 Okay, we'll call the meeting to order. First order of business is approval of the agenda. Does anyone want to make any edits to the agenda, move anything around? Okay, hearing none, I'll deem it approved. Comments from the chair. So I hope you all reapplied for planning commission. I understand that the city council will be making the appointments Wednesday, this Wednesday. This week, and their meeting starts at 6.25 now, I believe. I can check that. It's on the website. Instead of 6.30, maybe 6.35? I remember there was a five. Oh, a five in there. By then. Yeah, yeah. So I think it's changed, so I just take a look at the website. I don't know where it is at the agenda. I haven't looked at it, but. I think we're right after the consent agenda. So it should be your beginning. Yeah, so I encourage people to attend and just be there for the present and explain why you want to continue. So they will be breaking us up into different terms? Or yes, right? My understanding is it was basically administrative cleanup because of the way we had kind of a stacked appointment term with I think five of us were five or four of us. We're all needing to get reappointed in one fell swoop on one date in August. And then you had a random date and then these two have a different date. The issue that came up with the previous is that we are under the charter and the charter went the way it was boarded appoints everyone for a two year term. Yeah. So. It changed. Even if somebody leaves and then gets, a new person gets appointed to replace that, you're not filling the seat. You get a two year appointment. So. Yeah, staggered old. Yeah, so this person might be. So it's just to clean on the south. And that one might be the 20th. Charter language is different now and it has. So now it'll be seats. Yeah, terms of two years and they'll be staggered. And so to kick off, some people will be appointed to a three year term. Some will be two years, but after that three year term is up, those people will be on two year term going forward. Some are one year. Is that, is it two in one year? And then there'll be, I knew it was gonna be, yeah, so maybe it's two in one year and then two years going forward. Yeah, so that's the idea behind that. I just want to remind everyone to attend the council meeting if you can. If you never know. Well, I might be contesting you to see what that would know. So that's the only item I had to talk about. It was not on the agenda. So that's item three. Item four is general business. We don't have any members of the public here. So the general business, which is generally any items from the public, but aren't already on the agenda. It's kind of silly because it's moved. So we'll move on to item five, which is Mike's topic to approve the municipal planning grant application topic for 2019. Okay, so I don't think we have to spend a lot of time on it. I did give you a copy of the, of the municipal planning grant FY 19. As far as I haven't done, I saw more to do, but if you're interested, you can read through it and provide comments. If you are interested, it is due next Monday. So this will be approved by council on Wednesday. The topic, which is, I can read it officially out of here. It's a street scape master plan for state street Montpelier. And the city of Montpelier will use these funds to hire a consultant to develop a street scape master plan for state street from main street to Taylor. So the idea of this is I've done a number of these when I was in Berry city and they work very well as a first step for doing these downtown improvements because the public gets a chance to really start looking at what changes we want to make. We picked state street because there is a plan in either 2021, I think, 2021, 2022 to replace the realto bridge. So we're already gonna be shutting down part of state street. And can we take this as an opportunity if we wanna move curb lines, if we want to put in more extensive storm water treatment or something else, that would be the best opportunity to get in because the streets are already gonna be shut down. But if we take the opportunity this year to kind of lay out where would we like to see trees? Where would we like to see crosswalks? Would we like to see bumped out crosswalks in the same way you'd see in Berry city? Bike lanes. Bike lanes, if you want bike lanes. I mean, really that's where the discussion would come up. If we build a parking garage, how much on street parking do we need? Are there places and opportunities to remove on street parking so we could make safer bike lanes? But I think this is where you really have those conversations is in that master plan to look at what would things look like when we're done and lay it out and then we can start working on the next step, which would be the preparation. So we plan, prepare, implement. So this would be the planning step that preparing the DPW and the planning department would start working on grants and how could we help pay for various pieces of the project and then hopefully when we're ready to implement the Rialto bridge project we can implement the streetscape improvement as well. Mike, is that the section of State Street that you said does not have separated storm and see it carry further down? There is a separated storm system coming down East State. Right. That doesn't have an outlet. So when it reaches the intersection, my understanding is it is recombined because it doesn't have an outlet. So with the Rialto bridge project, one option would also be to continue the underground work to complete that disconnection process. Oh, the separation is on State Street. It's just not on East State. It's on East State, but it's not on State. We'd have to connect it through, but we're doing the bridge. The reason why we'd have to core the bridge foundation while we're replacing the bridge, we can take care of this. Okay, so all of that could get integrated and GPW is taking care of that. But if we're already there putting in a storm sewer pipe, could we put in trees, tree boxes that we could do infiltration on with piping the, basically the overflow. So you'd infiltrate as much. When infiltration, when you get too much water in it, then it would overflow to the CSO or to the separated storm system. So, but those details would get worked out in the engineering steps, but the first question is. But it's part of the overall scope. It would be part of the overall scope of all the pictures and all the things we want to see. Who is the proposed grantor of the state? These are state funds. Municipal planning grant are state funds they originate from the property transfer tax, 21,000. It'll be a $23,000 project, 21,000 would be covered by the grant. So a city has a matching? The city has a match. Yeah, it's a required minimum 10% match will actually be paying a little more than 10%. This who's? This would hire a consultant, yeah. They'd be working with a complete streets group, I assume? Yep, we've targeted a number of different groups that would be work that they would work with. This actually has received a lot of support from Montpelier Live and the Montpelier Development Corp. The other timeliness of this is a lot of communities wasn't true for Barrie City, but was true for St. Albans. A lot of these streetscape improvements get paid for out of TIF funds. And now that we were approved for the TIF project, we could use some TIF funds if there's funds available. It would need its own bond vote, its own process, but. And is this scope such that we can get a master plan for $20,000? I contacted Greenman Peterson, Carolyn Radich, who used to be with ORW with Bob White. They've done these projects. They did a couple of, they did Greening America's Capitals for Montpelier. They did two projects in Barrie City for me. The two in Barrie City were both for around $20,000. They helped with the work plan and they came up with the cost estimate. So we think it's a fairly good number. Because it's a smaller street segment, we would really love to do state and main, but there just isn't the budget to do state and main. So we'll do state street now and then follow up with maybe main street as next year's grant or something like that. So eventually we'll have all these pieces that'll tie together to Barrie Street. That would be my vision would be to have a true master plan for the downtown so we can really start to lay out, improve the downtown streetscape. So how does the current plan for the bike path and the site where Eminem Beverage was, how does that all tie into all of the various plants that we have? Is it adopted plan? The streetscape plan? No, well, there was the Greening America's, yeah, which focused on Barrie Street and that intersection, right? So is that part of an accepted and adopted plan? The Greening America's capitals laid out a bunch of ideas that the city could look at. So we didn't give them an assignment as much as it was identified areas where the city has opportunities and they went out and found opportunities and said, Taylor Street has a lot of opportunities, here's what you can do there. Barrie has opportunities, here's what you can do there and put those out. So those are being further studied. So we do have a main street scoping study that's looking at do we put roundabouts? Do we put street lights? Do we put, and we'll have those results which we can then give to whoever does State Street to go through and say, we're keeping the stoplight at State Main. So you've got to design with that in mind. Or we're gonna build in a roundabout here at State Main. You have to build that into whatever design you have for State Street. But in terms of the bike path and creating a bike path bridge and that whole. That's all part of the Wenuski West. Plan, there was a Wenuski West plan 20 years ago. Are you asking how to all these plans to tie together? Yeah. Well, they'll eventually. Which ones are actually adopted and which ones are just ideas? Yes, the Wenuski West plan ended at Eminem Beverage. Wenuski East started at the rec center and goes out to the ice skating rink. What we have is the gap in the middle of that's what Greening America's capitals and that's what all these ones, they've done a number of studies, each one to try to go and say, well, let's go down Stonecutter's way. We can't do it. Let's go beside the railroad tracks. You can't do that. Let's go down Berry Street. Well, you can do that, but it's gonna remove cars. So how do we make that work? So each one is kind of, we've never made a decision of which answer it's gonna be. And I think that's gonna, we're gonna eventually have to make that decision soon because we're finally building the bike path. Right, so we don't have necessarily, we don't have a connection to the bike path. Yeah, I don't think we have defined the answer of exactly how we're connecting those yet. I think most people assume we're gonna eventually put a bike lane on Berry Street, at least down that far, but is it a counter flow both on the same side? Which side? I don't, you know, I think there are still questions that haven't been answered, but that's a transportation question, transportation committee question. Corey would have that know where that is. But once that whole ride, the one Taylor Street, the bike bridge and everything is done, we still won't have a continuous bike path. No, the funding that is building the transit