 The evening, folks, we're going to call this evening in the city of the development review board to order. My name is Phil Zallinger. I serve as chair. The other members to my right are Jack Lindley. Kevin O'Cottel. Mike Miller, staff. Roger Kranz. Daniel Richardson. Kate McCarthy. So the first item on the agenda is to identify who the five voting members who are going to be on participating in tonight's decision. I'm happy to abstain. I'll just facilitate the hearing. So the five members will be Jack, Kevin, Roger, Dan, and Kate. Speaking of five members participating in the decision, is there a date when the charter amendment will be effective? I don't know if have you heard if it's passed. I know last week I saw John Odom going over to meet with GovOps, and they were going to fast track it. As far as I know, it hasn't been passed yet. OK. Legislature has to approve of the proposed charter changes. I think that's the thing. They usually combine it all in one bill. Yeah. So it's everybody? Yeah, all of them. But my understanding was that GovOps took it up last week. So they were fast tracking it. Usually it's one of the last bills out. We're still in the purgatory then. Right. All right. To be the news at 11, film at 11. Next item will be approval of the agenda. The move that we accept the agenda is printed. Motion by Dan, second by Roger. All those in favor, please signify by raising your right hand agenda. I wasn't. Oh, it changes, sorry. You're now. You're with the program, Kevin. Yeah. Right. Comments from the chair, the chair does have this comment for the public. I'm going to recuse myself from participating in the second matter on tonight's agenda, the application on Elm Street having had a relationship with the applicant in the past. So next item is approval of the minutes on April 2, 2018. I was intended to. Me, Jack, Roger, Kate, be accepted as printed. Second. Motion by Jack, second by Kate. All those with the capacity to vote and seated by your approval by raising your right hand. Minutes are adopted for me at the second. Brings us to the first item, 170 spring hollow lane application of Amanda Kitchen. Good evening, I'm Don Marsh, render engineer on the project. I'm Richard Rubin. I'm Amanda's stepfather, but I'm also here as her lawyer. Is that an editorial comment? Well, it's a difficult role, I must admit. Which one? Two hats, but she's out of town, so I'm doing it for her. Time would you please raise your right hand. You saw these for the evidence, you're about to be on the matter of the consideration of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Yes, thank you. Why don't you give us a brief outline of the application and then we'll discuss the new ordinance. OK. This is an existing four acre parcel at the end of spring hollow lane near the cul-de-sac. The parcel is frontage on spring hollow lane itself and frontage on the cul-de-sac. And then it has about half of the acreage is in the rear, behind a second lot on spring hollow lane. And the purpose of this is to create two acre lots in the residential 24,000 districts over well in excess of the required acreage. This land in the rear, just as a point of background, at one point were two separate lots as part of a 1973 subdivision. We didn't include that in the application because it's just more general information. But the two lots were down here. There was a whole subdivision that was east of spring hollow lane. Most of these houses have purchased rear lots that were part of that former plaque. So there were two parcels back there, each about an acre. We originally looked at trying to represent that they were still separate lots. But the language in the deeds about 15 or 20 years ago sold them together with the front lot. It wasn't clear that they didn't say specifically that they were merged, but they were sold both mentioned in the same lot and the same deed. And they've subsequently been transferred as all in the same with lots of King earlier. So we felt that it would be cleaner both now for you and in the long term for clear title to create this as a two-lot subdivision, approximately two acres. And it meets the section 3002 F3B, which is when you create in a new lot, if it's an irregular lot, you need to have 20 feet of frontage. Not a right away, but frontage. So this lot is comprised with a long 20 foot wide finger through the portion of the existing lot so that it, in fact, has the required frontage on spring hollow lane. This shows a little bit bigger. So this is a man who's existing lot on spring hollow lane here, cul-de-sac. So we have this 20 foot portion of the lot itself that feeds back to a larger portion. And on this, in the new ordinance, slopes are more of a concern. So we've done a slope analysis. And those areas that are in the light gray are less than 15% slope, so easily buildable. And then as you get to the dark blue, those are slopes that would be prohibited from development. There's a small section, about 480 square feet, up in the front of the road, which actually was caused. It's man-made. It was caused with the construction of the cul-de-sac, where there was a cut and fill in a road ditch. So that area is actually over 30%. Except for the provision in the ordinance of 307D4, which allows us to exclude small, isolated areas of slopes, greater than 30% of your slope calculation. Now, we meet that, literally. I would argue that my thought, as the intent of the ordinance, was that you don't build on 30% slopes, not that you couldn't construct the driveway through an existing road ditch, where the road had artificially lowered and steepened the contours in order to build the cul-de-sac, so for consideration. We have shown building envelopes that show significant land within the proposed lot for construction of a home. And also, it's significant land that would, with some clearing, allow for solar access, as required by the new ordinance. That's unless the owner of the stem applies. Any questions? I mean, square feet are at the end of that driveway in that impaired area? About 480. So it's under the 500. It's under the 500. You did the measurements? Oh, yeah. I have a question that relates to getting to know our new ordinance, and I thank you for bearing with us. Do we have a definite, I didn't see a definition of building envelope in the back. Is there one? It is addressed. There isn't a building envelope provision. It is in section 3 in what it basically says, and I can hunt down the exact thing for you, is that you can put them on 3503.C, which says building and building envelopes on recorded plot shall be representative only and be placed to demonstrate a suitable area for development. Approval of a plot with a house site or building envelope shall not be inferred as a permit to build such a structure, nor shall it be a limitation on future development outside of the envelope or house site unless included as a condition of approval. The reason for that is we had a number of old plots that had been, every time somebody put in a plot, they would put in the setbacks and say, this is the building envelope, and then we would change the setback requirements and zoning. And then in order to build the deck or build the porch, they have to go and file an amended plot, which was a three-step process before they could get a permit to build the deck area. So we just eliminated the building envelope. Unless you require it as a condition, it's just meant to demonstrate this is an area that's buildable. OK, so for example, we could require it as a condition, not in this case, but if there were an area that were unsuitable for development on the parcel, that would be excluded from the building envelope to protect that area. Yes. So it does have that function. Thank you. Unless development is already prohibited in those other areas. Unless it is otherwise prohibited. And I will point out there are a couple of pieces, because I was playing a little bit of catch-up at the end of last week. You'll see a number of points. This is sketch plan review of this application. So there are a number of little points that I had highlighted and read in my staff report, most of which I didn't have large concerns about. I think they were just pieces of information I had to get from Don. And I highlighted pieces that I thought were things that needed to be addressed. But some of these other ones, like existing lot coverage, it's going to be clear that it meets it. I just don't have the number to go and say it meets it. So there were a couple of pieces you'll see in there that maybe highlighted and read. And it's only read because I didn't have an opportunity to have a conversation with Don to get those numbers. We no longer have the ability to do sketch plan and final approval in the same area. I'll figure it out. You mean preliminary and final. I'm sorry, preliminary and final? Preliminary is now gone. Preliminary is now gone. Yes, so you'll always have sketch and you'll always jump to final. Now you could in final end up needing two hearings to get through final. But if somebody comes in fully prepared and you can approve it in one hearing in final, then that's up to you guys in the quality of the application. And the issue of frontage when you propose a 20-foot frontage, that's requesting the DRB to reduce the 75-foot frontage down to 20. Is that right, Don? Well, I'd like to phrase it in a more positive term. We're really asking, we do need DRB approval. But just that the DRB approves it in accordance with a reduces the frontage requirement to not less than 20 feet. For irregularly shaped lots, or lots got my share of driver, that's not the case. So it's on page three dash six. Technically it's reducing it, yes, from the 70. And again, I mean part of this is just because we're going through, this is like the second or third application under the new zoning bylaws. And this is an irregularly shaped lot in part because of the choice that you're making with the design, but also because of the cul-de-sac, the circular drive. It's not as if it's a long rectangular straight line of frontage. It's on the circle. And also it's because that Amanda had purchased essentially four lots earlier. So I think this is a regular shaped lot even though it's on the cul-de-sac. But the fact that she has two more acres in the back is sort of where we were thinking it fit into that irregular shaped definition. Based on the history you gave that's also provided in the materials, I think it's also an irregularly shaped lot today because in the past it was meant to be served by a road parallel to one that goes to the cul-de-sac. So it's irregular because of the way it's accessed. Now it wouldn't have been irregular if that road had been built. So it's irregularity is a function of history and how we want to use it today. Correct, yes. It would have been at the end of that other, well it would have been bordered on that other loop road. So it wasn't created as an irregular lot because as envisioned it would have been quite normal. I see that you've addressed all of the new sections that relate to the subdivision standards. This is sketched plan review, I don't think we have to go through all of them. I guess I'm not sure whether we have to go through all of them in the final, but we're still feeling our way with the new ordinance. Let me ask you this question. You want the board to reduce the frontage to 20 feet? Yes. That's gonna create a finger that's 20 feet wide and 235 feet long. Yes, yep, yes. And you'll install a driveway? Within that, yes. There's actually sort of an old wood road that grown up wood road that's sort of in that same alignment as it turns out. Is that where utilities will be run through electric and such? Electric and water, waste water would be on site. So there's no city sewer up there? No electric cable, phone lines, the essentials. Yes. And that width is sufficient for both a driveway that will meet the emergency services minimum as well as the utilities. Yes, and we've got 20 feet, so it'd be probably a 15 foot driveway. And then we need a curb cut of course from DBW, which we anticipated to get in advance of ultimately a zoning permit. There is a driveway that's 15 feet width that will leave you with all 30 inches on either side of the driveway between the... Yes. What kind of an impact will that have on the other, the neighbor's parcel? Well, it won't have any impact on the... I haven't done a site visit, so I'm not sure where the house is constructed on the neighbor's parcel. One to the south here is right, it's right in here. So back. Which finger, you have all four fingers on the way there. It's in that way. It's right there, it's right there. Actually they have a stone wall that sort of runs along the property lines that will be up above behind the stone wall. What is the width needed by the fire trucks to get to that structure? You consulted with the fire department? We have not, I mean it typically 15 foot driveway is what we've gone shorter, but typically you do a 15 foot driveway. The access is less, as long as we have a turning radius to get in, which you'd have to have the turning radius to get into it. I'm not too concerned about the driveway with 15 seems appropriate, maybe less is more when it comes to plowing and groveling and such, but we do have a note here that there may be a requirement that it be built to the B71 standard. And does that standard include width requirements or does it have more to do with the base and such? Width but also the radius on either side for 30 foot radius is what we have. I mean realistically. So it's not about the width, it doesn't require you to go wider than 15? No, I'd have to. I wouldn't want you to get stuck with a 20 foot wide piece of land and a 24 foot requirement. We haven't gotten there yet to be honest. I mean if that were the case, what would be easily done is that, and we may end