 Hi, and welcome to What's Up Wilson, the show where we take a closer look at things going on in the community. I'm your host, Eric Wells. We're back after a long break and I'm coming to you today from over Zoom at the town offices. And what we're going to talk about this month is the town is starting on an exciting land use study project looking at foreign based code in the gross center. Later this month, a series of public outreach events are scheduled to begin. So join me this month and return to the program as planning director Matt Mulanje to take a closer look at this project and explain for us in greater detail what's going on and how to get involved. Matt, welcome back to the program. Oh, great. Thanks for having me, Eric. I'm excited, excited to be doing this and excited to be getting started on this project for Williston's Growth Center in Taft Corners. Thanks Matt. And for those listening at home, my phone is ringing and I forgot to put it on mute. So we'll just, we'll keep going here. So Matt, I thought to start out, we could kind of go through some history of Taft Corners and Development Williston to set a background here. Sure. Well, you know, a lot of the modern history of Williston involves the town's various ways in which it has confronted growth pressure and development pressure. Taft Corners was a sort of a sleepy crossroads, an intersection of what eventually became two state highways. And really until the mid-1960s with the creation of exit 12 and the eventual opening of the interstate highway, that's pretty much what was there. It was farmland. But where, you know, eight miles from downtown Burlington, we're around the corner from the airport and with the creation of the highway exit and the access that provided to people from Greater Chittenden County and beyond, there was a lot of interest in changing that land from farmland into something far more intensive. Williston had interest as early as 1973 from private developers who wanted to build large malls on the property and eventually that interest sort of coalesced around the pyramid mall proposal, which many Willistonians could remember. And that proposal eventually evolved into what we know now as Maple Tree Place. And at the same time, on the other side of Route 2A, another owner was developing what eventually became the Walmart and Home Depot complexes and some of the other what we might call big box stores along Marshall Avenue and in that area. And of course, we've had other developments since then in the forms of the beginnings of Cottonwood Crossing, Finney Crossing, and the office park configuration at Blair Park. Along the way, Williston also gained access to municipal sewerage, which really changes what can be built, did a lot of transportation planning and over the years, especially since the early 1990s has engaged in a number of different public involvement projects to try to shape the future of this area and imagine what Taft Corners could become. So we're picking that project back up again. The development standards for Taft Corners have been in place in their current form since about 2009 and they reflect a lot of the community desires for Taft Corners to become a pedestrian friendly walkable design conscious downtown like environment, but there's some ways in which those development standards have fallen somewhat short and we certainly hear some criticism from the community about the layout and the architecture of Taft Corners and we hope to address some of that through this new effort. It's interesting the background and kind of the growth from farmland to I think Williston was a one stop light town at that point or a blinking yellow light at one point with two and two way there in the area. Why is it how considering changing these development regulations to fill folks in at home? Well, what we have today are what planners like me would refer to as performance standards. So we have requirements that regulate building height and set back you know how far a building can be from the street or its property lines. We require a certain amount of landscaping in certain places on the plan and we have some architectural standards and some other sort of you know you pick five out of the nine between public art, wide sidewalks, multiple stories, multiple uses, etc and that works and it's quite flexible but sort of represents a bare minimum in terms of trying to really achieve true walkability or a downtown like environment. And some of the feedback we've gotten over the last few years is people feel like some of the buildings built under those standards don't really have anything about them that says this is Williston or this is Vermont. So the architectural standards we have while they aspire to something like that they don't always result in that because they're not really very specific. In addition it's difficult under the current standards to get a lot of coordination when one site develops next door to another one in terms of how those buildings might be arranged on the street and you know when we're out in the community we don't experience tough corners one building or one property at a time we experience it as a place that should feel cohesive and it should feel like I can walk down the street and know what kind of place I'm in from one building to the next. So the kind of project that we're looking at now under a form base code you know backs out to 10,000 feet looks at the whole area plans for the whole area and how those sites can be in harmony with one another and then drills all the way down through all those other site things I talked about to the architectural standards. How can we bring something to town that meets the town's needs and also says yes this is Williston Vermont you know you're there just by seeing it by seeing what those buildings look like and how they feel when you're when you're on the ground. So it's pretty significant you know I know some folks might look at it as a planning study and you know how does that impact play out but this is really setting the standards for that look and feel of the community and the area and what it could all come together with a change in to a form base code what that means. So I guess you start to touch on this a little bit but if you want to dig in a little bit more about what a form base code does and why this