center and the funding that's building the bike path starts at Taylor Street and ends at Main Street. That's what that funding begins and ends. Yeah, okay, so I wasn't sure about that, okay. So you mentioned parking. No hook up to the existing bike path. None of the existing funding that we have. I didn't know that. I didn't either. I'm not making it up race now. So Mike, what are the chances that a parking answer is involved in this plan for the State Street plan? For the State Street plan, I think, so this would be, if this gets approved, we would be approved in November. We would have funding starting in January and we can start working on it sometime next spring or summer, have to have somebody working on this. By that time, we should have a number of other answers. Are we building a parking garage? Yes or no? What are we doing for our intersections? Are we doing roundabouts? Are we doing street lights? So there are gonna be a number of these things. Are we building a hotel so they can build that? So I think the answer to the question is gonna depend on the answer to what's there. If we don't build a hotel and don't build a parking garage, then probably the parking is gonna remain, I would imagine it's a policy decision of council. People can propose to take parking off State Street, that's a recommendation, but I doubt it would get a lot of traction if you don't have another place for people to park, especially during legislative months. You are faces for people to park than they do now. I think that'll be a question that, the answer to that will be, and I think it'll be a public discussion too. Will this involve the farmers market area? Does that consider State Street? Can you lot? Yes, we were thinking, well, we were thinking slightly bigger. You can't just plan for State Street without looking at what's going on on either side. So it may not be getting into the specifics, but certainly Carolyn and Bob, who were with ORW and now Greenman Peterson, they did the Heaney lot. So they had Berry Street, Heaney lot, Taylor Street, and then a couple other intersections on Main Street that they came up with ideas for. The ideas that they came up for are the ones that are being studied. So I think what they would, if they were hired or somebody else were hired, they would go back to the Greening America's capitals and they would say, we talked about some ideas. Some of them would be eliminated. If we built the parking garage, we can't build the bridge that was proposed in Greening America's capitals, which was from the intersection of Berry, you'd be able to go over a bridge and then go up Heaney lot to get back up to Elm Street. Significantly by the parking garage as well. Yeah, now if there's a parking garage, you can't build the bridge in the road because there's a parking garage. And it affects the farmer's market. There's the parking lot relationship. The parking garage. The parking garage is, it starts on the Capitol Plaza parking lot and it goes over the property line and goes over part of the Heaney lot on that back side. Almost to the Heaney lot property line on the River side. But I didn't, as I said, I don't know unless there was a large objection and we've got one more week to go before this is due. This will be a consent agenda item for approval by the council. If people have changes or tweaks or edits, more than welcome to let me know. Otherwise, I'm going to continue working on that. When do you need feedback? Certainly by the end of the week. At some point on the door signature. Do you have an extra copy of that application? Are we required to approve the? I didn't see one over here. I think it's just approving the topic is specifically, is complaining commission recommends applying for this grant. And we'll be part of, we'll be working with the consultants in there if this goes through and. Yes. This committee will get to work with them. Oh, great, thanks. Along with. Which you were looking for. Copy? About that. Yeah. So yeah, this would be working either as a subcommittee of this group or full commission. Well, I need a motion to approve before I can, and a vote before I can sign. Billy's, I certainly recommend planning. It's like a good idea. Yeah. Is that a motion count? They all move that we recommend acceptance. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those oppose? Okay. Motion carries. I will sign. So if anyone has any added to the substance of the application, send them to Mike before the end of the week. Next item of business is to continue review a punch list of zoning increases. So, Barb, I don't know if you want to talk about reopening the discussion for the ones that we've already gone through. I just want to give you an opportunity. I thought you didn't want to do that. So. Well, if you want to move to reopen the discussion, you're absolutely right. I have drafted a memo that I'm going to give a copy to Mike so we can go over this because I know he's been pretty tied up. So I guess we could just record that I'm gonna give the draft copy of the memo to Mike that we're working on together. Okay. Okay. So. Barb, I get to be fair for you to summarize what I missed the meeting with. I'm pretty sure you told people generally what you're concerned was. Yeah. But you and I met and it's been, Mike's was awful. At the various aspects of it. She said we can handle it by a lot of others. Right, right. And so. So we're talking about. I guess we are. Yeah. We will. I just, I don't want to stymie conversation. I think it's really important to discuss things. I just want to make sure we're using our time sufficiently. So that's where I get concerned about this. So we'll touch on it. And then if people want to have more of a conversation about it then I'll entertain motion is to reopen the vote. We're talking about the question of calculating density based on billable area. And we're talking about the removing the lifting the prohibition on building on steep slopes or slopes of 30% or more. So as far as I understand, that's the conversation. Right. So. Right. Just briefly that the intention of the original intention when we drafted the zoning was to use that tool to control soil erosion. On the building of 30% slope. And the other piece of it was to use it as a tool to control inappropriate development in density in different zones, in different districts because the districts are set up with, here's the maximum density that could be built based on plot size. Number of units for X number of square feet of plot size. And that may or may not lead to inappropriate development and development that is not keeping with the character of the neighborhood. So there were several different aspects that Kim and I discussed about that piece of character the neighborhood one of which was visual character and the other one had to do with density of the residential units in that particular district. So if we're trying, if we want to, I mean, I'm open to finding a new way to designate that if we don't want to use slopes. I do want to say that it is possible to have slope calculations without an undue burden on the applicant. So I just want to make sure that that's clear because I have looked into that. I've also done some test cases which I've used similar to the test cases I used in the past when we were looking at density bonuses. And my concern is the level of potential development that could happen in a particular zone in the example I used was in rest 6000 where an existing site could potentially be developed to eight units when it's currently a two family and it's surrounded by two families, one and two families, actually most of the one families. So I want to make sure that whatever we do that we are able to, we don't want to look at it from a steep slope basis and maybe that's a hat, you know, using a hatchet to shave a piece of paper that it's not really the appropriate way to do this but we need, then we need to address it more directly with making sure that we have safeguards in place to keep inappropriate levels of development happening in our neighborhoods which would seriously impact the character. We've already had that happen in a few cases. I'm not pillier and I want to make sure that we don't let that happen again. So that's it. So I drafted a memo, I've given a copy to Mike. He hasn't seen it yet. So this is brand new. So we can sit down and look at it together. I have no idea if what appropriate alternatives we might be able to find but I think we need to find some alternative. Any other comments, Kim? Did I? Only then I admire the depth and thoroughness of their work. I love me behind but I tried to catch up and I think it's done a good job and I think it requires more thought. Mike's input and I'll figure out. I haven't had a chance to look through the, I noted she had a lot of examples that she put in there and I haven't had a chance to look through them because some of them may be, it's a duplex. They could put eight units but if it's a district that doesn't allow multifamily then you can't put eight units anyways because it would be captured that way. So I haven't had a chance to kind of look through and see whether there are any other things that would go through. You couldn't do that anyways so that example isn't relevant but I'll go through, I'm gonna try this week to go through and try to get caught up on that your initial email was on one of my lists of things to try to get through after I finished the municipal planning grant application. All right, yeah, because there were three examples from the parcels in there, two of which. Yeah, and I saw when you sent an email to Kirby you had a couple other examples in there. I think you had, unless they were the same ones. No, I had Liberty Street and the Sibley Street, Sibley out and then there was one corner of Marvin and College which is currently under but they're looking to subdivide. So we're talking about numbers 26 and 32 and we're talking about this context of how we reviewed this and what staff recommended, what we had decided. So I mean the question is, does the commission want to reconsider this recommendation for city council and have further discussion on it? Including coming up with alternative ways to deal with this. I like that Barb's now at a place in discussing this and where she's talking about tackling it directly because you feel like, yeah, the density and the slope issue are sort of ways to, like a proxy way, an indirect way to get some of these issues you're concerned with. So now that you're talking about, maybe there's ways to handle that directly. I like hearing that. I think one course of action could be that we continue with what we're doing with the punch list and have them memo and have Barb if she wants to discuss it with city council and if it gains traction with city council, maybe they can ask us to just in a larger sense, look at what is the best way to directly handle these issues that Barb's raising is concerned. Yeah, I think we should go through and then if we have time or maybe go back and once we read what Barb has done, revisit it. But it seems like if we've spent a couple of meetings talking about it and voted on it twice now, we should just keep going. So I'll make a note about 26 and 32 to come back to that discussion. If we were the punch list that we have in front of us, is that where we're going? Well, if we can see the