up, Amanda may have to give this lot an easement for drainage and filling because by the time we get done, DBW had some questions about drainage. We may have to put a road ditch on the upper side, so it may not realistically fit on. Like I said, narrower is better for. And before we come to final, we can have discussion with them and maybe it would be more appropriate that it's a 30 foot finger. We were just trying to meet sort of the minimum requirement. And I don't mean to encourage you to go wider. I'm just sort of curious how all these things fit together. Thanks. How much you can do with that 30 inches? Easement, easement. Well, it doesn't say easement here. It says 235 foot finger. I mean now I was thinking from like a plowish perspective, it's gonna be sloughing off a lot. Within that 30 foot, the 30 inch. I don't think there'll be a problem. There's a lot of space between Amanda's house and the driveway. So sort of create an additional easement for putting a conduit in or whatever. Right. That's gonna be an issue at all. And I think it's an easily solved problem with an easement. It's just concern that once Amanda sells this lot, second lot, she sells her own. I could see a future set of landowners that might get into a fight about that if there wasn't clear language in the form of an easement. That's why you have to own all the green ones to build hotels. I'm not particularly enamored of this part of the ordinance that allows us to shrink the frontage down to 20 feet and allow a 250 foot driveway, but it says on the paper in front of me, so I guess it'll flex yesterday. The old ordinance basically permitted a subdivision and then you just give an easement of 20 feet so that you wouldn't create a finger that you could accomplish to the same infill. The easement was 25 feet? Or am I going to tell you? But in 50. It seems like with leap for our collar, we had a 50 foot. Yeah, I thought so. Why? But the intention was to, I think, was to permit the lot to backfill. And now because of the new ordinance, we actually have to deed what normally would have been done with the right of way. This makes it kind of look funny, but it essentially creates the same result. Neither of which are optimal, but we understand that that's one of the consequences of what is called now infill. Just the word I was going to use. It's a two-acre lot in literally downtown. It's a logical place to put dwelling units next to at least part, you know, municipal services, close to municipal services, not all of them. Right, yeah. Primarily concerned with the idea that, you know, this lot could ultimately be subdivided again given the density and that when they do, they won't have another bite at the access, this finger. And so whether it's, whether it's deeded as the new zoning bylaws seem to require or in easement, I just, I think it's important to make sure that that road to Berlin as it were is sufficient for future uses and that you don't cut off the value of this property to be either subdivided again or create additional infill when the time's appropriate. It may be difficult to further, I don't think there's any, we have no intention of doing that, but it's because of the slopes down below, it may be difficult to put us further subdivide this lot once a house is built kind of at the end of that finger on the very light, very areas of the house site. There's plenty of room around there, plenty of room for setbacks. Do attempt to put another house in there would be really very difficult. It would be especially difficult without wastewater, right? I mean, you couldn't get three septics back there. Would probably be the main limitation. Two. Or two if you ended up with two. We haven't done the explorers, so I was testing it, but I agree, by the time you put a septic system in, it gobbles up a fair amount of land. And we need both from not being able to develop, I mean, in the blue areas, for instance, we can't develop by your ordinance. Technically can't cut any trees, which is a little conflict with having to have the solar access for 80% of your first floor. But, and by the time you put the contours in for a septic system, there isn't, there's not a lot of room left. Westview Avenue is obviously still on the land record somewhere. No, that was the escape out of our neighborhood that we included on the second floor. So if you have that Westview Avenue created at some point, you would then have access to the buildable part that's left on the road. And then we wouldn't have a 20 foot problem or a 20 foot problem. Unfortunately, all of that road is now owned by a separate landowner. Well, but isn't there, wasn't there a deed left somewhere for that? I don't believe so. I was, I've been about another land discussions in that area, and to my knowledge, there was no, that doesn't exist anymore. It's in, most of it's in one person's ownership. You write the, yes. I went up and looked at the drainage. It's pretty hard to tell. There are some culverts there, and it looks like we can have a road ditch that would bring it into a culvert in front of Amanda's house. It is unclear how water crosses from the outside to the inside of the cul-de-sac. I'll follow up a DPW on that prior to our final. So this scheme, the subdivision plan, is that you've not engineered it, you've just generally designed the perimeters here at later? Well, our thoughts were, and I assume it's appropriate in the ordinance, is that we had obtained the subdivision. And then, prior to asking for a zoning permit, then we would get the curb cut, the water and sewer addressed, and the driveway designed as part of the zoning permit. My understanding was this was strictly the subdivision. I think we have enough data to illustrate that it's possible to subdivide the parcel and build upon it within the ordinance. Subtly different from what we've been dealing with for 25 years under the old ordinance itself. Do you have any other questions from the DRB members? Mike, do you know, is our sketch plan jurisdiction similar to what it was? On the last page, the back page does outline what the sketch plan DRB shall make recommendations to guide the applicant in preparation of more detailed plans. You can request additional application materials deemed necessary to determine compliance with these regulations and or request a advisory committee review and make recommendations on the application as appropriate. Probably don't have any advisory committee reviews we need on the back page of the, yeah, the one had the wrong picture on it. Throwing everybody off with the wrong picture. It's like Elm Street, nightmare on Elm Street. What's the pleasure of the DRB? Actually, Mr. Chair, if I may ask it. Mike indicated, pointed out that we had not addressed the location of an extra shed on the existing Amanda Kitchen parcel and we didn't show setbacks on that parcel itself. And so we'll do that prior to final. He did suggest also that the lot one be surveyed. We've obviously served surveyed a lot too. We would like to ask a waiver from that if we can. We'd prefer to just stay with that one survey parcel if we could. But I suspect that's up for the board's discretion. Exactly, it's two acres, so it's well beyond. And the other things we need to show we'll give you the calculation of the coverage on the existing lot to demonstrate that meets the percentage coverage. And it's way in excess of that because it's two acres. But I think those details we need to provide but we would ask that the requirement for a survey of the existing retained lot be waived if possible. It's the pleasure of the board, Mr. Chief. I have one more question. Is it conceivable that in the future the neighboring landowners along Spring Hill, many of whom have bought the lots in the back may want to do the same thing? And I'm asking this for the board's contemplation as we think of suitability of land for development and character of the area. We're doing this once, it seems suitable. We've got a lot of good information about it. How might we think about this if each landowner along there wanted to do that with their backyard? Do we need to think about that future possibility when we're thinking of suitability and when we're thinking of the neighborhood as a whole? I guess my old thinking on that is that we could speculate, but we don't know. I don't know that the way, because I walk down in that neighborhood, I'm not sure those other back parts off of Spring Hollow are necessarily will meet as this does an area that is buildable. So they're more sloped? Okay, so I'm not as familiar with that area as you are. I think that has to be a lot by lot considering that it comes to that. Just considering they were subdivided in the past, I didn't know if someday that would be appealing again and how we might think of the neighborhood as a whole. But with the tools we have to work with right now, the ordinance guides us, the new ordinance guides us. I don't think we have the tools within that to speculate about what could possibly happen I'm thinking of precedent character the area. So you're right, I don't think we hang anything on that. I'm just sort of thinking if we end up with little fingers of land from every backyard, I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Well, I think you have to take, I think we have to take the application that's in front of us and judge that against the ordinance. Thank you for entertaining my inquiry about the character of the area. Where did you pick up the character of the area? Is that in one of the new sections? Yes, it's section three five was seven. Character of the neighborhood and settlement pattern. And you know, settlement pattern by definition isn't about a single site, it's about the collection of sites and how they're built upon. You tell lawyers, wrote this. By a lawyer? It was not. I think I have the answer that I, as much satisfaction as I need for tonight in thinking about this, we don't need to spend any more time on it. But I think it's worth as we get to know this ordinance thinking about how these puzzle pieces fit together. That's what the town is, is puzzle pieces. That's how we do it. If you're gonna add the shed that's on the kitchen lot on lot one. Yes. Can you also depict in general terms the improvements on the other adjacent lot? So we get a sense for where the buildings are and where the driveways are as well? Yes. What's the pleasure of the board about weaving or burying on a survey of lot one? Mike's recommendation to the applicant that it be surveyed. I imagine what would happen under this proposal is that kitchen deed would read a lot of needs and bounds description of lot two. And with the result being that, that which was not conveyed is retained. And so lot one would not have a needs and bounds description as it doesn't have one now. Likely, more likely than not. I can explain why we're asking for this. As you go down Spring Hollow Lane, all those lots in the old development was a development. Paul Hammond tried to kind of determine where those boundaries are and it's been really difficult here. We're not precise in the subdivision, the original subdivision. They kind of land on the ground, has to find where those lots are. They're fairly good sized lots. And it would be very difficult to have a precise survey of the retained two acre lot on which a man's house now sits. And I don't believe that there's a survey, there's a survey of the abiati lot, which is the one you just asked to have the house located on. Is that survey? And other than that, I don't believe those lots have been surveyed and it's quite difficult because there's no boundaries on the perimeter to reference. Have a line on the backside of the existing lot, which is on some use will be filed. The one the lot two that's being sold are subdivided. But that's why we asked for the waiver to be very expensive to have Paul create a new survey of that retained lot. I'm okay with waving. Where's the requirement for the survey coming from just so we have the language? I think it was a recommendation from Steph. It wasn't premised on a particular requirement. Well, typically, when I, at least in my history of doing this for other communities, that when you do a two lot subdivision, both lots are new and both lots are surveyed. And usually there'd be an exception for carving out a two acre piece on a 100 acre farm. You're not gonna ask them to survey the 100 acre farm to cut off two acre piece, but usually the smaller ones, this is a two lot subdivision, typically both lots would be subdivided or surveyed, but it's a determination you guys can make. I guess I would be looking for the farm that would be created by not doing this for that. It's not seeming as though that it's all in an established line. I'm not seeing it with the hard work. There is a difficulty in that whole area. If anybody remembers who put that neighborhood together, you'll know why. I don't think we need to make people today pay for the sins of past. And I don't see any problem of waiving that requirement. Let the lawyers have their final decision. Does it complicate the city's management of land records if there is not survey filed? No, it would be more critical. I think if boundary lines were closer, I mean, this is a residential 24,000. It's a two acre zoning. We're probably not looking at anything where the setbacks are critical or the frontage is critical, or usually that would be a much more critical situation if we thought perhaps this line is plus or minus 10 or 20 feet and it's gonna make a big difference. I think hearing now that the Abiyadi lot is surveyed, at least you've got a reasonable expectation that 20 feet off of that pin is gonna probably be accurate. If that had been an unsurveyed lot, that may be a 20 foot finger that's now being placed on somebody else's property because we aren't sure where that boundary is, but obviously Abiyadi knows their boundary, so the 20 feet would probably be reasonable on that side. It's not a kid, Justin. Those lots have been sold for 50 years with reference to an original survey on Spring Hollow Lane. So she's got a lot X and a lot Y from the original survey that's how it's always from the beginning referenced, so that reference is how they would be sold. I have no problem waving. It's stopped at Jimmy Johnston. Is that Jimmy Johnston? Yes. And stop. But Jimmy Johnston, was that Jimmy Johnston who was in, well it says stopped at Johnston, so I know it stopped, but is it Jimmy Johnston? Yes. So in the past we always reviewed, we always approached sketch plan review as providing the aggregate with a weather report of what the view of the project was, so is there anything else that DRB members would like to add? Pretty straightforward. I don't know if there are any members of the public that had any comments on this. Application materials were really easy to read, thank you. All the comments are in there though. They are as easy to read. That's what I said. That's what I said. We're metting matters. They're out there. You know. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I advise those in attendance at the outset of the meeting that I was going to, it was necessary for me to recuse myself from the next item, so the vice chair Dan Richardson will now chair the meeting. The next item of business is the Elm Street application. Between 2243 and 2483, Timber Homes of Vermont. Good evening. If you state your name for the record, the capacity in which you're appearing before the board. Sure. My name is Josh Jackson, and I'm a partner in Timber Homes of Vermont. So we'll do this application. And I'm Shannon McIntyre, also a partner in Timber Homes. So this is a major safe plan review of conditional use. So I'm going to put you under oath. So if you raise your right hand, you solemnly swear or affirm that, oh, Don, are you fearing on this as well? I may. I may. OK. Put you under oath as well. You solemnly swear or affirm that the evidence and testimony you're about to give for the matter under consideration shall be the truth. It's the whole truth and nothing but the truth under the pains and penalties of surgery. I do. So why don't we start out just because it's helpful for us to get an overview. Mike, if you're ready to give a general overview of the project, what do you want me to start with, yeah? I'm trying to decide what's going to be the easiest. It's a complicated application. So it is major site plan. It is conditional use. It is currently a vacant lot on Elm Street. It is previously approved last year with three residential units. It was not subdivided. It continues to be a 9.1 acre lot. And so the proposal that they'll be coming in is going to require conditional use approval for two elements of it, which includes the light industry, or actually it's light manufacturing, and outdoor storage for the timber piles. And so that's the two major things. And then the major site plan is because there is a construction of a principal building, then they're now required to go through the major site plan. So that lays out a little bit of the groundwork. It is in the rural zoning district, and it is in the Wrightsville neighborhood. So it is out past the Nature Center. OK, if you want to take us in a little bit deeper to this project, introduce us to it, and then we'll start to go through, or to no doubt, have questions as we go through, and then start to march through some of these criteria. Sure. Good. Oh, excuse me, sir. I'm a neighbor. My name is Jesse. Do you want me to sit over here so I can see? Sure. Hey, how are you? Just to be clear, the applicants will have their opportunity for that. And then if you have any comments, feedback, questions, we'll give you an opportunity, and there's a microphone for that staying on the right door. OK, sure. So as Mike described, this is currently vacant lot. This is the Vermont Tree Experts property right here. That's Pearl Street Motors right there. So it's an open meadow with a knoll in the middle of it, North Branch of the Lewinowski, running at the rear of the property. And we last fall got permission to put three residences back here behind the nobles. And what we were asking for, zoning permission for this evening, or sketch plan review, I'm not clear if you're able to do those all in one or not, is the creation of a timber framing shop with an office. We would propose to have a horseshoe driveway here, staging and loading area. These are timber piles of woodshed. There's office and visitor parking here. There's an additional five spaces shop parking there. Mr. Chair, we've already approved part of this already. Right. So we don't need to kick that in. The three residential in the back, that's not my understanding. We're just simply looking for two conditional uses which we'll probably dive into first, and then a sort of major site plan review because you're seeking to, and really focused on the front part of the lot with the industry, the light and the manufacturing. So when you say you're putting a storing covered timber, could you describe what that will look like, what that's going to entail? So the nature of our work is that we fabricate timber frame structures, barns, homes, outbuildings, and that involves a lot of these timbers. And so we build piles like that. As you can see, we build a fair number of them. We've made an effort to place them behind the woodworking facility. They need to be, and we keep them tidy. If they're not tidy, the timbers twist, and we keep them covered with temporary roofs to prevent them from getting stained or excessively sun damaged. And we would propose to screen those. Y'all happy with that photograph? I'll hop back. We would propose to screen those with, we are required by virtue of having about 300 feet of perimeter to put in, I think it's 10 fruit trees, or 10 trees. So we propose to use fruit trees to meet that requirement. And there's a shrub requirement in the ordinance of a shrub for every five feet of building perimeter. And we would propose to use a willow fedge here, which is a fence that's made out of woven willow. So rather than building a fence, we'd like to grow a fence right there. We also have some plantings down here. So we're proposing to screen them both by placing them behind the structure and then by planting in front of them to reduce their visual impact, although they themselves look a great deal like a fence. So the wood piles, these are, if you could maybe just describe, how tall are they and how long it's hard to tell from the picture? Well, they vary. Typically, we're building the piles four feet wide. And they vary anywhere from a short pile would be eight feet long, and a long pile might be 30 feet long, if it be occasionally where timber is that long. A typical pile is in the 16 to 20 foot length. And generally, those piles, they're usually five to six feet tall. Very occasionally, they're taller than that, but not much. It becomes difficult and dangerous to manage them. And often, they're shorter than that. And is the whole pile then moved to a job site? Is that what they're assembled for? Right, exactly. So when we receive timbers, we put them into a pile. And we immediately are spacing them out and what we want to have air movement around every timber. So we're spacing them out horizontally and vertically with stickers. And then after we work them, they go into a done pile. And it is the case that we could have four or five frames that we cut over the course of a winter. And none of them are going to go up until the summertime. So thus, we end up with a fair amount of timber around us. And then one, we like to pile them in such a way that we work with glass and crane out of St. John'sbury. And they'll drive in with their crane truck and trailer. And they'll literally pick up entire piles and put it on either their crane truck or their trailer. So we tend to make that pile very tidy and exactly four feet wide. So you can put two piles on the back of the truck. And so that earlier step, where you talk about getting the timber originally, is that stored outside or inside? Same thing. We don't have room to store a whole, suddenly you wouldn't have anywhere to work. So a frame arrives generally in stages. And we put those piles around the work area. And then as we're prepared to work, then we bring them in. And then they go back out when all the joinery has been cut. In the case of a house, they've been cleaned in oil. So it's actually two types of wood piles, just so I understand. You'd have a hard time telling the difference between them. They don't look any. I mean, we have to be just as tidy with them in the beginning, because if the piles are twisted, the timbers are affected by that. So we have to keep those piles level. And we space them out in essentially the same way when we receive them as when we store them prior to shipment for a reason. And so when do the timber piles come in? Is it seasonal or throughout the year? Oh, no, it's happening all the time. So we described in our materials that we probably get on average a timber delivery maybe once or twice a week. And on average, we might deliver a finished frame. It tends to happen more in the warmer months. But I would imagine we're delivering. We have a frame going up once or twice a month. And just so I understand, it looks like about 20 stacks that you're proposing around. 24 stacks. 24. Is that the maximum? Or is that the average? Well, there might be times when there aren't any of those there. There might be times when we have more than we would like. And we have to use some of our loading area to store some timbers. In part, I'm just trying to flesh out, because part of what we have to do with conditional use, just to understand where I'm going with these questions is, we have to understand the nature of the use. And one of the things that we're talking about is storing this wood that we have to make these findings. Does it have an impact on the neighborhood? Does it have an impact on the air? And so part of that is just figuring out what this looks like and flushing it out. And so certainly, more information is better. And I'm just trying to understand as well, you represent these very neat piles. But are you seeking, so you're saying that if there's more than 24, this time of year, presumably your piles would be bigger because you've spent all winter preparing them, but you haven't had an opportunity to send them out to the building sites yet. Especially in this weather. So you might have more than 24, and you would put it in the loading area at that point. And that would be your overflow, which would then decrease as the year goes by. Because of course, all these frames would go out to job sites. Yeah, we would tend to have a lot less timber in the middle of the summer than we would right now, right at this time of the year. We'll start raising the frames for cutting now. We currently have an operation in Berger. And we work out at my place in Middlesex. And we're pretty full of Middlesex. We have nowhere near this much room. We have eight piles of Middlesex. So we're shipping timber frames down to Berger to store them, which is crazy. Yeah. So yeah, it would be the case that in May, let us say, we'd be full of timbers. Maybe we'd have a few piles in our loading area. Hope not. But it's entirely possible. And then in August, there would be a bunch of those piles might not exist. And it's just wood with the metal top on it. Right. And then whatever material you use to band it together. That's right. And then some of the wood is oiled and treated. But is there what kind of runoff has created? Well, not really any. The piles are built. Typically, we just built. We use timber offcuts and then cribbing as the base for a pile. We're not building, you know, digging the building foundation. So we're just doing that on the grass. And then the metal roof. We don't want any water getting onto our oiled timbers. When I say oiled timbers, choose to use a product called Heritage Natural Finish on all of our timber frames. So it's basically got beeswax, pine turpentine in it, tongue oil, and everything of the other thing. But we're not having that running off. That would be real bad news for us to have our timbers getting wet and any of that finish running off into the grass. So it's rain falling on the roof of the pile and landing on the earth around it. OK. One of the things it looked like from at least the roof, it looked like that would cover largely the pile, but it wasn't like an overhang or anything. We intend them to overhang a little bit. So, indeed, what we've taken to doing, because it's a lot of tin moving, we now make a small roof that we can just pick up with our forklifts. So we build the piles are four feet wide. Those roofs are shown at six feet wide so that you don't want sunlight hitting the timbers to the extent that you can avoid it. It's really, there is much about protecting the timber from sun as they are about protecting them from rain. And so we want those roofs to hang over the ends of the piles by about a foot and the sides of the piles by about a foot is ideal. So the black thing you're seeing is actually six feet by 20 feet in the case of all of these and not 30 feet in the case of those. And the pile underneath is actually on a four feet wide. Is it one of these things where you move it in, you were describing it, that the timber comes in at one point in time and then you would bring it into the manufacturing, treat it, cut it, then you would restack it and then it doesn't get touched until the crane comes and moves it off-site. That's the dream. Exactly. Right now we move them a lot. Okay. And why is that? Well, because right now we're trying to stack things more densely in our constrained situation. So