would be an interesting tool to look to apply in the tap corners area maybe a couple examples you can think of of some other form base codes in effect in some communities in Vermont. Sure we have a number of form base codes that have been adopted in the last 10 years or so in some of our neighboring communities. So Winooski along the Main Street corridor has a form base code South Burlington uses a form base code in their new city center area and Burlington uses form base code as well. There are a couple of others in the area in far more rural examples the Sawmill area up in Jericho has a form base code and there are a few others sprinkled throughout the state. So you I think what I want to emphasize is our neighbors that are using form base code might be a little more urban but form base code doesn't have to mean that the area becomes urban or has you know really big buildings or buildings that look really modern. It's just a code that emphasizes how the form of buildings plays out. So what they look like what they feel like how they're placed in relationship to the street and to one another. I think that the last one you made is really interesting important to take away from this where they're placed from the street and you know maybe explain that a little bit more how that can be significant make an impact on a streetscape. Yeah you know you can think about places you've been where there's this sort of traditional strip mall where you're on the street and then there might be three or four rows of parking and sort of towards the back of that is the building. That's that's what we would call sort of an auto oriented not a pedestrian oriented sort of layout. It's very convenient from your car you know going 40 miles an hour down the state highway you can tell whether there's parking available or not. It's very easy to access. Generally you would you would access a site like that you would park for the store you're going to and if you wanted to go to another store you'd probably need to get in your car and drive there. A more pedestrian oriented configuration might involve a park once shop twice or three times environment where you could access multiple places once you've parked the vehicle. You're walking on a sidewalk on the street and there are buildings you know pulled up to the street it's easy to get to their front doors from walking you don't have to walk through a parking lot to get there. Those are two really different forms and and depending on what the town's development standards require in terms of where buildings are those those things play out in terms of whether that ends up feeling pedestrian friendly or ends up being very convenient to drive to but you know maybe not so pleasant to walk around and you just want to get in and get out and you know get your shopping done. I'm just kind of throwing back a little bit what what the process looks like here. We'll get into our participation piece in just a moment but you know starting out where it's a study so that's going to progress to a potential bylaw changes recommended to the select board. Maybe kind of give us a broad walkthrough of what a process would be to want to form base code. Sure so I think I want to start with what's what's already been done and sort of decided and this goes back many many years in Williston. Williston has decided for a very long time that you know intense growth and development will be primarily contained to the growth center. So since the 1990s build here don't don't build elsewhere keep the rest of of Williston Rural and has expressed in words that this should be design conscious walkable downtown like environment. So there are some decisions that have been made but what's really interesting about the current form base code project is that we're starting from a visioning exercise. You know what could this place be like what kind of buildings would we like to see here what kind of streetscapes would we like to see. That sort of exercise has been done in Williston a number of times but it's often happened out of synchronicity with the adoption of actual bylaws. So one thing that's different about this process is we're starting with the visioning this spring and into the early summer and then we will be working with our consultant team to actually create the zoning codes the form-based codes that would make that vision happen. So the process starts with a lot of research a lot of mapping a lot of checking in with landowners in the area a lot of understanding what are all of the other things that go on in Williston that we need to know about like how much wastewater is available and how much traffic is on the streets and we're under the flight path for the airport how tall could buildings be. All of those things so there's a research phase which we've been in since about December and a lot of work with our volunteer board members in town interviewing them about their perspective on Williston and what they've experienced in their various roles volunteering for the town and what we're about to jump into is our big public process our kickoff meeting next week March 25th and then our public workshops that will take place toward the end of April beginning of May. So those are the everybody's invited highly participatory parts of the process where we really want to hear from everybody you don't have to be an architect you don't have to be a planner you don't have to have lived in Williston for 50 years to be able to participate in those and talk about what your vision for Taft Corners is. This meeting coming up on the 25th what can folks expect it's still gonna be a little different than you know it's nice to meet in person and have light boards to draw on but using technology and zoom and the virtual landscape we're in with COVID what can people expect that evening. Yeah so you know like you I'd much prefer if we could do this in person it's it's a lot of fun to get juice and cookies and draw on big pieces of paper and and see each other face to face I think we're all missing that but luckily we're coming into this process at a time where most of us do have quite a bit of experience with zoom so this will be on zoom it will be interactive so we're going to present a little bit about the project and a little bit about the history of Taft Corners we're going to ask people