memo, that would be helpful. The actual examples of what the implications would be, that would be helpful. It's hard to talk about it in the abstract without having seen what's in that. I'm certainly willing to circulate everything I've done to date, but I thought it would be better for us to talk about it amongst the commission before I took it to council. Right, so once we've seen it, we can then talk about it. Because I'd prefer that we talk about it to before I go to the council, if I'm here with you. Absolutely, but I think it would be helpful to see it. Right, right. And actually have the time to talk about it, which would be helpful. Well, you know, it became one of those things where I could not send it out to the entire commission without violating the open meeting law because then it's presenting material to everyone outside of the meeting. So I guess what I would do is send it to Mike and then Mike, you can send it out. I don't know what the process is. Yeah, as long as we're not discussing it and we can send stuff out, we just can't. Yeah, we'll put it on an agenda and say. Well, so should I send it to you directly now and then you will send it out? I think you can send it to everyone. I think you can send it to everyone. Oh, okay. I thought that caused some trouble in the past. Well, we can't respond to this. Yeah, we can't respond to it. Okay, that's fine. The responses as to getting people in trouble. All right, so don't respond. I'm gonna send it to you, but don't respond. Okay, there you go. Okay. Okay, so I'll flag these two as once we have the memo and we'll come back and discuss those two. Okay, good. I knew there was a resolution there somewhere. We should actually get you here. Okay, so continuing on from the looks of my chart, it looks like we're on 34, is that right, Mike? Yes. Take it from here. So these are all green ones, so they're really not things that should be making a big difference. So I don't know if anyone really wants to talk about it. 34, there's inconsistency in how things are discussed. Some things say 30% or more and some things say more than 30%. It's infinitely small differences, but it should be consistent as to what happens on 30%. So because it's mapped at 30%, I would keep it there. Number 35 is change title to vehicle access and circulation and strike point A bicycle and pedestrian. This section was initially split into two and part of it was moved to site plan. The title has never changed. So the heading doesn't match what's actually there. So it, bike and pedestrians has already moved to 3202. Yep. So 3011, that whole section is talking about parking. So this point C discusses fraction of parking, fractional parking spaces is not discussed, which we should put in there. So if somebody's required to have 3.2 parking spaces, they're actually required to have four parking spaces, but we don't mention that. So we just want, we were just gonna recommend adding in a number four that states that fractional spaces will always be rounded up. Can we round down? It doesn't say that. We can make a rule, we can make a rule, whatever it says. I thought the notes actually noted now that they, about how it's rounded, very small print. Oh, if it's hiding somewhere, we didn't find it. Okay. But we can do whatever we want, John, to answer your question. We just generally every other place I've worked, if you're required to have 3.1 parking spaces, then you have to have four parking spaces. I guess I'll advocate for just rounding down. Set a rounding up. Just straight rounding. Whatever it is, it's just, right. There's no such thing as like a half space that you're required to have that. Three little one, one. That's parking. He's talking about parking. Everywhere? Parking requirements, yeah, generally. Who needs parking spaces? How many parking spaces? What size parking spaces? Can you give us a common example of how we can end up at 3.5 or 2.5? Especially when it comes to commercial, you end up needing a parking space per 350 square feet because you've got a 500 square foot something, then you end up at 1.75 parking spaces or something. So we're like, for us, we have to decide, okay, we were requiring them to have two or we were requiring them to have one. And from an administrative standpoint, don't really care. From a policy standpoint, it makes a difference. But we just need, we should be clear in our rules, whether we're, whether we round at 3.5, it goes up and 3.4 goes down. Do we truncate? So at 3.9, it goes down to three. We always round up. Most communities always round up. If you need a half a parking space, then you need a whole parking space. You need .2 of a parking space. You need .2 of a parking space. You need a whole parking space. Because I would say if you need a parking space, you can figure that out and decide on your own as opposed to us telling you you need a parking space. Actually our notes, the notes under figure three dash 13, the minimum parking ratios, the first note says calculations of minimum parking requirements based on these ratios results in a fractional number. The number of spaces shall be rounded up to the nearest number. So it's right, it's under the figure. So we can change that if we want to. Well, if it is there, then that was one, we didn't see it. So we need to highlight it. I don't know, it might have been, you know, generation from the pre, I finally have the final draft in here now. So. Which section is it? Yeah, figure three dash 13. 14, 312. Oh, I'm sorry, it's on 326, 3 dash 26. I would still probably go and take it out of notes. I mean, it really, it becomes very difficult for us to, when we're writing a staff report, to note a note. No, no, no. Especially if it doesn't have a designation. It's a lot easier for us if it's in the actual language. So. Because the rest of that seems to be definitions. So I actually did not see that. All right. Um, number. Don, are you making a motion to. Sure, I'll move to round it down. Second to ask anything. Any further discussion on this? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Aye. Next, the motion carries. We'll round down, and I will note that I have to amend the figure as well. I just really like that. I think this doesn't prohibit people from adding more parking spaces. The question is, where do we draw the line for the minimum number of parking spaces in order to. Maybe recognizes the fact that fewer people are having cars, or they're having one car instead of two. Dash 13. OK. So figure number 37, we're still in parking. Point F and point B are conflicting. In point B, all non-residential and mixed use shall provide loading. While in point F, it says an applicant for a use that will regularly receive deliveries shall demonstrate adequate offsite loading. So I would prefer the second wording. Under earlier applicability requirement, you would need a loading dock for real estate office or a dentist. Better to require applicants to demonstrate off-street loading for projects that will receive regular deliveries. OK with that. 3011 I-3, we're still in parking. This one is looking at regarding erosion and drainage in parking areas. The requirement is to meet section 3009. This should be deleted as all projects must meet 3011. All projects that already need to meet 3011 already have to meet 3009. When we write decisions, we always have to repeat ourselves in two places. So I would just delete high three because you already have to meet the other one. So 39, this is a yellow one. So there's a little bit of a discussion policy decision here. So section 3012 is signs. So all of these ones that talk about 12, 3012 we're talking about signs. And this one, point C13 prohibits electronic message signs except for theaters. And then in point G7 later on, there's an entire section that talks about all the requirements for having electronic signs, including what districts they're allowed in. Can you read those to agree with one another that it's specific to theaters? No, 1.13 prohibits electronic signs except for theaters. Is that even constitutional? These are electronic message signs. So you can prohibit manner. Translace manner. I mean, you could go through and say. Just not what they said. Yeah. This one is getting a little, this is getting into a gray area when it says except for theaters. So I'll grant that. It should be, my opinion is, maybe one way to read it is that they're prohibited except for theaters. But for theaters, here are the restrictions. The irony is that our theaters are only found in the urban floor, which is the area where they're not allowed. Oh. Right-crowding message signs are not allowed in the urban floor, which is the only place where we actually have theaters. So they can't be read in any way. We can't take the whole thing. So how are they allowed in like residential 6,000 but not in downtown? They're in, I think, like riverfront. So they'd be allowed out on River Street and Route 302 in those areas. So personally, I really dislike electronic message signs. So I would prohibit them everywhere, but I don't win that argument very often. You mean like a digital? The digital line. Or this can go as far as the television screens. Go to Littleton, go to some of these other towns that have these television screens. On the streets. Yeah, oh yeah, go to Littleton. Drive through 302, go outside. It's been said this is in Vegas. And where do we have some? Where was the most recent one I saw? Was there something about out on River Street, was there something about the filling stations, the gas stations? Was that where it came up before? Well, they don't have. It's come up on the Domino's sign, because it's got the ticker underneath. It's got a ticker underneath. So there are a number of, usually where it ends up coming up is everyone goes and says, oh, but we want to have it when I was in Barrie. We want to have it for the BOR. So they waited until after I left to finally get that through to put up their auditorium. So there's a sign at the end of the road that's for events coming up. So it's now a television screen. Is that the one that's right on Main Street? Right on Main Street, yeah. But if you allow for one, then you've got to allow for everybody. So pretty much that was what my argument for them always was. As soon as you allow for them, Burger King and everybody else is going to be allowed to have these signs. But right now, we're only allowing them for theaters. But the theaters, they don't use electronic signs. They generally don't. They're putting them on the inside of the windows. So they're exempt from our zoning, which is. Oh, right. One of them are K's, the old school. Which is which is not electronic. No definition for zoning. Yeah. As long as on the inside of the glass, it's not regulated anyways. And that's usually where they put them. So they put them on the inside of a display window. So it makes them exempt from the zoning anyway. So it seems like we could do two persons once down. We can clarify this and also just remove the theater reference. Just city-wide, equal-play of fields. Is everyone comfortable with that? So the decision would be to prohibit them everywhere. To not provide an exception and then to take out all sections on the requirements for electronic signs. G7. Yeah, G7. It'll make me very happy. I don't know if I'll pass, but. I just see these things. Why didn't it? Well, is