we're building five foot wide piles because we only have three piles. But the truck can only handle a four foot wide pile and you end up re, taking apart piles and rebuilding them so they'll fit nicely on the crane truck when it's time to move it. I presume that's an expense to you that you'd like to avoid that. Yes, we'd like to avoid that, yeah. And when the wood comes in, it's untreated, just raw wood. Mostly eastern white pine, hemlock, sometimes white oak and cherry. You know, it seems cherry quite a bit, but it's just raw wood. So almost all of it coming from Vermont Forest, the bulk of our timber's coming from a Sawyer in West Newbury, some from a guy in Hardwick. And when it's treated, is there an odor to the wood? The finish that we use smells like, it's got the thinner that's in it, it's citrus thinner. So it smells kind of like orange peels. It's quite a nice smell actually. The wood itself, pine smell, these woods have a smell, but not a strong smell. Maybe there's no way anyone would ever smell any of that from the road. Indeed, you'd have to get right up and put your nose on the timbers to smell them. If you came in the shop when we were putting oil on the timbers, you'd know we were using some land darker heritage natural, and wouldn't be able to smell it from. Do any other board members have any questions so far? Sorry, the dominant end up is just trying to get some of the basic range here. Any other questions about the wood piles? I think I've worked that claim that one to death. Let's talk about the light manufacturing. So you're proposing the main shop in front of the loading area. Give me a description about what the shop is gonna look like. Hours of operation, noise, that we saw us pumping out of the place or what's it gonna be, what is the impact that it's gonna have? So this is what the shop would look like. This is the end of the shop that would be facing away from the road. So there's elevations here, maybe difficult for you to see. This is the elevations facing the road, the western face of the building. The office wing is on the north end of the building. These are giant sliding doors that open to allow us to just drive a loaded timbers right into the shop. We intend to build this with two by six framing, dense pack cellulose, two by 10 rafters, dense pack cellulose, energy efficient windows and doors. All these things add up to a tight envelope that is very, like it would be hard to hear noise from inside the shop. It'll be fairly well sound insulated. We intend to put the dust collection in the shop that will dump into a bin right here. But the nature of the work is that we're primarily working in green timber. And the tools that we use to do that don't generate fine dust the way a cabinet shop is generating fine dust. Because the wood is wet, chain mortisers, the saws that we have have large and few teeth. So the dust tends to just fall to the ground as opposed to being a real airborne issue. So wherever practical, we like to collect that dust right at the source. So if someone is using a router, we would like to be hooking a vacuum right up to that. It's got a heap of filter on it. We're doing that to protect ourselves, but it has the added benefit of keeping our shop clean and eliminating any dust that would make its way into the environment. So I don't anticipate that a person on the road would experience this as an Louise E. operation. Happy is working inside that nice big shop, is why I want to build it. And the door that would be open for loading timber is facing the knoll. There are no houses anywhere near in that direction. So it's a... Except the ones you're seeking to build. Except the ones we're seeking to build. And they're quite protected by the knoll itself, actually, the sound of the cross. Not, I hope, since I might consider living in one of them. It certainly wouldn't be any worse than my current situation. Which is above the wall tent is in my front yard, yeah. So when you describe the power tools just so I can have a sense, are we talking about sort of handheld tools for the most part? You're not talking about big sort of industrial saws, or? We, ultimately, we would like to have a stationary table saw, joiner, planer, because we make jigs and we make other small items in the course of our work. The bulk of what we do involves actually handheld tools. They're big tools, they're 20 amp. Timber framing tools, but they are, yeah, they're handheld tools. They're not enormous, extremely loud, industrial. As opposed to say like a saw mill or something where you have a large, quite noisy saw. Right, or a 10 horsepower shaper or an old machine. And is this air conditioned so that in the summer the doors would stay closed, or is the idea to open the doors in the summer? Well, it's designed so that we get really good solar gain in the winter time. And then the overhangs are generous enough so that by the time you get to the middle of May the sun doesn't hit those windows. So I don't, we have a guy who's really worried about it. He's quite adamant. He's worried about it. And I pointed out to him that in the summertime it's not gonna get a lot of solar gain. However, the heat system that we propose to install is a semi-insulated space. And the way that the reason that is true is that we don't need to keep it at 70 degrees like an office. And so what we're intending to do is heat that with mini-split heat pumps, which allow you to air condition as well as to keep. So if it actually is hot in the summer, which I doubt, then we'll turn on a mini-split heat pump. Okay, and what are the hours of operation that you're proposing? Is this? Typically we're an eight to five sort of an operation. Sometimes people like to come in a little early, but that is our general working hours. When you say a little early, do you mean like seven? Yeah. And if there was, just because there are, and I'm not sure, are there residences across the street from this property? Jesse is directly, well, your driveway is directly across the street. I don't know. So if there was a condition, for example, that nothing before seven, nothing after a certain hour in the evening for noise, would that create an issue? What I would prefer is to know that we can't violate some noise requirement at the road, like, there's definitely people who occasionally want to start their day early because they have kids and they have to take off a two to take off their kids at school or what have you. If they were making noise that was disturbing the neighborhood, that would be an issue. But if they're working in the shop and you can't hear the leaf on the road, that seems unnecessary considering. We have a noise ordinance that would take care of that. We do, the only other thing would be the question would be on the lighting of a facility that would exceed it. But to ask a business owner to say you can only operate between X and X or someone who is, I just would be opposed to that. Okay, I'm just simply floating it out. And the only reason I simply wanted to understand as well, and I think it's a legitimate answer to say, you have people that come in early, but obviously if they're incompatible, what we're trying to avoid is incompatible uses where the buzz sauce starts screaming at six in the morning and the other, the people across the street trying to keep baby asleep. They'll be out of bed and down there to tell them about the situation of town that everybody talks to everybody and there's an accommodate. This is true, but we have- We're not gonna chase off business for this kind of stuff. Okay, Jim, we'll get through this point. But I think, just trying to understand, so this is helpful. And the other parts of it too is just trying to understand if somebody's showing up to work early, it sounds like it's different. It's not as if the full manufacturing is going full bore at six in the morning. It's one person who's coming in early to get his or her work done. Teemo really likes to start early. Okay, yeah, and that's a legitimate point. And I mean, is it something where, in the evening hours especially, in certain times of the year, there may have to work later just to meet deadlines? That happens to us, yeah. How many people work there? There are now seven people living in Montpelier who would like to be based in this shop. So as we continue to just understand the scale of any potential impact, if there were seven tools running at the exact same moment, that's the maximum. You would not have 10 tools running with seven people. So like, you've got some really good people. But so even that is not a ton, a ton of noise from what I, from your descriptions of how it operates. I mean, I'd wear a protection if I was in there, but. Yeah, you definitely would wear a protection. So do you have your original facility that will keep operating and this will be a secondary location? Yeah. Same product at both places? That remains to be seen how we can best, we talk about it all the time. Should Versa just be the kiosk land? Should we try to keep both shops doing everything? I don't have a clear answer for that, but yeah, the moment of the intention is, there are two shops that can support one another. What would you say if you could estimate this is the latest that the shop might be running? I don't, it's really uncommon for us to be like running the shop after six. What's not, wouldn't shock me is sometime in the summer you have a deadline, you have to meet and you end up working in the evening or you end up loading, which loading is not a particularly noisy operation. So let's talk about lighting and some of this is spilling over into the sort of major site plan, but I think that's the other big category and then what we'll do is we'll jump into some of the specifics and the staff report as well. Could you describe the lighting proposal for the site? Sure, you mean the interior or the exterior? Exterior, exterior. Less concerned about the interior? Sure, so the exterior lighting is really quite minimal what we have are a couple of fully shielded use-knit lights over the person doors at the western side, which face the road and then we have three of those same light fixtures here. There's one of them underneath the entry on the north side and all of those fixtures are each of those fixtures is set in 1200 lumens. They're fully shielded, directed straight down and then in addition to that, we have one floodlight right up here and this is on the end of the building that faces the null, so pointing away from the road. It eliminates the loading area that is behind the building. That fixtures 8,000 lumens and I propose to orient it at a 45 degree angle down. The ordinance states that all floodlights must be oriented 45 degrees or lower. The ordinance also states that all lighting over 2000 lumens has to be fully shielded. That would be pointing that floodlight straight down. It'd be completely ineffective for us to point that floodlight straight down and we'd result in no elimination out in the loading area. I could within the zone, like my total lighting here amounts I think 1600 lumens per acre. The limit is 50,000. So we're way under the limited lighting. The photometric plan that Green Mountain Electrical Supply created for us, I believe you have a copy in here, shows you that the lighting levels drop to zero well before you reach the road before either of the neighbors. So it would be within our, we would be well within the zoning limits if we were to put a series of telephone poles around our staging area and put giant lights pointing straight down. We could light it up like a baseball field. That would be offensive, I think, to our neighbors. This light, no neighbor can see it. It's protected by eaves. It's on the backside of the building. You guys wouldn't be able to see it. The other neighbors that are across on the hill would not be able to see that light fixture. They would see that the ground was illuminated in the staging area. This is one of the points where we're asking the DRV to waive the requirement for that flood that you point straight down because it wouldn't serve the purpose that a flood light is meant to serve. So I think that's, we don't have a big exterior lighting impact. That's the one question. Are the, I want to address that in a second, but I have just another question I want to lose sight of. Is there any lighting proposed for the signage that you're proposing as well on the front? I suggested that we would have an LED rope light powered by photovoltaics. Okay. And that LED rope light would run on the underside of that little, very low level of illumination. Sure. We'd dealt with those in other signs. What would the, both the gooseneck light and the flood light, what type of light? You have the actual specifications for the fixtures? It says LED available. Oh yeah, no. So we're required, the building has to meet the stretch code. So I've been in conversation with a fellow from efficiency Vermont. Is that what you're asking about the energy usage of the? No, I'm just asking the type of lighting. Oh, it'd be an LED pole on the side. And they're, the fixture is it's up, you can't change the bulbs. It's not like we could take it out and put in some other, in all cases, that fixture, when it, when the bulb burns out, you have to get it in fixture. So it's, Is the lighting color corrected? The specifications are actually highlighted. I don't know the answer to that. There, I specifically would choose the warmest light I could get, because I like that. But I don't know about the color corrected question. There was a, It's all night sky compliant. One of them, Kevin had the RAB. This is the flood light. That's the flood light. Cut sheet, talked about color consistency, color stability and color uniformity. Left hand column. Just so I fully understand the flood light. So this is, this flood light is, it's not for security. It's