to give us some answers to some basic questions about Taft Corners in terms of how they perceive it what they what they think of Taft Corners now what they'd like to be able to think of Taft Corners in the future we're going to we're going to talk about form-based code a little bit more and about what it does and doesn't do and how and we're going to end that kickoff meeting which we're planning going no more than two hours seven to nine pm on the 25th with a call to have people take a visual preference survey and that's a fancy term for looking at pictures of buildings and places and picking the one you like the most and by getting a lot of people to do that we can get a lot of really important feedback about what the design choices might be for the future of Taft Corners and you'll see you know that survey will be open for a couple of weeks and then you'll see the way those responses play out in the visualizations that our consultant team will create for the April to May workshop sessions. Yeah it's something really interesting process to be a part of just you know a collective crowdsourcing in the community preferences on look and feel of buildings to help inform the regulatory language drafting that we're looking at here. Yeah I'm really excited for it I'm really excited that we're going all the way from vision through to development standards that that sort of compact process hasn't happened in a long time in Williston and it means that if you come and participate in this process now six to eight months from now you you would probably be seeing what you did turned into a zoning code and presented to the planning commission and slack board to consider and it means that you know maybe by this time next year somebody might actually be applying to to build a building or develop a site under this code. So we're bringing a lot of focus to this area by doing it this way and I think at a really critical point in time for the history of Williston because we do have a lot of interest in Taft Corners we have focused a lot of energy in Taft Corners in building streets and infrastructure. We have some new things in Taft Corners that are brand new this year I drove home last night saw people sitting out in the patio at Healthy Living eating sandwiches that was that was not something that happened even even a year ago. So it's a really exciting time to be doing this and I really enjoy the the challenge that that focus brings that you know this isn't just a plan that's or a vision or a plan that's going to go in a binder and collect dust it's going to turn into living breathing regulations and buildings and sites within a very short amount of time. And I would also say that it's a big effort and it's a once in a generation opportunity. You know Williston went from farm fields and that sleepy intersection to what it looks like today in about 85 years. That's an awful lot of change imagine another 85 years worth of change in Taft Corners. This is a chance to set the tone for for what happens maybe for that whole 85 years maybe for 25 or 50 but certainly for a good long time. Yeah it's a significant opportunity for folks in town you know I just want to want to echo your message and for folks to get involved here. It's you know some people may never have been involved with a planning exercise or engage with the planning office or a border committee but this is a real great opportunity to jump right in and see a tangible product that's going to come out with the draft code language here. So I just want to echo what Matt's saying to encourage everyone to be involved here coming up and you know when you talk about the speed of government government it's not always the quickest process it's very very prescribed and very thorough which is good but you know in speaking in terms of a government process to participate in engagement this spring and then see a potential written product that's under consideration by town governance boards in a year or so is a is a real unique and significant opportunity for the town. Absolutely I agree completely and I'm really excited to get out and be interacting with more Williston citizens around this project. I firmly believe it's possible to come up with a Taft Corners that feels like Williston. That anybody who lives in Williston would be proud to say as part of their town would be the kind of place that when someone came and visited you from somewhere else you'd say well let's go down to Taft Corners and grab a bite to eat or sit on a green somewhere. Let's take our bikes there. That kind of thing is absolutely possible for Taft Corners and I would encourage all Willistonians and people who work in Williston people who shop in Williston to take this opportunity to to tell us what would help make it that kind of place for them. Well thanks Matt I you know I didn't have any other questions right now anything else we didn't cover you want to you want to share with the viewers out there? Yeah I just I do want to encourage people to get it on their calendar for March 25th. That's a Thursday at 7 p.m. It's a Zoom meeting so I'm not going to recite the Zoom link to you. I am going to encourage folks to go to mytaftcorners.com. That's the website for the project mytaftcorners.com. You're seeing this big question mark logo all over town hopefully with the website on it and that'll get you there. We'll have a link to the Zoom meeting on that page. You can also sign up for updates and to be involved. Everything's happening through that website mytaftcorners.com and we'll be putting up those drawings and renderings and hopes and dreams visualized on that website as they're developed so please keep checking back in with that site as well. Plan to spend a couple hours with us Thursday night. I promise it won't just be me talking at you for two hours. It'll be fun. It'll be interactive. It'll be a chance to think really expansively about the future of Williston in this critical part of town. Thanks Matt for coming on and all the work you and your team are doing on this exciting project for the community. Thanks Eric. This kind of work really makes it a pleasure to be working here in Williston. Let's going to wrap it up for this month on What's Up Williston. Thanks everyone for tuning in. I'm your host Eric Wells and I'll see you around town. Take care.