anyone lobbying for? It'd be surprised how many people start to come in with exceptions. We'll see. I would love to see them prohibited. I think they're a big problem. They tend to come up at all in our first round. Yeah, that's the only thing I remember is Johnny Anderson talking about something about. And I don't know if it was related to this section, but it had to do with his clients who had filling stations. But that was the exception that I put into mind. Internally related, but not as I think. Yeah, has been the digital price signs. Yes. That was the only exception I usually put in was that no, but if you want to have just the red light bulbs and for the gas stations to say what the price is, so that way they're not out there at 40 below zero replacing the numbers, we can talk about digital price signs separately if you want. If that's going to get caught up in this, I would be fine with going ahead and allowing that. It's more of a standard. My concern is more with once we allow the cat out of the bag for these television marquees that everybody who sells from Dunkin Donuts to everything else can put up a television set. That's horrible. It is. When you see them, next time somebody sees these things, you're going to go and say, oh, that's what Mike was talking about. I think the digital for gas is allowed. Digital for price signs is OK. So is that not considered an electronic message? It technically is. We talked about it in when I did the exemption for Barry, we talked about specifically nothing that was internally illuminated. So that took out neon, any of the light bulbs or any of these other ones. And then because there were already digital price signs for Cumberland Farms and a couple others, the gas station owner says, well, it's not fair that I still had my old signs. And when I go to upgrade, I'll be at a competitive disadvantage to my guy across the street who's got the digital price signs that he can change easily. And so we carved out exceptions that said, yeah, for gas stations, we'll let you guys do digital price signs. But it doesn't give you television screens as well. It's just digital price signs. So it's a different category of signs. So what do we have in our zoning gas station type of signs? I would have to look that up specifically. I think we allow them. We do. That's why I got it, too. So I can clean that up. That's good. Like I said. OK. This is the exact proposal. Well, actually, it'll prohibit electronic signs. So I'll just have to go through and clean up the language for point C13, where it says, except for theaters, we'll have to fix that. And then we won't need section point G7 at all, because because we don't allow electronic signs, we don't need to have rules to explain what you need to do to have them. And there's just word construction. If we had the rules explaining how they're allowed, that should be interpreted that they must be allowed somewhere. Yes. People, yeah. And generally, the general rule, just so everybody knows, if your zoning conflicts, the benefit goes to the property owner. At least that's what's always told zoning administrators. So if you have something that says you're allowed one unit per 5,000 square feet, and then a little bit later on it says you're one unit per 5,500 square feet, then which one is it? The benefit goes to whatever's more generous to the property owner. Which is why you always go and say, don't ever always say something once. If you say it twice, you're going to have a chance of conflicting yourself. So it's like drawing. Should we put it on the drawings once? Yeah, say it once. So that takes care of 3940. We're still in signs. And this one specifically goes to Domino's. Figure 316, considering the Domino's sign can now be only replaced with a 12 square foot sign. So under the old zoning, they could have had a 37 square foot sign. They constructed a 55 square foot sign. We won't get into why. It was an accident. It has to do with how things were calculated. They have been willing, or were willing, to go down to the 37.5 square foot, but not the 12, which is why we're still left with the big sign and not a smaller sign. And isn't that an internally illuminated sign? No, I don't believe it's an internally illuminated sign. It is. It is. It is. Oh, it does. It is internally illuminated. You are right. So how does that fit into this whole design? Internally illuminated signs are a separately regulated category. We can prohibit them. That won't make that one go away. It just prevents the nuance from the future from having internally illuminated signs. There are some communities that do that and say, you have to have externally illuminated signs. Oh, OK. He wanted to allow? He wanted to make sure internally illuminated signs were OK. We're OK. Just because he has clients, and he was saying that the having someone have to go out on ice on a ladder to change. That was the gas. That was the gas, I think. I think that was the digital price side. But the other one was that some of them, like the cover lines on the farm sign that already exists. I thought it had to do with that as well. Because those are internally illuminated. Yeah, those are internally illuminated. So this one is just looking at just the size. So we recommended. What I recommended to city council when this came up was that we should treat Crossroads neighborhood. So the Crossroads neighborhood is in riverfront. But what I said was for signs, we should have signage based on Eastern Gateway rather than riverfront. Because most of them in that small little neighborhood over there, they really tend to be more similar character to the Eastern Gateway district. Eastern Gateway would allow them to have 32 square foot sign, which is still less than the old 37. And it's still. So what is an example of a 32 foot sign and a 12 foot sign? A 12 foot sign is 4 foot by 3 foot. Well, no, I mean, I'm thinking signs in town. Oh, signs in town. Oh, I actually went through and did a whole look at the ones for the downtown. Do you have any idea? 4 foot by 3 foot. That's going to be even some of these small. Even the boutiques probably signs bigger than that. Yeah, they're pretty small signs. Yeah, those are signed then. Here, you just split the difference and get a 20. Well, so I was there when the council had this discussion. And it was the counselors from my district, District 3, which I think I'm the only commissioner here in District 3. Yeah, I think there's a concern that that street is just going to turn more into the Eastern Gateway than neighborhood like. And we are allowing commercial development there. But the idea is that we want to maintain more neighborhood character and having smaller signs would help protect that a little bit. I was supportive of it. I live over there. That's how I felt was, I don't want a huge sign, the Domino's signs. Everybody's, the smell's waft up to my street as well. I mean, it is what it is. The sign is what it is. But it's also visible from downtown, though. I don't think it's just a your neighborhood problem. I think it is related to downtown more than Eastern Gateway. Well, the question is, is it more to do with the fact that they're internally illuminated signs that are very bright? Or is it the fact that the sign, remember, that's a 55 square foot sign. So cut that sign size in half. So it's 5 and 1 half by 10. It's that large? That's a 55 square foot sign, yes. Yeah, OK. It's not that you can see it from two sides. That doesn't have anything to do with it, right? That's where the mistake in calculation came in. OK, guys. What is the internal illumination? It's allowed to have internal illumination under the old zoning. I don't know if it's allowed to have internal illumination under the new zoning. But hadn't we warned the new zoning, so it needed to be reviewed under the old zoning? No, we hadn't, yeah. It said when the council reviews, when the council warns it's not when the planning commission warns it. I would have to look up to see what's up with internally illuminated signs. I remember because Mike and I were emailing back and forth about whether we should respond in front of Port Toro explaining this wouldn't be allowed under the new zoning and then we realized it wouldn't be allowed under the current zoning. Internally illuminated signs are not permitted. OK, well, there we go. So it's already, we've solved one problem already with internally illuminated signs are not allowed. Actually, that might only be in the design review district. Well, we'll just expand that district, too. Well, I didn't look at internal illumination. If you would like me to, rather than have us spend a bunch of time here, I can look at the question of internal illumination separately. Yeah, I think that would be helpful. It's prohibited. In the design, he thinks it might be part of the design. And then it says internally illuminated signs are prohibited except we're specifically allowed. Oh, wow. So now we need to know where they're specifically allowed. Well, why don't you take the time to look that up? And then there's no reference to any other. We can still resolve number 40, though. And we can always be clear, if we say we don't, we want to start prohibit internally illuminated signs. We can always investigate that as a separate motion. Yeah, so that's for size, though. That's for size. And you propose 32. I would treat this the same as, rather than creating a new set of rules, I would just treat it the same as Eastern Gateway, which limited to 32 square feet, which is a 5 by 6 sign. I'm trying to think over there. I remembered. So we've got dominoes. We've got dunkin' donuts. I think the dunkin' donut sign was relatively small. I think if you were to look at the other signs going down, 5 by 6 is? Person by a person. Yeah, I mean, it's not. They're 6 feet like that. So we're not talking about shaws as probably a 40, 50, 60 square foot sign. I mean, those are big, big signs. That's building mounted, though. Mike, if it was an error, why are we negotiating whether or not they have to replace it? We made the error. Well, so what? There's a mistake. And they're going to replace it. That sign's there. Yeah, that sign was there. When the sign came out, we contacted them and said we've been getting a lot of complaints about it. And they said, well, we'd be willing to explain the fact that, in fact, their sign is too big. But they followed all the rules. They applied. They put all the dimensions in there. We just, the old zoning calculated square footage based on both sides. So when the limit came up, it said you can have 75 square foot of signage. And our zoning administrator looked at it and said, oh, well, they're only using 57 square feet. They're fine. 57 square feet on one side, two sides. So they actually was, it was way too big of a sign. But by then, we had already, they followed the legal process. So they came back and said, we'd be willing to do some work to try to go and make the sign smaller because we want to be good neighbors. They were going to swap it out with a neighbor. They were going to swap it out. They agreed to swap it out to a smaller sign of 32 square feet if, well, they were going to do it. But they hadn't submitted their permit yet. And then, city council voted to make the rule 12 square feet. And they said, we are not going to go to a 12 square foot sign. We can't get a permit for a 