not for general use. It's for when you need to illuminate the loading area or activity. Right. So it's, it's not a, you wouldn't have it on necessarily every day. No. And this would really serve a particular purpose. Truck comes in to unload or load after the sun goes down. You need this to illuminate that area. Indeed, in the wintertime at about four. You need that. Yeah. Yeah. To be, to work safely out there, yeah. Right. And, and I'm just trying to understand, you know, because I think what you're, what you're saying is, is that, sure, you could put a series of light posts out there that would be consistent with the zoning bylaws. But one, it's an expense you don't wish to incur. And two, doesn't really serve the ultimate, the purpose that you're proposing, which is you need to illuminate a specific area for a period of time to perform work. And it's not like the light posts, like behind the Department of Labor that are there for security, safety, and are constantly on every evening when cars come in and out. This is a work specific light. Right. Yeah, that's right. Is that? I would not put that light on a motion detector. These lights are much more, they're very low level, but I would want to be able to lead them on for security reasons. That's, that's not a security light. That's a, oh, we've got to unload a trailer to turn on the light. I mean, that's helpful. Cause I think that, that, you know, because we're part of the reason why these zoning bylaws exist and why these lighting requirements exist is to avoid situations where, you know, because it is, it's always cheaper to put a big spotlight to illuminate an area as opposed to light posts. And we've had issues, for example, with the hotel on Norris Field Street. Yeah, they just wanted to do that. And, you know, the zoning bylaws don't really contemplate that type of spotlighting because it creates that big impact. But what you're saying is that this is facing the back. It's, it's, we've got the, the illuminant chart. But I think what's really distinguishing this is that this is a very work specific piece of, of equipment. It's almost as if, you know, part of the tool, tools that you use, as opposed to a general lighting concept or fixture. It wouldn't be on a whole lot. I think to answer your, I think that's what you're. No, no, I'm just, I'm just sort of making sure that I understand the concept and if I'm wrong, correct me. But I'd just like to be right. Any other questions about lighting, Kate? Yes. On page three desk dash 64 of the new ordinance, which we're all getting to know in love. Class two lighting initial output of less than 2000 lumens. I think there's a caveat about lighting being extinguished after 11 p.m. if the light's more than 50 feet from the nearest building. Am I, am I reading that correctly? So, meaning if the, the spotlight could be on as needed the way that you've described it, but there would be some sort of timer or a short human turning it off to assure that it's not on after 11 p.m. Left on by mistake or something like that. I guess my first question is, is that what the ordinance calls for? On three dash. You're on three dash. 64. And under which, which section? Yeah, so this is three two oh four H. Three two oh four H security lighting figure three dash 21. We're talking about what we call class two lighting in zone one. And then as I read this table, there is a requirement for class two lighting for it to be extinguished after 11 p.m. I just wanna know if I'm interpreting that correctly. But I think this is, I guess what I would say is that this is not a, this is not a security light. But it's a- The big floodlight, the other ones are. Class two doesn't delineate security lights. It delineates a whole class of lights that includes outdoor security, equipment yards, parking lots, roadways, walkways. On page 14 of our staff report kind of orient us toward the scheme. Yeah, I think the question that would come up on that one, and I don't remember a direct conversation that the Planning Commission had on this, but reading it, if you're talking about lights that are on the building, if the light is located more than 50 feet from the nearest building, I don't know if that's referring to lighting that would be say out in the middle of a parking lot and away from building. And I was reading that as 50 feet from the nearest neighbor. If it's attached to the building, it may not be. I don't know 100% the intent because I don't remember this one coming up. I don't remember in seven years of discussions, my four years, where this would have specifically been called out. But I think it may just be that it's referring to those lights that are away from the buildings to get turned off. Thank you. And thank you. Okay. Any other questions about lighting? If not, what's the pleasure of the board if I can suggest that we go through the staff report for some of the, I'm gonna take it out of order and suggest that we start with the conditional use standards just because that's where our discussion's been primarily. Just to make sure that we have those covered. And that starts at page 21 of the staff report. Have that staff report. So in the interest of sort of keeping the process moving, there's a number of conditional use standards in our zoning bylaw. Not all of them are implicated by this project. So to the extent that they're not, the staff has indicated, and I'll just simply go over those briefly. It talks about capacity of community facilities and utilities. And it says the applicant shall demonstrate gross development shall not cause a disproportionate unreasonable burden on C's ability to provide community facilities and utilities, including local schools, police, fire protection, ambulance, street infrastructure and maintenance, park and recreation facilities, water supply, sewage disposal, storm water systems and infrastructure. Now, it does not seem that any of those are implicated by this particular project that went back to schools, police or fire, parks or recreation. The next section is traffic. And this is talking about the applicant shall demonstrate that gross development will not have an undue adverse impact upon traffic in the area, including the volume type of timing of traffic that the traffic generated by gross development shall not have a reasonably disproportionally contribute to reduced level of services that the reasonable measures have been taken to minimize or mitigate the amount of vehicular traffic generated by gross development. So there are some comments from the director of public works concerning the proposed driveway. Have you had an opportunity to review those? Mm-hmm, okay. And Don, have you, are you working with the project? Are you? Okay. Sorry to suspect, Jesse. Okay. So, I mean, the comments really seem to be about the proposed driveway. They're satisfied that meets the VW1 standard. And then they're based on the written description of the internal truck circulation arrangements and representation concerning truck access needs. We believe the proposed horseshoe driveway design with two curb cuts is both justifiable and appropriate in this case. How much traffic is this project generating on a daily basis? I would say eight trips in the morning when people arrive at work. Eight trips in the evening. People, as I mentioned, we get it probably at the timber delivery once or twice a week. And then once or twice a month before we're sending finished project out. So that timber delivery involves, for the most part, at the moment, a large pickup truck that's pulling a 26-foot trailer. And then that delivery of a finished product involves a large crane truck that's pulling a 26-foot hard way. It looks like a tractor trailer, but it doesn't actually look like a tractor trailer. It's equivalent to a tractor trailer in terms of its size, if it's not happening at all. So the idea would be for the big trucks to come through at the southern entrance and then come out to northern? Yeah, I think it's the best approach if I were driving a big truck. And I'm usually just driving a pickup with a trailer, but I would think come in here, load up, and leave. So any questions from the board about traffic? No, good. Yep. You have a question? Yes. Go ahead. When you're moving piles around, I assume that that is entirely, taking place entirely internal to the site. Those vehicles don't exit and come back on. Okay, so that's all inside. The reason I ask is that when I first looked at the anticipated trips each day, both the residential or imagining the residential, but also employees, also deliveries, I thought, wow, there doesn't seem to be really that much opportunity for a lot of conflict between arriving staff, the one or two trips a week, and the one or two trips out a month. And so that was listed in a couple places as a justification for the two curb cuts to avoid conflicts between the residential traffic and the site traffic. It still doesn't seem to me like there's a great conflict between those. Is it more than moving around internal? That is something you want to avoid? It's more than moving around internal, and it's really nice if you don't have to make somebody in a large truck back up. At certain times of the year, it's not that big a deal, but you get into the winter when there's snow all around, and all of a sudden, it's not hard to imagine getting that guy stuck. It's not hard to imagine getting him stuck in a bad place, and all of a sudden, the residents can't leave, or... So, that's the... Thanks. So then the last conditional use that we have to consider is the character of the neighborhood standard. So this simply says that the applicant shall demonstrate that the proposed development shall not have an undue adverse effect upon the character of the neighborhood. So you've presented testimony that basically a lot of the activity of the shop is directed towards the back, towards the river, and the knoll, as opposed to out Elm Street and the residential areas next door. I'll note that to the north of you is Pearl Street Motors, which is a commercial use, and then the south of you is the tree company. Oh, tree service. The tree service that has trucks coming in and out, bucket trucks and chippers. They do some firewood cutting up there, too, I believe. Splitting, yeah. Is that also a residence there at Vermont Tree Experts? Yeah. Both of those are residences. From base across the street now. Okay. Any other questions about that? Well, I bring that up simply because establishing the already established uses of the area and how would this would fit in with a use that is probably a little more benign, but by the way, on this encounter. And I guess I would ask a question related to the use, and so this is clearly a manufacturing operation as opposed to a place where people come for classes to learn how to do timber framing, or that is a showroom, or a build your own, any sort of activity. That is the case for what you're proposing at present. Right. It's not Home Depot. You take classes at Home Depot? You can. Yeah. I've been spending half time at Home Depot. That's true. You should see my house. Thank you. I'll just make note of that since that would be a different type of use and probably necessitate coming back if you ever changed the way that the site was used and interact with your customers and potential future customers. We do interact with customers, but not very often. More for sort of consultations, and this is what we build. Yeah. Okay. So I don't include it in our trip count because currently I would say that we have a customer visit definitely not even once a week. So it happens, but it's not, we're not a retail operation. Thank you for confirming that. Not that there's anything wrong with retail, but location, location, location. We'd love it if more people drop by and we expect that they will, but I still don't think we will have much of a bearing on traffic. I mean, you're all playing like a showroom in front of a mighty timber house. The entire shop is a showroom. I hope that people come and visit it and say, wow, that's beautiful. Would you build us a house? Because your shop is gorgeous. I definitely hope that that's the, it isn't, I mean, yes, it's a showroom. Your secret's out. Okay. Any other questions about conditional use? So let's jump into the general, the major site plan review. And again, there's a lot of issues that are important. Have you had an opportunity for views? I sent that one to Mike on Friday. Okay. So I mean, most of them I think we've answered by our pretty thorough review of the conditional use. I'm just going to highlight a couple of points, but at any point the board feels an issue hasn't been touched. You know, just going under chapter 300 with the general standards, the proposed office use, because this is a rural district, office use is not allowed. So one of the conditions that would be potentially put on this project is that the office uses an accessory to the timber frame business so that if for some reason you decided to get into paper pushing instead of timber framing, you might not be able to use the site in the same way. The office is ancillary to your timber framing your light industry business. Is that any, do you reckon any plans that you have coming down one? It doesn't bother me at all. I find it a bizarre rule. Like why would you not want? So my tech office is on the rural part of, I don't feel you're right, I don't understand it. Because you want to put downtown. I don't care at all about it. Yeah. You're not alone in such thoughts, but that's another day. We can revisit that. And certainly if Amazon had answered our bid, we might have been having a different conversation. I suppose I can see that point. Okay. But all right. And then one of the other staff comments is about erosion control. There's a section 3008 that requires you to implement erosion