there be any signage or prohibition at all for members of the public to use the bathroom who aren't using the restaurant? Honestly, that was something that I never thought of if we needed to put up signage, I would but I wouldn't want to put it up but if it was something that I needed to then of course we would. I guess as long as we're talking about bathrooms right now I'm just curious as you can do the entrance where it just seems somebody who's at the bar has to walk all the way around your entire restaurant and walk out into the public space then come back in to go to the bathroom seems sort of a long trek. Well, we actually had to do that this whole season because of COVID and it's actually better for the business it's better for the customers because of how the building is conformed to not have customers coming in to walk into the kitchen or running into the flow of service and it was not an issue at all this past summer. And we did consider looking at having the ramp and access more on this side but having it squeezed in between the buildings seemed like a really negative experience in space rather than having it more open and visible on the side of the space as well as we can only build within this dashed line. Do you have more things that you wanted to go through on the plans? So the current building is a pretty low profile building due to the fact that we have to raise this floor so far above the existing building it actually gives us a nice opportunity to give it a little bit more visibility from the end of King Street. Here's the elevation that you would see coming down from King Street. The actual shape of the building has kind of what are like we would maybe call seagull wings that would pitch to the center and then we would pitch this small roof back towards that kind of inaccessible space to collect the water. So it's not kind of dumping out on where the path is up to the building. And then even on the lakeside looking east it also gives it a probably a little bit more visibility from the lakeside as well because you can see it peeking up above the existing building. And here's a couple renderings. And what are the extra materials on this? We're proposing to have wood clavards in the slower location and then breaking it up and at the top having a vertical corrugated metal siding. The existing building has a painted white clavard currently with the blue trim. Here's a couple of photos of the existing space. Not its usual vibrant self as it is in the summertime. The lighting plan that you submitted to bring that's part of this. Yes, we did. And again, this building is seasonal. So this is only open during the time that the restaurant operates during the summer months. Lighting wasn't a huge concern in having to overlay this space anyway since it stays so well lit late into the evening. But we did submit the lighting calcs. I think that's all I have. Okay. There are some flood plain comments that you're addressing. I don't think they were fully addressed at this point, right? You're still working with the state on that? Yep, correct. So we do have flood vents in four locations that we have been working on with a consultant to locate and size those. I think the other comment from them was just to have any mechanical electrical plumbing fixtures one feet above the, I can't remember if it was the finished floor, Ryan, or the flood plain level. That will be a design build. So we will follow up on that. Any questions from the board for the applicant? I think everybody's ready to dine outside. And there were no members of the public. Is that correct Scott? That's correct. Nobody's raised their hand to speak on this item. Okay, does anybody else have something to add? At this point, we will close the public hearing. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, it's not as late as I feared it would be. AJ's still with us, maybe. And Jeff and Katie could come back. So how do people feel about the library? We have South Union, South Winooski project. We have this and we have the mall project. I'm fine deliberating. I don't see the issues as that extensive, quite honestly. Okay. Do you want to sit and text to Jeff? See if he wants to participate, Scott? I have reached out to Jeff. Okay. I haven't seen him yet. Okay, well, let him come if he does. Oh, why don't we just go in order of what we got here? Which is the 251, 253 South Union Street.