32 square foot sign. So they said, we'll just walk away and leave it at 55 square feet. The question I was trying to ask, if they have the benefit of a mistake, that's there. They've got that benefit. But that doesn't go on forever. If they have to change that sign and do something, why doesn't it follow the rules? It would depend on, you'd have to go to the non-conforming rules and start seeing how much of a change and what they're changing. And it could be there for 20 years before that sign is replaced. Can we require conformance within a certain number of years, like seven years? No, you can do that if we wanted to do that, which South Burlington and a couple of the communities did. We would have to go through and remove signs from the zoning, which you have guaranteed non-conforming grandfathering. You'd have to adopt it as chapter 71 sign or 61 sign ordinance. Which we did in the past, didn't we? You could do that. Listed the non-conforming signs in the downtown district. Like the lobster pot one. Well, they actually voted to get rid of those. Right, right, right. No, the non-conforming signs go for any non-conforming sign. They had just gone and exempted certain signs from even the non-conforming rules that says, no matter what, they can always keep these. Yeah, they were historic. They were historic signs, yeah. Sorry, the little lobster. Excuse me, but I just, it's 55 now, but they're willing to change it to 37. Yeah, but they can't get a permit for it. Without what? Because it would violate the zoning, which says you can only have 12. They could never get a permit. They could never get a permit. If they're going to take down that sign, they have to come into conformity, which would mean a 12-square-foot sign. And they said, we're not going to a 12-square-foot sign. Just give them another fake permit. Make another mistake. Come on, we can make mistakes. There's enforcement discretion. So that's why we're negotiating. We don't get a smaller sign. Yeah, I just don't want to make policy decision about that area based on one entity and particularly when we made a mistake and then now we're negotiating. That's the only thing I just want to caution everyone about. Yeah, I just wanted to put 40 back on there to force them to comply through separate agreements. But the other signs in that area are not as small as 12-square-feet. No. The gas stations and pretty much all the signs are bigger than that. I would imagine they're all going to be bigger than the 12-square-feet, yeah. So why did the council select 12-square-feet? I missed that. Because that's the requirement for Riverfront District. The table goes by Zoning District. And what I pointed out to them was that because Crossroads is part of Riverfront District, it would actually end up with this really small set of signs. And it really would be more consistent with Eastern Gateway. And they didn't agree with that change. And you don't want to have another standard for this area because you'd have to make a whole new Zoning District? We could make another standard. We could make Crossroads its own district. And I said, if that's kind of the... Yeah, it would be the three gas stations and donkeys. How big was donkeys and donuts? My thought was, it's a fairly small area. That's probably four by eight. That might be a 32-square-feet sign. I'm giving you an idea, four by eight. Without the bonus signs underneath it. With ignoring the bonus signs underneath it that are illegal, probably. That might be a four by eight. It's a 31. So right now, nothing in that area would be 12-square-feet, probably. There's the what dominoes replaced. Simply subs? Simply subs with probably 30-square-feet signs. It's simply subs on one side and it's different on the other. Five by four, that might be 20, 24-square-feet. What do you think of that pre-flight? So as I gave this issue, we can live forever with one horrible sign, but everything else will be small. Yes. And we can't get rid of the horrible sign anyhow. We can. Well, rego comes to 37. We can get rid of all of the horrible signs. Is it possible to do a phased-in zoning? With a statue, you could have a statue that phases in over time. So we could do 32 feet now and then in five or 10 years it becomes 20 or 12. As the non-lawyer, I'm going to guess no just because the Title 24, I mean being Dillon's rule, we can only do what we're allowed to do. And I don't know if that's specifically allowed. We have to treat things uniformly. Well, it is uniformly. It's just not uniformly over time. It's right or nothing. I think somebody can see it. It's basically a question of when something becomes effective. Are we allowed to delay the effectiveness of something that's passed? I don't know. My sense is this is not something that I can't enforce. I can enforce this. It was just one of those ones that I wanted to make sure we put it back out there so everyone knew we had written in that it was going to be one way. The city council changed it and made it 12 square feet. Now we're kind of at a point where we're like... Let's throw it back to the city council then. They're the ones who decided this. Leave language as it is. Wait, so the language as it is is... 12 square feet. Which means that we're not going to get done just to replace their sponsor. Yes. I think city council is going to have this conversation all over again. We could potentially revoke our permit after a hearing though, right? I mean, are we going to write to a hearing for sure to process? I don't think we can revoke our permit. We can only revoke or avoid based on misinformation or misrepresentation. They did not misrepresent their application. They presented it exactly what they were going to build and we approved it and said, yes, that's fine. We'd have to pass it as a part of an incident. We've had that for three years. Yes. What John is talking about is South Burlington a number of years ago went through, for example, and wanted to clean up all of their streetscapes from signage that had been... They had a lot of plastic signs, internally illuminated signs, so they wanted to get rid of them. They went to a very uniform size of great sign organs and basically said, you have so many years and it got pushed a couple of times because counselors would eventually get re-elected and the counselors would say, well, we'll delay the implementation for next year or another two more years to come to the compliance. But eventually, with a few exceptions, Al's French fries and a couple others that were exempted, but there weren't too many that made it. Everybody else had to come into compliance and they all did. That's the way the state side of the law was implemented. You can have your horrible sign here for so many years. We just can't do that under zoning. Under zoning, it's locked into that pre... That non-conforming rule, the grandfathering rule applies and we really can't get out of that one. So what communities do is they'll just move to an ordinance in order to bring people into compliance, which we could do as a community. That sounds like the solution to our problem. I mean, they have invested interest in their mistake, but not forever. That's your idea, essentially. If you can do it by ordinance, I would recommend that you have a phase out ordinance. But for the zoning, for number 40, the decision is to leave as is. Well, if you're going to propose leave as is because there's no good way out of it, let's propose an ordinance, just an ordinance. It is a good way out of it. Are you saying doing a sign ordinance like South Burlington did? Yeah. That would be a separate process. That would take some time for me to... Well, okay. I think I've got 20 years of horrible sign. I went up one to five. Yeah, I mean, yeah. Are you saying that we should bring that up to city council when we suggest a sign ordinance? Well, I think we should tell them this is an ordinance. Yeah. I recommend that you do an ordinance to phase out signs that are detrimental to the appearance of the community. I'm afraid so. Let's identify what we want and look for that. Yeah, I know 12 feet seems to have a spoil for a gas station. Quaint neighborhood gas station? Yes. Gas shop, PPE. A shopper. Yes. You know... The old gas shop? People already stopped at the intersection. They don't have to be able to see it from 100 yards away. Our state sign ordinance is one of the great things that happen around here, so why can't we do it? Yeah. Okay, cool. So we recommend a sign ordinance to deal... With grandfather's orders. With grandfather's orders. Nives suggests sign ordinance to council. Number 41. So after signs, we get into these, the 31s. And those are all special uses. So in this case, we're talking about room and boarding houses. And in this case, for whatever reason, there's a specific requirement that says, rooming and boarding houses shall not have kitchens. And we actually had somebody who had one or was proposing one. And we had an application where an applicant had an existing rooming and boarding that had small kitchens. They thought breakfast kitchens would be nice. And what is the harm in the added benefit of a private breakfast kitchen? Staff agrees and feels they should not be required, but should not be restricted either. So... What does Chris think about this? It just would... If it has kitchen facilities, then it's going to meet... It's going to fall into a different code. Yeah, that's my point. Then it would otherwise. So I guess it's just a matter of whether or not... If you want to do the kitchen from a zoning standpoint, then you're going to have to meet the kitchen requirements in the building ordinance. What about the breakfast kitchen requirements? What is a breakfast kitchen? I don't know, it's... I'm sure it's just, you're looking more... You're looking more at a small... at a mini-fridge and small... It has a mini-fridge. Well, if it's a May, then we don't really have to get into the details of what specifically. If we're going to require a kitchen, then we have to get very specific about, okay, what's a kitchen? But if we're just saying, you don't have to have a kitchen, but if you want to have a kitchen, you can have a kitchen. I doubt it, but I don't think we'll need it because it's an option. But in the building code, is there a distinction between... That'll be in the building code, though. The building code will be a separate code. I'm just wondering if there's a distinction between a breakfast type kitchen and a kitchen type whole plane. No idea. Frying or all of that. Well, changing it to May would allow that also. Well, I'd be worried about it if it did, but it's not my good thing. We're currently abandoning kitchens, but are defining them, though? Yeah. Under this one, it says, rooming and boarding houses shall not have kitchens, individual kitchens. It has an existing rooming and boarding house. It's at, well... Yeah, but I have small kitchens in mind. I don't see anything in the definition section. Like, the fuss we're going to be building will tell people it is. Well, not on a May. If we're not requiring it, then I don't think we have to define it as much. Can we just remove it rather than having a May, though? You may have a kitchen. It's just kind of like... You may have a laboratory. If somebody came in... It's just more informational. If somebody came in and said, I've got a rooming and boarding house, or I'm proposing a rooming and boarding house, but can I have kitchens? May I have a breakfast kitchen? Well, if we take... It could be said if we take out the restriction, then... Because it says room shall not include private kitchen facilities. Whereas, bed and breakfasts don't say anything about it. They don't address it. It's not prohibited. Yeah, but it's difficult because B&Bs are only allowed in single-family homes. So... Doesn't matter. Can you have four kitchens? Yeah, but a breakfast kitchen is not really a kitchen. Just don't cook dinner there. Whatever it is. You don't want to cook a dinner there. So, is the decision then... Don't make a sandwich for lunch. It's kind of his decision to strike A5. Strike A5. A5 is now struck. 