control, particularly because you are close to the river. You have, is there any problem adopting those erosion control practices as part of, if we make those conditional on your permit? None at all. I don't know. Speaking to my engineer. Because the project will disturb more than ever, there is jurisdiction by the agency for the construction stone on time. And this will be, you know, scoring for those, this project will score low risk. So there's a low risk, and the environmental control for small projects. And so all of it will be done according to that. So it does not create an anchor of any purpose. So there's no operational storm water. So by meeting the state's storm water permit, you'll have met the city erosion control. And that's consistent with what we've found before. Moving forward, and I'm really just hitting the points that have been raised for us, the sign. So if I understand, there's one wall-mounted sign, then there are two freestanding signs? One freestanding sign. So where is the wall-mounted sign is going to be on the Elm Street casey side of the? It's right in the middle of the game lane. It's right there. It's 13 feet, two and a half inches from the grade to the top of the sign. The sign is 10 feet wide on the one foot tall. It may not be on, well, I think it is on yours, but the dimensions are not given on here. That's what's best seen as the dimensions. We have the dimensions. You may have a freestanding sign. Right, you have a freestanding sign. No, no, no, we have everything on the freestanding. What we didn't have was the information on how high, it was shown on his drawings, but I didn't have the dimension to know. One foot by, sorry. It's one foot by 10 feet. Coincidentally, exactly the size per minute. Sometimes it works out that way. And is there any illumination that's gonna go over that? No. Mike told me that if I wanted to turn it into a piece of stained glass, I could cut a hole in the building and make it a window, and if there was lights on inside it would eliminate it, and that would be legal. That would be. Yeah, it sounds pretty expensive. I don't think I'm gonna do that. You can also put loose necks over this one. They're not on there right now. I'd have to revise my request, wouldn't I? You would. Adam, you said, what do you think? I presume that down the road, that could be done administratively. It's over the sun, Mike. I don't say anything on the fly anymore. Okay. That's probably the best. And so then, well, I mean, are you talking about, right now you've got two loose necks on the Elm Street side over the doorways. Right. So you would be proposing to add two over your 10 foot sign? I'd make it three if I was gonna put them. Only because I love odd numbers, and there's three windows right above it. Triple things look better than double things. Mm-hmm. What's the, what's the pleasure of the word? What's the question? Well, if the applicant wanted to add three loose necks over his sign. No, we're not, we're not the design. Yeah, we'll come in here. Where does that come in the New York? We are now designing a new. I think that's the lighting and brightness, then. We'd have to make a finding that it wouldn't impact any of the lighting. What, but has the applicant asked for it? He has, in a way, has the applicant allowed to ask for it at this juncture? Well, that's, that's my point. Yeah, I think that's the only reason why there's a question on the floor now. If it was, if it had been included in his application, then we wouldn't even be reviewing it. Right. I can't believe that there's, he's got a plan here, and it's perfectly well done. Well, that's, I, all I'm trying to do, Jack, is avoid creating an headache for him down the road. But he's, he's probably created his own headache in this, by putting together a plan like this. If he needs Tylenol, he comes back and sees the city officials to get that done. All right. That's not our job. We'll leave it at that, unless anybody else is. And then, just to be clear, the timber home Vermont, the freestanding sign that you've shown the dimensions on, that's the one where you'd have the strip of LED lighting. Do I have to conclude no, no lighting or lighting? Or will we add that just to the condition when we get to the condition at the end? What's the pleasure of the board? I don't know. I think we have not heard a request from the applicant that, that there's a desire for a condition for lighting so that it could be handled administratively. But I don't want to put words in the applicant's mouth. The applicant doesn't know what to say. Should we take five? Or, no. Yeah, I think so. No. I mean, this is just, I mean, I may have opened the store inadvertently. Inadvertently. I might use different words from Jack here. But I think that my sentiments are the same. Let's just let it be. If you should so desire lighting in the future once you've built this building, it seems that it would be simple and straightforward to come back and talk to Mike and rectify that. And it wouldn't necessarily require the full red carpet permit treatment. Great. I'd imagine it would be a minor site plan. OK. Moving on, the next point is about bicycle parking. The question is, should the applicant be required to provide bike lanes on Elm Street? City's complete street plan doesn't propose bike lanes out this far, but instead requires a paved shoulder, which already exists. Although not required, the DPW director recommends that developer consider developing association documents, especially for the residential lots to align the operations and maintenance plans for shared facilities. So Mike, is this point really about internal bike circulation, or is this about Elm Street bike circulations on page 11? OK, so that's great. So the first one, I think, is kind of a no-brainer. But just the way the ordinance was worded, there was a requirement that. Well, this is under 3202B, which talks about all development should provide safe and convenient pedestrian access in accordance with the following. And then it talks about public sidewalks, internal walkways, parking area, and alternative transportation. Operations and maintenance. So the first part of the comments that I provided was really that there was some reference to having a requirement, just like there's a requirement for sidewalks. There's a clear exception in the rules that say, if there's no sidewalks, you don't have to connect onto the sidewalks. But there isn't that phrasing for the bike lanes. And so theoretically, if the DRB wanted to, they could require bike lanes for the frontage that they have out there. My thought would be it doesn't make any sense. It's not called out in our complete streets plan to put bike lanes out this far. So I certainly wouldn't expect that we would. But I think we would at least. They're paved shoulders. It's not a bike lane. No, they're signed bike lanes all the way to Boulder. So I think it's a non-issue. OK, maybe a non-issue then. Yeah, I've biked there. It's one of the best parts of Elm Street in terms of the nice wide shoulder. It has the little biking logos. Oh, so those are just sherros. Are those considered dedicated bike lanes? I'm not sure. They're not. But the bike on the shoulder is not a dedicated one. OK, well, strange. Who knew? Different definitions of stuff, yeah. It functions as a bike lane. That's what matters. I don't think you need to do anything. Yeah, what Tom was referring to, DPW Director, was internally, his concern was that the developer considered developing association documents, especially for the residential lots to outline the operations maintenance of shared facilities like roads, the wells, and the septic system. So at least you've worried, and we haven't really talked about it because it's, sorry, permitted, that we've got three homes there. But it's one lot. For example, you're going to build the homes out there. And then I think the DPW's concern is that normally, when people build homes like this, they're kind of like the asset that's going to be for you, which is they're looking to subdivide because nobody wants to just buy a house on somebody else's property. They want to have their own slice of the pie. And given that you're going to be sharing a lot of facilities here, roads, internal traffic, I think what DPW is suggesting is that at some point in time you need a homeowner association rules to how who's going to pay for repayment. We have every intention of generating that. I don't think it's necessary for this permit. It doesn't strike me as, I mean, I think that's something that's going to necessarily follow. Yeah, I'm not sure we have the authority. It doesn't seem to be part of this application. Well, I mean, I think there is, we could require, as far as like circulation. I mean, obviously not the homeowner, not the larger homeowner association, but certainly for circulation and some of the flow of traffic within the site we would have. We could make a condition that we work it out. But I don't see that as needed this morning. I have no desire to add that. With that, I think there is a lighting question which we've already talked about. The only other question. The one other question. Two other questions. The fencing. So if you turn to page 18, whether fencing is going to be required here. And this comes under section 3205, outdoor seating display or storage. It says outdoor storage, the keeping of any materials, goods, equipment, unregistered vehicles, or other items, not for sale in any unroofed areas for more than 24 hours may be allowed as accessory use in accordance with following. One, the site plan shows the location and boundaries of the outdoor storage area. Two, the outdoor storage areas shall not be located within required setbacks. Three, except in Eastern Gateway Districts, outdoor storage area shall not be located between the principal building and the street unless approved by the DRB. And four, outdoor storage areas shall be fenced in and screened from view from the street and surrounding properties. So you very testified that you're planning on screening the front of these storage areas, correct, and with the sort of living willow fence, which just to make sure I understand, are you talking about a fence where you build like a sort of mesh like wire netting that the willows would grow up in between and then sort of become a living wall, or are you just talking about planting a wall of willows? Basically planting a wall of willows. You drive some stakes in, as I understand it, to train those. It's a hedge, you really call it. There's a company that specializes in these things and they call it FEDGEX, because they're deer proof once they reach a certain age. So I think this is up to our discretion as to whether we require any fencing beyond what's been proposed. I don't think we need to, I don't think we need to. I think the screening is needed for that. Standard language, if it dies, we have to... One of the other comments was that the DRB should require the submission of an energy certificate prior to occupancy as a condition of approval. Sounds as if you're already seeking it. I believe we have to do that to get a building permit. Right, that's my understanding from speaking with Chris Lombra, we are in that process. I think that's it. Any other questions as to the major site plan? There's a couple of proposed conditions and I just want to go through them with the board. Let's talk about the office because they're not allowed as a primary use in a rural district and only allowed as accessory use. What's the board's pleasure as far as making this just simply a condition that if the primary light industrial use ceases, so would the office use? I don't think we have to have it as a condition because that's what the ordinance says. Why do we have to have it as a condition if the ordinance prohibits it? We sometimes specify conditions related to soil erosion even though the ordinance specifies that as well. This isn't soil erosion, it's the office. I know, but I'm saying that that's an analogous example where we put something in the conditions that is in the ordinance that is supposed to be done anyway. I'm here to vouch us to you on this. So we can shape it more as a finding just simply that we find it to be an accessory use as opposed to making a condition with the idea that if there comes to some point down the road where the zoning bylaws change, he's not hamstrung with a condition that he has to somehow give up an office use of his primary use changes where it's allowable otherwise under the bylaws. The applicant shall follow the erosion control practices. I think that's already been addressed and that doesn't seem to be an issue. But we tend to make those conditions as well. Applicants shall provide the missing sign, already provided the missing sign information. The landscaping shall be maintained in a healthy condition. Dead or dying plants shall be replaced within one bright season with a comparable plant in terms of type, form, size, maturity, et cetera of at least the minimum size requirements specified in figure three dash 20. That's sort of our normal language as to, especially given that you're having this edge that is going to provide a major screening component so that if there are problems, it doesn't prove salt tolerant, it doesn't prove tear tolerant, you would replace that. The applicant shall provide revised lighting. That's the issue about the lighting for the spotlight, but it's floodlight. What's the pleasure of the board? We had a long discussion about that. I'm satisfied that the applicant has described the use of the spotlight. I don't think it should be fully shielded. And I would also add to that, that it's the rear of the building. That's the rear, yeah. It's not going to affect the highway in any fashion, nor should it affect neighbors from a local location. In other words, I think it's