3-2-0-1. We are now in 3-2s our site plan. A desire to add an informational note above 3-2-0-1 to be included with 3-2-0-1. My recommendation would be to change 3-2-0-1 title to be Applicability and Major Minor Site Plan Determination. Next, I would move point A to be point B and add a new point A to say the requirements of this chapter except parcels used for one and two dwelling units. The reason for this addition is because we had a lot of people who would look at site plan and they would be like and not realize that single and two families don't have to meet it. So, it has all these other things for determinations, but it really wasn't getting into the fact that single and two family by state law are exempt from site plan. So, we tried to explain, well it's written in a note in this spot over here and it's in chapter 4, but everybody said, everyone looks in the same place they all look in chapter 3, they look at the regulations and they preferred to see it. Anyone have any concerns? Okay. We're good Mike. Alright. 3-2-0-2 change title to bike in pedestrian access and circulation. You remember that discussion we just had? This is where it showed up. So, rather than talking about vehicular access and circulation, should be bike in pedestrian access and circulation. Sounds good. 3-2-0-2 point C, applicant had confusion about this requirement and believed it would be void for vagueness if challenged. What does the requirement mean for a proposal that will add two dwelling units to a duplex? Do units in residential 9000 count as supporting alternative transportation simply because they're close to the downtown? It's pretty smushy. It says the applicants demonstrate that the proposed development enables energy efficient modes of transportation such as walking, biking, transit electric vehicles, carpooling or car sharing as feasible and appropriate given the location and use. Yeah, so they argued that it was pretty vague what you've got your regulations there. If you think about how that would apply What context is this in? I mean that might help me understand it a little bit more. So it's inside the bike plan? It's inside plan for bike in pedestrian so in this case somebody's coming in for building, I think this the complaint came from somebody who was building a multifamily unit on Elm Street close to downtown. So like a residential 3,000 area or residential 9000 in this one is using as an example. But it was relatively close to downtown and the question was how do I meet this alternative transportation requirement it doesn't make any sense to me I'm already in the downtown. I mean do I automatically get to be in the downtown because and meet alternative transportation is because I'm a duplex. Because you have proximity to walking and biking? Do they have a sidewalk out front? Yeah do they have a sidewalk out front I guess would be. Yeah it seems a little intention but we already have requirements for bike access, sidewalks various landscaping lines front facing Yeah I think we've done a good job at making sure that the outcome is what this squishier thing wants by being more specific. So I could just scrap it. My recommendation that I had here was I think you should add more detailed requirements to point A and point B if you think they are needed and then strike point C which I think is what John was basically saying. Sounds good to me. So we're going to strike C. Yeah just strike C. Do you think we need more details from point A and point B? I don't think so but I think if somebody were feeling we didn't that they wanted more I wouldn't amend point C to be better. I would amend A and B if you think there's something that's not addressed enough. Is there uncomfortable just striking point C and not changing A and B? It seems like it leaves out the electric vehicle part of how you create a requirement for that way of life. Then they could be looking at are we going to require them to put pointed stations and all of that. That's pretty drastic. I'm considering we don't require parking spaces in some cases so you don't have parking spaces but now we're going to make you put in a parking space and it's going to be an electric plug-in. It feels like it's comfortable striking point C. All right. 45 and this will probably consume a vast chunk of time. This is the number one problem with these new regulations. Is section 3203. I can't believe you're already ready to make that decision. What about the number one problem of 2018? The number one problem of these regulations. I will guarantee when I get done explaining this you guys will be like oh that doesn't make any sense. 3203. 3203 is landscaping. So generally there are no rules to address non-conforming or waivers. So that's the big umbrella we're looking at. The rules for landscaping are extremely strict. For example a change of use from retail to office requires site plan approval but even though there are no external changes being proposed they'll still have to meet these requirements. Property with non-conforming landscaping could mean tens of thousands of dollars in landscaping are required. This has come up in every single application we've received. Some issues include a property with two ancient trees, really big trees but are required to have four trees and have asked if they need to cut down the two massive trees to make room for four smaller trees because they are required to have four trees. The standards are able to be in rural and suburban lots but not in urban ones. There's also no conversion between trees and shrubs so if I need 8 trees and 50 shrubs but I have 10 trees and 40 shrubs do I need to cut down two of my trees to plant 10 shrubs. These are actual things we have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Another area has an exact acre of vacant land behind the developed portion of the lot and asked if they could just plant their trees and shrubs back there as quickly as they can do. They can just take all their shrub and tree requirements and plant them in the back 40. To decide how to fix amending these rules you should look back at the purpose. Why do we require landscaping at all? Point A gives a purpose which is good and helps to decide what we want to see. Considering the emphasis is on quote the appearance from public vantage points and creating shade along sidewalks one person has suggested changing the standard to read building frontage rather than building perimeter. The requirement in effect right now says for every foot of building perimeter you need to plant a tree or shrub not frontage but building perimeter. They're saying well just change it to building frontage and require the planting to be between the building front line and the street. That way the rules are implementing the purpose. That was a good start but still does not address trees to shrubs conversion or a fact that there's a fixed number of trees that need to be planted and therefore smaller trees rather than larger ones. Another option could be establishing a minimum amount of planting area per linear foot. Figure 20 establishes those numbers including material plant material size so we could say 5 square feet of planting for every foot of building perimeter application with 40 feet of building frontage could provide 200 square feet considering the property had two existing large trees in the front yard they would have met that requirement two times 100 square feet had those trees not existed they could have planted eight medium trees and a few shrubs perhaps it works like the shading requirements. I'm open to some ideas but this was the biggest thing is these numbers when it gets into that perimeter requirement 3.03 things like point D and some of the tables specifically point G1 the problem is defining numbers of trees and shrubs when you're real objective is to have shade it's either shade or shade of design could it just be a percentage of the building costs of their project costs allocated to landscaping to just make it awesome so that's one option but that is actually one option so one thing you could do is go and say for non-conforming it's a percentage of project cost we can require you to do all of this but it can't cost more than 2% of the total project cost we already get project costs for building permits so we already are going to get that number so you could go through and say really it's a $50,000 to fix this but because it's only a $10,000 project they only need to do $200 worth of improvements. So I'm looking at the frontage piece if it's if this is a really long building and they don't have a lot of frontage it doesn't fit so if you only have this much space you have to plant as many trees I can see that potentially not work so the other options are we can look at waiver requirements it just goes through and says you have to do this but here are some waiver requirements that you can go to the board and go and say I can't meet these requirements because I have two big trees here and the board can say okay you've got two big trees we agree that will substitute for your landscaping requirement because they provide enough shade whether you're talking about shade or whether you're talking about aesthetics from landscaping it doesn't necessarily have to be from shade it can be just softening softening the appearance where did these numbers come from originally? these are directly from Brandi so I don't know where she got them from but she is by training a landscape architect so it may be something that comes out of ALSA or one of those does somebody else already have some sort of conversion in their zoning that we could use like one of large trees like this there was a little bit on the table that's 320 talks a little bit about if you see minimum planting area we actually have these minimum planting area things so if you have a large tree I would switch some of the orders of things like the mature or matte maintained height really should be over next to the plant material the columns aren't in the right places because a large tree the definition of large tree is 50 greater than 50 square feet mature so we really should move those over there ignoring that little twist the minimum planting area though if you were going to plant one large tree you would get credit for 100 square feet so if we started to look towards that kind of scenario then you could go through and say well I'm going to plant two large trees because I'd rather have two large trees than 15 small shrubs so you could never plant a tree that was 50 square feet no but it's the mature height you'd be planting a tree that would be growing to that height eventually oh I see what you're saying