important to specify that because going forward with the new word is we don't want to give the impression that a spotlight of this intensity is okay in all locations, because it clearly would not be. I agree with this reasoning and these arguments, and I would ask Mike where our authority is to do this. Is it within the waiver provision? Is it that broad? The waiver provision isn't that broad. And as we're going through, we've obviously been flagging issues where giving more discretion to the board gives you guys more flexibility to make individual decisions. Yeah, this is certainly one of those areas where the discretion makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it certainly is. Looking at the whole, the overall total light output, the light, other light fixtures, it's a single light fixture that's only on during specific times. There isn't a specific, as I would say, a specific out for the DRB, but we have notes to that effect. Okay, thanks. Okay, and there was another comment that the potential condition of the applicant shall address any design concerns outlined in the Department of Public Work Directors' comments above regarding the sight lines in the applicant's construction and access permit with the city. And that's just simply the B71 standards, making sure that there are sight lines that would address those with the DBW who worked those out before you started construction. And I think that that would happen when we approved that permit. And the other is another boilerplate that any future enlargement alterations or change of use will require permits in the city of Montpelier. That you got what you applied for and you want more, you can come back and we'll be happy to even. Ready to open that Walmart wall. Yeah, the Ooseneck lights over yourself. What's the pleasure of the board? I can make a motion. What, public? Do you want to go public or do you want to go? Oh, sorry, public comment. I'm sorry, I didn't mean. You're sitting here at the table. Does anyone have any comments that they wish to address the board? So if you could just state your name and. My name is Tom Buster-Rueber on the other side. Could you go to the microphone please? I would be affected probably by lights and. But I just want to touch on the purpose of the rural district in general. The rural district is compromised, mainly in large landholds and she is a rural, residential, agricultural, forestry, recreation, rural space, conservation, other natural resource-based purposes. Generally, the land is district, it's not served, I'll show you in order to do it. What I wrote is capable of accommodating the traffic, the purpose of this district is to maintain low-density settlement and rural character like clustering landfills, protecting farmland, forestland, and new space and important natural resources. And I want to jump to the right field. The right field. This neighborhood encompasses approximately 958, the largest rural district outside of the northern portion of the city of Terminatoria, the right field of residential and mixed local farmland in the valley along the North Branch. There has been some proposed land development should discourage the fragmentation of this land by following conservation, subdivision principles. And Buster-Rueber will protect large, large, golden-space conservation and locate any new residential off-quality farmland. I think you'll notice on the pictures I've brought in for you all, look at the layout of this land. You'll see that you have the first proposal of Pearl Street facing North. You'll see the property of the property motors in business with a home attached. But the other way is the landscaping on the south of the zoning permit mark that was wrote down. Basically, that whole lot between that road and the country that would be filled with building logs would be continued back here. We've got a drainage well south facing just west of the three-home site. You'll see this drainage ditch right through. The left of that ditch is where the three-home site would be, which is down towards the precious resources of the river and the drainage protection. Pretty deep in the lot. None of the houses along Elm Street have set that far back. East facing the other looking home site, you'll see the ravine over right section of the picture. And actually, that looks out over the flood plain up where the houses. Actually, the slope of that land towards the river as you face towards the background actually slopes down to about two feet, two big pieces of ice on that flood plain. Is that the corner of the river? I don't think the river takes a turn. Very important, that whole field, lower part of that field. Just below the house, actually. And I say like literally about two feet of ice this way. And we've got south view on the next picture, home site location that shows a little bit closer towards the river and back down again towards the flood plain. And now you have a view looking on the next picture, southwest view of the home site and the flood plain will be down to your background on the left side. The right is that fiber field of the hill there. You got a ravine that runs all the way down below there with water in it regularly, since I've seen the property from a few years ago. Next picture, they show you just a view from the road. You can see where the access of the road, they're cutting into this lot. And actually kind of squeezes between that hill on the right, over right, and the crane fish on the left between the property of the river. If the next picture, you can look from my side of the river, where I would see their back of the building. It's the north view of the opposite river bank, and so is on it. You can see the lay of the land, actually, where you have that circular driveway cut in. You have the river just below that. You can just picture all the logs and all the stuff affecting the drainage on this area. You get to, you got the north view on the next picture. It's just showing a little bit. You can see where that high slope that would be on this part of the map there. You can see that water runs from the river back, all the way up to where the home site is. So where the plain is on that dependent look, on that white section, you can almost see a stake posted out there across all that field before there, and it's flood plain where it was about two feet thick. I extra not believe this. Don't tell you about the problem, the erosion of the river last fall or after they purchased the property. Actually, it took out, where you see, where it kind of looks like a semi-circle there, and where the right side of the picture, where it's closer to the river, is where you can't even see on the left side. All of that was close up to when you look in the river that little hump of a piece of brush. All of that was taken out just this last fall, right after you purchased the property. And this is a delicate piece of land. We're looking at the new regulations. You applied, this was applied for as a commercial venture by a company to build three homes. It's only changed since then. Now that instead of going to what we hear, I'll go back to the rightful section, there is a requirement in there, specifically states. The only states is in the rightful section eight district and the Eastern Rural District are the only two districts where it actually talks about, and let me go up to that Eastern Rural District, and I'll just cut down a few sentences. This underdeveloped land remains in large parcels. Proposed land development should discard fragmentation of this land following conservation subdivision principle that would cluster development while protecting large tracts of open space for conservation, forest reforming, and recreation uses. Only says that in the Eastern Rural District and in the rightful district. Somehow now we're making a jump from approval of three homesite that's pushed way back in right off the flood plain, which I think contradicts what we should be working towards in development. Now we're looking to piggyback that in because apparently what Mike is informing me of is that because they didn't split the sense of three lots yet, but I don't know, I think I find that confusing because we refer to lots and Mike even referred to it in his staff report. He refers to figure 213 the Rural District Dimensional Standards. In there it explains what a lot is, a lot is two acre minimum, frontage, 120 feet minimum, and coverage 20% back. These are things Mike realized when he tried to see it putting that negativity on the property. So we are referring to lots, even though technically it's not subdivided. So we've now let a builder investor come in who has actually, he just testified earlier, he doesn't even know if he's gonna live here. He has a commercial venture with three homes that could be rentals, sales, they could sell these at any time. But yet he's avoided, you have a four lot subdivision you're required to do the conservation subdivision print, you know, design principles. Four you're supposed to do it in any district. But we also have these two districts, the Eastern Rural and Riceville districts, that specifically have this written into the new regulations, that this is what we should be looking at. And this is what we're doing to protect the land. And you saw this lot, you saw the erosion. It's an issue we can't get back, we can't pull back everything. You know, I'm a fan of Timber Framing, I went to a workshop, two authors, we'll be in, you probably know, Jack Sovan wrote a few books. Timber Framing, a big fan, he had Florence as a kid, always loved to treat the tree. This isn't, you know, an attack towards that, but an attack towards developers and developing. We have the two largest rural districts. And if we had developers coming in and taking this approach and undermining the regulations we have, because you got lucky and you bought three lots and now it could be four. I don't think it's the city's response building to provide a free, you know, lot to somebody to put logs and everything else effectoring it as a commercial venture. I mean, if you come down, you head north from downtown Humphilly and you head north of Elm Street. The nearest business south of them is over a mile away. That's not educational, Turtle Island, CCV, Nature Center. These are all written in there. Educational, things that we want in our community. Timber framing of employees, very few people, has a lot of traffic, a lot of logs, all this stuff, effects are, you know, water quality possibly or whatever, on any impact on this land is incredible. I've been doing a lot of research into the conservation design principles. And I think we're pretty liberal here in Vermont or more relaxed. I said in some parts of the country, conservation design principles are, in most areas, aren't to protect 50 to 70% of the buildable land. Buildable, they don't count flood plains. They don't count other stuff. It's designed to the premise of that. What it was, originally we had cluster development, which basically was very, it was just simple to say, here you got three houses on this lot, three houses on a lot and you were conserving, say, 25% of your land. Conservation design principles are a lot deeper. It's more involved in decking the rep and natural resources. You've got primary, secondary, I think those two, the right today's empty. And the primary is to protect the waterways, the flood plains, wetlands, stuff like that. The idea is that cluster development doesn't become an avenue to over develop. Some municipalities require that when you apply for conservation subdivision design, they also have to apply the conventional design. Because as we know, we have a two-acre minimum with a 120-foot minimum. This lot at 690 feet road find would have to have four lots maxed at 172 feet. That's in a perfect world. 