right but it's not currently so would we say within a certain number of years we would probably have to have a minimum caliper and a minimum height so if you're going to plant a large tree it would have to be at least 18 feet tall or something right now when it's planted we'd have to talk to an arborester tree board or somebody to go through and find out what are reasonable figures for what will be a planting height for a large tree and a medium tree and a small tree but now we're talking about the minimum planting area so you get credit for bigger trees if you've got them and one big tree could be worth more and I kind of tried to figure out some new numbers maybe a medium tree would be worth 36 instead of 24 because I was trying to think so three medium trees would equal large big trees would equal one rather than 24 which seemed a little small small trees are 16 medium trees are 24 big trees are 100 seems like a big jump there so is this type of thing common in zoning rigs usually they're more general they're usually not as specific yeah I remember there was some discretion on the DRV actually what can you do for us I think counting trees and shrubs sounds like a medieval nightmare it has been for people who have been trying to count the shrubs that are existing around their property especially for something like a quadplex and they're going out there and saying I'm looking at spreading juniper is that one or is that four I kind of see four stems going in but is it one plant or is that four you know I think the other one they were joking about was their lilac it was just coated with little lilac stems all day it was just sprouting out of the ground for two years it might send more suckers out it might send more suckers out and 50 of them may die but it was a very difficult to enforce set of rules and the DRB has asked almost every time they have a meeting they're like it's planning commission we've gotten a solution for this yet can they recommend something they've been enforcing back to the purpose so they kind of went back to the purpose statement and said because the rules don't work they just flat don't work we're going back to this and trying to work our way back but they recognize they really shouldn't be but they have ideas for what I think they wanted less numerical they would prefer to have performance standards and guidelines the hard part is half of our zoning permits are now administrative so we have a lot of administrative site plans which make a little bit of performance standards a little bit harder because zoning administrators are supposed to be more objective but we thought we could have some that we would do and if it reaches a certain point the zoning administrator has the right to refer and I think a zoning administrator just has to put their hands up sometime and say this is getting a laboratory on whether or not it is creating an aesthetic something from the street you know whatever the performance standard is wouldn't you develop some pictures and say this is great this is lousy this is I mean that would be a standard which would show shading and give you some kind of a clue what the purpose and take the numbers out is the parking garage so is the worry that if we have I guess a performance standard I don't know what that would look like the DRB would then would that be the case it would be more likely that if we don't have clear guidelines the zoning administrator just may reach a point that they can't make a call on something but we can certainly go through and try to write them in such a way if so I guess at this point what's most important is that the discussion here is that the purpose of this section is to protect the quality of life and community character by enhancing the appearance of the built environment as viewed from the vantage as viewed from public vantage points creating shade alongside and walkways and within parking lots providing a landscape buffer between residential and non-residential land uses and screening land uses that develop land uses and development that create visual clutter and destruction so if we like that purpose I can start to build off that yeah can we clean it up so that maybe it makes a little more sense but then if someone would like if it should be referred to the DRB then basically there's no discretion to decide whether or not it meets the intent of the so there's some specificity and if it meets that that's great but if not they have the option so you're thinking of keeping this but cleaning it up I take all the numbers out just leave the purpose well if we can keep it to allow for some administrative permits in the instances that it makes sense that's great but then if it doesn't send it to the DRB I like the idea of developing a conversion chart for the administrative approval so that there's flexibility we've done that for a number of them so actually that's a good idea we did that for a number of them we had rules that said if you meet this I can administratively issue your permit if you can't then you can go to the DRB and these are the rules that they would follow so I think that I'll put something together that has some numbers and maybe we'll use those conversion those ones that we had there for square footage try to manipulate those a little bit and if you can meet those great we can check the box and say yeah you have enough trees and landscaping they're in the correct place you have to have so much they've got to be in this area and this is what we're going to count and if you meet that you check the box and the administrative approval if not there are more subjective standards that you can go to the DRB for and get a waiver there's got to be some judgment call on the projects here can't just be a person saying to work the more options we can give people more headaches well if it's clear we don't really care it really goes to the the issue we have right now is as people come in and they run into a box there's no waivers and there's no non-conforming rules in here so we have no way to go and give somebody an exception that says what you have is fine you don't need to do any more landscaping we can't so I will yeah now that I've got an agreed upon idea that I'm going to work with I'll come up with some language that we can all chew on but this is really the biggest one that comes up and as I said literally every non-single family application is it worth carving out this recommendation and sending that to council right away it could be I mean it sounds like this is an issue that comes up if this is going to take us a long time to finish getting through we have 120 of these well there's a bunch that are empty and a bunch that are green but yes if we think this is going to take a while I can work on this and we can shuttle that through earlier do folks agree we should prioritize that for the next meeting alright I will get something together so we've got it draft is there anyone on the tree board who might help us to quantify trees that knows a little bit more than we do that subject area like I think John snail knows he knows more than he'll get right into the weeds I like the square footage approach yeah I like that too if we go by square footage that's already in there and then four medium trees would equal a large tree if you've got these things and you've already met it you know one of the other ones is if you also if you've had a previously approved site plan by the DRB or if you do like xdvh is worth others that's what I was thinking trees are usually measured by diameter breast height rather than actual height mature tree you measure by diameter breast height the question is I've had a big apple tree that didn't grow very tall but is that really equal to the same as an elm or a maple or a maple that might be twice the height in providing more shade to get shade and to do aesthetics is your emphasis shade or is your emphasis aesthetic because the tree can actually outgrow its usefulness from aesthetics it's true then it's just a trumpy apple yeah then you get your neighbors that the apples are falling out they have to eat them because they don't have a breakfast kitchen before we lose our ourselves here 3203D oh and by the way I think we'll do a hard stop of this review at 7.15 because we have a lot of minutes we gotta get through so let's see if we can get through this one in 5 minutes alright so 3203D 3203D yes plant material shall be planted in specifications 3-20 so that's just a technical mistake and the following the rest should be listed 1 2 3 4 etc oh ok so the rest of these alright so the reason so just so people know when we write recommendations and decisions and things we are writing staff reports we're referencing things so when regulations are written in paragraph form they become really difficult so what should happen is use should be number one the next sentence use of invasives should be number two applicants are strongly encouraged is number three and then I think what this was saying was that we should add a final number on the end was four or five that says when counting the amount of required plant materials the same tree or shrub can be counted towards meeting more than one requirement street trees site landscaping parking lot requirements so within this are a couple of different sections you'll see point F is street trees point G is site landscaping point H is parking lot landscaping and point I is screening so what we had from an administrative standpoint is we didn't know if we could double count these trees so if a tree is next to the sidewalk and also next to the parking lot that tree count twice can I count it towards me in that requirement in that requirement and all this was just clarifying say yes you are allowed to count that same tree to meet this requirement over here and this requirement point D and F were just typos that's 47, 48, 49 number 50 so we're still talking about site landscaping F1 and F8 use two different numbers unclear if the requirement is within five feet of the right of way and a waiver could allow six or more from the right of way the waiver would allow for fixing some non-conforming sites but it isn't a broad waiver to allow on the pre-existing issues street trees are required in urban center and a waiver avenue exists but that means every urban application needs to go to the DRV basically so street trees have been a big issue and applications that we review so far have not been a big issue so far but it should be clear that street trees can double counted with the total site landscaping in point G also number 2 and if stated that the requirements of point F do not apply rather than have the DRV may waive would fix them necessarily with waiver requirements so I think we were just trying to get street trees exempt in the downtown as well so the purpose of this section is what do you want to do I'm not clear what you want to do with it but I'll figure out so these are all about street trees one and eight where we don't agree yes so we should at least have one or the other shall be planted within five feet of the edge of the street or right of way the street right of way unless otherwise recommended by the public works and they may waive the location to allow trees within six feet of the edge so yeah that was an issue there with just conflicting between those two is there a concern with planting trees that close you know this might be one where it would be really good to have some input from the tree board since they have been doing a lot of work with street trees I want to just defer that and have me work with them to get input from the tree board first I'm not seeing where they conflict this is five feet this is five feet is general rule but then eight is an exception so I must say why that's a problem yeah so maybe it's not conflicting much as it is just confusing a waiver for one foot and that's the only thing you can get a waiver for so you can't get a waiver for any other requirement of street trees just to get the only waiver you can get is if your existing tree happens to be six feet you can apply and it doesn't automatically count as a street tree it only counts if you go to the DRB and the DRB says it counts as a street tree which would beg the question why would we bother to go to the DRB and then as I said the other requirement is that these tree trees apply to everything including in the urban core an exemption to the urban core would be helpful I get this since everyone's tired not able to give you much feedback on this one so I propose that we stop on this one we'll start with this one next time it's a number 50 it seemed like it was more ministerial than anything else and I think some of these other ones may go away if I'm bringing you guys a decision or a recommendation to prioritize landscaping requirements 45, 46 and this will go all the way up through 54 okay so I can come up with a recommendation that kind of covers all of those because some of these are just things I need answers to but I don't I think I could put together a recommendation that you guys can change numbers on and agree and disagree like parking lot trees there's no distance from the tree so is that tree 20 feet away can I count that towards shading the parking lot there's no nothing says a tree has to be so close to the parking lot to count as shade actually designating that it in fact does shape I mean it based on the ground width and all of that well then there's the angle of the sun at what time of year at some point of the year okay we've plowed through several so let's turn our attention to item 7 now which is the minutes the outstanding minutes that we have for a variety of meetings starting with January 22nd if everyone a minute to find that I was just not a member of the board I vote on minutes but I'm not here I think we have enough so you don't have to for some reason the January minutes just got left behind we went through and read all the following minutes afterwards and did not find anywhere where we actually approved them so I moved to approve them I was even second January 22nd yep any discussion all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed those abstaining so we had four yeah so January 22nd minutes are approved I moved to approve May through August 27th well they're not exactly consecutive so you got to list them all out oh yeah well May 14th 2018 July 9th 2018 July 23rd 2018 August 13th 2018 and August 27th 2018 we need to talk about this okay well do I have a second for purposes of discussion just to approve them all as much yeah I'll second okay is that we could any discussion or edits we could just do them instead of making yeah okay so let's talk about let's talk about May 14th any concerns pardon I wasn't there so Furvey, Stephanie okay so moving on so nothing to edit on that one July 9th grab yours this pipe do you have Leslie's letters? what was that? I would say it was probably a copy but I was not there what do you think Furvey? it's like a murder of crows it's a letter of letters Leslie's letter who knows a copy of Leslie's letters to the committees anything else on this one? so is the what's the Google Drive set up again? maybe I think so I don't think there was anything on there but I think you had it set up because at the previous meeting we had met with Seth anything else on the July 9th meeting? okay July 23rd a sentence that I mentioned Director of Public Safety should get one that's Director of Public Safety of the Central Monod Safety Agency CVRPSA he's Director of the Central of the regional Public Safety CVRPSA on the back Talking about item 32 again um Iron 32 has staff recommendations as to take off prohibition and development over 30 percent slopes so make it that entering your plan require. So removing the prohibition on development of the 30% slopes. I don't think I, I don't remember voting in the affirmative on that. I would be willing to go back and check the record that said a motion passed on 4-0 was a vote. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So where is the motion? It's a good question. What was the vote? It was the, yeah. I mean, I, I know. I didn't see this part. Yeah. Yeah, that was the other piece. What was there was that the outright prohibition of 30% slope period meant that even the smallest ones, you know, we couldn't, people couldn't put in curb cuts because the roadside ditches are three to one slopes, which are 30% slopes. Fixing or attaining wall. So we have a number of these that are, were issues. They would still be required to have engineers. So if you're going to affect 30% slopes, you have to have an engineer. Sounds like we need to go back and check how the voting went. Yeah. Before confirming. Was there, there was a separation of these small issues versus the blanket development on 30% slopes. I mean, the small issues that you raised, I could see could be exempt but I don't, I don't know that that's the same thing as taking off the prohibition completely. Okay. So should we table July 23rd minutes then pending Barb's confirmation of the vote? Okay. Could be specific as to what was approved. Right was approved. Yep. Yep. That makes sense. August 13, this was our all committees meeting. There are a long list of people who attended. Uh huh. Joanne Troiano. You're voting to add her because she was on there. So John, you made the motion. Do you want to just withdraw the motion and we'll redo a motion without you here? Sure. Or I'm fine with any amendments Barb wants to make. Oh, okay. So you modify the motion to incorporate the amendments discussed. Exactly. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yes. And it was. T.R. I.A.N.O. Okay. You make sure. Read my mind. And the Dan Jones is not the Executive Director of the Energy Advisory Committee. He is the Executive Director of Sustainable Montpelier Coalition. That's what it said on the PowerPoint. I'm sure you had it. Because he wasn't there representing the Advisory Committee because that's what Kate was doing. But anyway, um, under the Energy Advisory Committee, um, second paragraph, some of the strategies are conservation, reducing heating and electrical use by 30%, not 3%, two committees down to Montpelier Housing and Montpelier Alive. I think if that was Laura Gephardt speaking, then it was the Montpelier Development Corporation. Uh huh. Oh, yep. And I did print out those, type up those things that you wrote up. Flip charts? The flip charts. So I don't know. You did or did not? I did. I guess I did not. If you didn't get them, then I will send them out. Yeah. Because I wrote them all up and then I couldn't remember if I sent them out. Thank you. Yeah. I thought I saw them but maybe not. We can ask John to post them out. If I sent them out, I sent them out again. It's not a big deal. Okay. And August 27th. Mike, you got all the edits? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I make these back in my office. Great. This Barb and Mike could work on an envelope to present a snack. Maybe that's why it's worded that way. Oh, I see. Okay. Okay, so. What were you doing with the motion? So the motion modifies based on the edits made. So I understand the motion to approve the minutes from January 22nd. Nope. January 22nd is already approved. Okay. Motion approved. May 14th, 2018. July 9th, 2018. August 13th, 2018. August 27th, 2018. With the edits provided by Barb. And we'll take up July 23rd, 2018 in the next place. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Those minutes are approved. One quick note before we adjourn. Mike, our next meeting would normally be October 8th. Is that a holiday? That's a Columbus Day. Okay. So what would folks like to do? Would you like me to try to reschedule for a night? Or are we pushing to the 22nd for the next meeting? When the council acts with the term start. I think it was an October appointment. I think it's supposed to be an October appointment. Did you not apply? It looked like we all applied and there's one other person. Oh, I see. I applied but I'm reconsidering it because I'll be. I said in my application I wouldn't miss that many meetings. So I need to reconsider that. Is there only one other person? Well, why don't we plan to skip the 8th? That'll give you some room to think about. But it is going to be a struggle or I'll be only one seat. It'll give me a little bit of time to put together the landscaping recommendation. So if I get that early, I'll try to get that out to folks so you get a chance at home to chew on it a little bit. But you've heard a little bit of the reasoning and what the problems were. So no meeting on October 8th. The next meeting will be October 22nd. Same time, same place. And we're going to be tackling the landscaping issue. And then also the slope. And by that point, I mean I will send out the information on the slopes. Including the ammo after my kids can still look at it. I mean if we have resolutions to those two issues we can send both of those to council for consideration. Yeah, and the signs. Because it's not necessarily the buildable area part of the regulations. It's not a problem but it's not as much of a problem as the 30%, the hour rate 30% prohibition as applications come in. That's another one that the DRB has issues on if we can fix that. Which I think we have a relatively quick fix that would work. I thought it was the other way around. I thought it was the exclusion of the land. Both of them are a problem. That's why the memo is going to be such good. Both of them are problems which is why I recommended changing both of them. But I think the one that the outright prohibition of 30% slopes, we just have a lot of applications that come in for somebody who wants to fix a retaining wall and they're not allowed to. So we're just like, well that just doesn't make any sense. Because a retaining wall creates a 30% slope. Yeah, yeah, I just think that's a repair as opposed to any developments. But to dig it out, to build a new one is affecting the steep slope. So basically we just need to get that exception in and they've got an engineer. So the DRB has put their input in that they like kind of how we're doing it with. Requiring an engineer. Requiring an engineer. If you're affecting it, you've got to have an engineer. And I think the recommendations we made to switch the table helps a lot too. It makes a lot more sense. And one of my points about the tables is that we need to be able to determine what the percent of slope is to apply those tables. So there must be a way to apply, I mean to determine the percent of slope. Because that's what the tables are based on. Alright, so I need a final motion to adjourn. Who wants it? I'll take it. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Okay, we are adjourned. Thanks everybody.