172 feet, you couldn't do on this a regular shade, very useful, you're very difficult. So I think this plan. Sorry, I don't mean to cut you off. I just wanted to maybe focus just because we have a limited jurisdiction as a board, as a development review board, to make sure that I understand your comments. And I don't want to, I'll put words in your mouth, but is it, your concern is that the proposed industrial use is inconsistent with the district? Very much so. And then part of the problem, and we discussed this earlier, is that the three lot, it's not sorry, the three lot, sorry, the three buildings that are permitted in the back have already been permitted. So we're not. And I understand that, but we're looking for something. You're piggybacking now onto something. No, I just wanted to understand the context, because it's obvious that you understand, we can't obviously take back. No, I understand it, but now that we're looking for even more on top of that, I think, yeah, if we look at that and what it is, there obviously is no commercial businesses in the area that don't have a house attached to it as a saleable, as a house business together. Businesses that are from Montreal, most of the time he's gone, he's not moving vehicles. I'm most of the business is on the road. Prosperity, I don't even much move them at all, honestly, you know? How much they're doing? I read most of it, because I'm sure it's inside, right? I mean, it's in the building. Here we have a totally different breed of commercial business, where it's going to be a lot of outside work, a lot of movement of log, and a lot of this infrastructure, which a lot they talked about in conservation, subdivision design, is that you have to count the extras in the roads. You have to count all the imprinted areas, because that land is now not able to do what it's going to be for draining all these other issues. So these are important issues that we should be tackling now, before it's too late. Okay. I mean, these are important issues, but the fact is it's a big commercial property and attached home, which is out of power, that you and me, yes? Yeah, go ahead, Kate, sorry. Thank you for your testimony. I appreciate that you're thinking about cumulative impacts. That's what I'm hearing, is if you do one thing, and then another thing, and another thing, what's the sum total of that? And how do we think about that, and its compatibility? So I guess, with that in mind, I have two questions, put you on the spot again, Mike, if I can. One, I believe there is a provision for when uses are mixed on a single parcel. I just flipped through my staff report and couldn't quite find it. But could you refresh our memory on how it's regarded by the current zoning when you put different mixes of things on a parcel? Okay, so that is in, it's talked about up front, let me specifically find it. So on page four, the staff report, letter D at the top, so the way these are combined, both approved residential units, which are three units, and the proposed non-residential square footage of 5280, are less than the individual density limits for the combined density. So there's a provision in 3002.D3, where you basically talk about how you would factor these. So usually what you would do is, because it's one unit per two acres, you would simply, they've got three units, that's six acres. So then you now have 3.1 acres left, which you could then calculate the floor area ratio, which comes out to 13,500. So they could have 13,500 square feet non-residential floor area. Okay, and they're proposing 5280, 200. So from just, it's a very kind of an objective standard, and they meet the objective standard. Okay, so what I'm seeing about that is that it tries to govern that part of our new bylaw, is trying to govern the coverage and the amount of building on a site. What it does not necessarily factor in is the intensity of use. Because for example, if you had 5,000 square feet of remote storage warehouse that was never accessed, that would have one intensity. If you had party barned, that would have a different intensity, right? Yes, and I think that's where the- So those are two things- The conditional use considerations come into play is that if this were going to be allowed simply based on that provision, we wouldn't bother having a hearing, we would just approve it. The point is that the intensity of that use does make a difference, which is why we have a conditional use hearing to review whether light manufacturing- Is it compatible using the district? Yeah, and light manufacturing may be compatible, and manufacturing would not be compatible. There's a different definition and different expectation of the impact. So that was one question. Well, and I noticed, at least as far as that, for the rural district, light manufacturing is a conditional use manufacturing or heavy manufacturing is just not allowed. It's not allowed at all. Yeah, correct. So we're drawing that line, okay. So the other thing I hear you talking about, Tom, is river corridors, river meander, the space rivers need to be healthy and avoiding putting human hazards in the space of a river's natural movement over time. And we're thinking in hundreds of years here, even if something bad just happened this winter. So I'm looking at not our city natural resources map, but the map provided by the applicant. And I see that the, I'm not gonna talk about the houses because we can't. We're not looking at that right now, but the building being proposed appears to be outside of the floodway, the 50-foot river setback, and it looks like the river corridor is on here too. And it is outside of that. So I kind of wondered about that too when the project is being proposed because that is such a lovely flood plain in here as I'm riding my bike along the third flat part of Elm Street. But it is out of the river corridor, the new part of the development. So I guess I just, I note that as a factor in how it's being. Well, certainly there's an improvement. All I close it, I don't want to anybody else. It's closer than what's there now. But as far as the river corridor itself, which is, that's in the underbell, right? It's closer than what wasn't there before. I hear you there. But it improves my ease, my degree of comfort with the building to know that it's outside the map river corridor. Just a perspective as someone who thinks about this a lot too. And certainly there's one consideration I think he brought up about a conservation easement in the subdivision. And that's something I somewhat glibly discussed earlier, which is as this is currently proposed, it's one lot. It's one big lot. And certainly if down the road, the owner of this lot wanted to subdivide and create these different, different lots, you'd be faced with the questions that you're posing right now. You know, one thing about this project is just a feature of it is that it keeps this large, large, large lot intact. It doesn't seek to break it apart and make a series of small blocks out of it. And in some ways the uses that are being proposed do raise questions as to how it would be broken up. Not to say that it couldn't, but it would certainly address the issues that you're talking about because what they're citing is a lot of development fairly close and interrelated to each other. And just looking at the site plan, a lot of the river corridor area is being preserved and undisturbed. And so the question would then become if they sought to break it up exactly what you're raising, which is how we see the future of this lot beyond just simply the uses that they're proposing to put in. Really what we've looked at is towards the front, towards Elm Street, the most usable section of this lot. But I would note that there's a lot of the questions you raise are valid questions, but they would be raised if there was ever an attempt to divide this up and how that would be conserved over a larger area. In addition to Kate's point about the piggybacking and whether this is something some sort of key political effect. It certainly doesn't seem right. Somebody could hold on to technically three lots that they're saying that they have. And beholding that, as they're flying for a fourth, which technically would fall into the subdivision. If you fell into the conservation subdivision principles, then you wouldn't even be allowed to. Sure, but I mean, subdivision's a different piece altogether. And you just have to, and this is part of where I was going with that, is that when you're talking subdivision, absolutely you're talking a completely different piece because you're talking about creating independent lines and stand separately. And so by creating four uses, three houses in this business, are they getting around the conservation easement? Is this some sort of loophole? Possibly, but I'll tell you what, I've been on the zoning board for 10 years. These guys have been on longer. They can tell you that I've never seen a development quite this way, which with these multiple uses, it's not the norm. And so the question is, beyond this particular lot, is this a big loophole that people would use? You know, I don't think so. And so then the question becomes, well, for this specific use, is there something in this newly proposed use that's somehow pushing it over the top or raising that issue beyond, you know, knowing that down the line, if future owners say, I don't want to own all this, hold on to houses, I want a business, or I want houses, not a business, is they come back and have them divide this up. I think those questions that you're raising are valid questions that would be fine. So there are a few more, too, because you actually, like you said, you have this driveway that now becomes a common entrance. So they tack in part of the development of this new thing onto the driveway and the other one. I mean, let's face it, you do value now the houses that are there because who wants to be driving into a business to get to their house? You know, but that's that fine line that we have in zoning, which is part of it is that we want to regulate, and we want to make sure that the uses conform with the general pattern. But at the same time, we want to have flexibility and the old legal saw is zoning is a derogation of private property rights. So we do want to regulate, but we also want to have owners have that flexibility. So if they want to do something that, conventionally, we would think that devalues it. Who would want a business next to a home? And you don't know. But if there's a market for it and somebody who wants to put their money behind it, it's their property to do it on. I think what our concerns are, and you phrased a lot of them, are looking at the larger overall picture that are guided by the zoning bylaws. So for example, things like light manufacturing versus manufacturing. If this was an actual manufacturing, a heavier manufacturing and these are defined in the zoning bylaws, it would be a different topic. But the fact is that light manufacturing as the planning commission has outlined has promulgated these rules is allowed in this area. Even notwithstanding all the language and getting where it talks about keeping open and conservation land and keeping this area dedicated to forestry and farming and open land, which generally does dominate this area. But at the same time, the bylaws allow for this kind of development. And so as a DRP, we're charged with enforcing bylaws on choosing, picking and choosing, you know, in that respect. But I think these are all valid concerns. Or is there anything else that you'd like to add? No, I guess that, you know, pretty much covers it. Okay. Yeah. Well, thank you very much. You make the right decision. Thank you. Did you have... Well, I just came because I... You wouldn't mind. I'm sorry. And just state your name so that the record reflects that. I'm Jesse Harper. I have been at the 2320 L Street, the very first street in this. I came because I wanted to see what was going on, what the plans were going to be, what the building looked like, what potential sound impacts or visual enjoyment of the resources are. Overall, I think the plan's really good. I do hear some of the concerns that you have. Open land is important. It's in living there, on that slope on the other side. I mean, it is amazing the wildlife is there. There's just everything. It's very protected, that hill. There's just the animals feel very safe there. And they all come down through that area and drink from the river there. Sound was a concern that I had. Sound tends to travel up. Like we do hear the road from there quite well. So I had these visions of sawmills and stuff. It was freaking me out a little bit. So I wanted to hear how that would be mitigated. It sounds like that's all within reason and wouldn't pose any major impacts. So any major objections that I put might have us pretty well made out and I appreciate the time thought that went into it and the way it's been done. Thank you very much. Any other questions for the board? Where I was starting to go, and I apologize. I didn't mean to cut anyone off for public comment. But what's the pleasure of the board? Do we want to take this under advisement? Do we want to take a public vote on this now? Given the amount of material, I think it's going to have to be a written decision. But I'll entertain a motion. I need much more. Well, let's just talk for a second before a motion. Sure. I mean, there could be good reasons to take under advisement, being with the ordinance, being as new as it is, and for us to be the most thoughtful of the possibility. But I'm open to go in either direction, depending on what the other members feel. If we went into session on this, could we deliver a decision tonight? Could we do that tonight? Yeah, man, we would take a vote. And then, I mean, a normal practice, and I think this is what Kevin's giving out, which I think makes sense, which is, thus far, we've been really thoughtful about, I've only been signing on one, which was much simpler than this, in some respects, in the parking lot. But given the newness of these violence, it seems to make sense to draft a written decision with findings, you know, for example, one of the things where we're talking about the office use, we're not, the consensus was generally a way for making it a condition, but certainly having findings that would support that this is an accessory use and defining and making it clear, yes, that is. So I mean, that would tend to me to think about this as a written decision, certainly some of the comments that we wanna be, I think, thoughtful about, I mean, at one point, especially given this proximity to a river board, or I think we wanna be very specific about any type of erosion control concerns, and how we articulate that. And so, simply having some generic reference may not satisfy, I mean, I'm not saying that we are an art, it's just those things strike me and recommend towards a written decision as opposed to a oral one. So Chair, I'll be happy to make a motion to close the part of the hearing for evidence and that we move into deliberative session. Motion by Jack. Second. Second by Kevin. Any further deliberation? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. All right, we are going to move into deliberative session. So thank you all for coming. The evidence is closed. Appreciate everyone's participation and thoughtfulness. Is there a vote? Yep, we'll take a three-minute break. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our last item of our business is the other business. Hearing none, the next regular meeting is Monday, May 7th. So we don't have another April meeting, that's it. That's right. That's right. Okay. That's it. 2018 and you have a motion to adjourn into deliberative session. So moved. Motion by Kate. Second. Second by Jack. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. We are adjourned. Thank you very much.