 the review board for November 1st, 2021 to order. I am Kevin O'Connell, the vice chair, and I'm going to ask the members to introduce themselves when I call their name. Rob. Rob Goodwin, DRB. Michael. Good evening, Michael. Zorcheck. Joe. All right, Joe Kiernan. Katherine. Katherine Burgess. And Jean is not here, is that correct? Correct. Okay. And Claire. Good evening. And I am Kevin O'Connell, the vice chair of the board. And the first order, but I don't believe she did. Abby, Abby. Hi, Abby White. Okay, thank you, everybody. Okay, I'm going to, first order of business, it will be an election of the chair of this board. Previous chair, Kate McCarthy, did a great job and for several years and she stepped down a couple of weeks ago. And so we are at a point where we need to elect a chair for the duration of the term, which will be until August, 2022. I would like to, with pleasure, nominate Rob Goodwin to be the chair and see if we have a second. I'll second that. Okay, thank you. So this vote right now will be for the chair, for the board through August, 2022. And so I'll just call the members in order and just indicate yay or nay or yes or no, whichever your preference is. Michael. Yes. Joe. You're muted, Joe. Yes. Abby. Yes. Catherine. Yes. Claire. I guess I had a quick question. I guess I was just wondering if I could ask a question. You can, of course. Does Rob want to be the chair? That's an excellent question and one that I can probably suggest that he has agreed to take on that task and that task can be quite a bit of work at times. So I'm very happy to nominate Rob. Great. Okay, so Claire, you still need a vote. Then I will say yes. Okay. And I will also say yes. And I'm not sure a protocol has you voting in this. I think Rob wants to abstain. Rob is going to abstain. But you can say a few words. Well, I was going to thank Kevin for his choice of words. Agreed versus Claire's word is want. I think those are very important distinctions. But I don't think anyone wakes up when they're born. There's four older wants to be the chairman of a DRB, but you never know. You never know. So Rob, thank you for taking on this task and I'm going to turn the meeting over to you for the duration this evening. Okay. Do we want to reconfigure here or are we all happy with the way it's set up? You're in the center of what we've got here right now. So we're good. Unless you want to switch. Like this being able to see things. Okay. Okay. Well, so where are we on the agenda here? Well, we jumped the gun a little bit. We went to four instead of three, but that's okay. This is actually, exactly. So at this point, I'll turn it over to the mayor. Sorry. Sorry. Meredith to review the remote meeting procedures. Thank you, Rob. All right. I think that everybody we've got here has been on remotely before, but I'm still going to go through this, especially because we've got a big agenda tonight. And so we might have people viewing via Orca that would then want to log on once we really get into things. Oh, of course, misplaced my cheat sheet. All right. So for those of you viewing this meeting via Orca media, you can participate in tonight's development review board meeting using the zoom function here. Well, I don't know if anybody can see that. Yeah. Sorry to just realize that. Do people see the share screen? Did they see it? Just the meeting, it's the, sorry, the slide itself or is your zoom window in the way? No, we can see it. Okay, great. So there's your zoom link here you can use or you can call in this number and use the meeting ID and that'll log you into the meeting as well so that you can participate. You can talk as questions. If anybody is having problems accessing the meeting, you can email me. I'll have my email up throughout the whole meeting and I'll try and walk you through it. And if for some reason, somebody can't get into the meeting, we'll have to continue it to a time and place certain. I'm gonna go to the next. I'll leave it here for a little while in case anybody needs it. For those attending via zoom, turning on your video is optional. For everyone attending, please keep your microphone on mute when you're not speaking. This is gonna reduce background noise. If you're on the, I don't have anybody on through your phone. I'll give that if anybody logs on that way. Please save the chat function in zoom for troubleshooting or logistics questions only. If you have a question or comment about an item on the agenda, we're gonna ask that you raise your hand if you're on video or you can use star nine if somebody calls in and then you can also, if we're missing everything because we have a pretty full zoom window tonight, feel free to unmute yourself and just ask the chair to be recognized. We don't have, hold on, I'm gonna stop my share so I can see the full screen again. Yep, we just have applicants right now and people helping with applications. If we end up having some other members of the public sign on partway through, then I'll have to give some guidance on how they're gonna give comments. I wanna give a heads up that we do have for different applications, we do have some additional materials that will circulate as needed via email to board members so that they can see them. And there may be also some things that we have to share over zoom for everybody to see or even some items that I might read into the record tonight, depending on the application. All right, I'm gonna hand the meeting back over to our new chair. Okay, thank you, Meredith. I guess our next quarter of business here is I would entertain a motion to approve the agenda for tonight's meeting before we get too far. So moved. Is there a second? Okay. All right. Second by Abby. We will now do the roll call vote here. Kevin? Yes. Michael? Yes. Joseph? Yes. Abby? Yes. Catherine? Yes. Yes. We have an agenda approved. Okay, so now we have, I would entertain a motion to approve the minutes from October 4th. And those eligible to vote are, Kevin, myself, Abby, Michael, and Claire. Now you read the roll for so we can. Oh, I didn't hear a motion or a second. I'll make the motion to approve the minutes of that meeting. Is there a second? I'll second that. Second by Claire. Okay, Kevin, how do you vote? Yes. Abby? Yes. Michael? Yes. Claire? Yes. And I also vote yes. Minutes are approved. Okay, bear with us for, this is my first rodeo. So. Thank you everybody. No worries, Rob, just, you know, you're doing. Yeah. Okay. So our next order of business is our first application on the agenda. But I think for efficiency, we should, anyone that wishes to speak tonight and all the applications, you can square them in. No, we gotta do one of those ones. One of those. There's technically different hearings. Right. Okay. All right. So anyone here that is going to speak on the Jin Lane application. Would you please stand up or what? Raise your right hand. Raise your hands because we've got Brian. Okay. And your name is, would you just introduce yourself real quick? Then on one we have. Brian Lane Parnas from the Wolf Regiment. Okay. Okay. Do you have it? Yes. Okay. Do you solemnly swear or affirm the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth under the pains and penalties of perjury? I do. All right. Thank you very much. You can come up to the center, Minty. And just the microphone as you need to to the height of the picture since we can do it. Perfect. Can you hear me? Can everybody hear Minty? Hi. Okay. A lot of nods. Perfect. Okay. So we have an application here on Jin Lane and I guess the order of the event here is we'll have Meredith give a brief overview of the application and we'll have some time to present their project to the board and the public. And then we'll go into questions from the board and any questions that the public have and move forward. So Meredith. Okay. So I'm gonna keep this pretty brief because we gotta move things along tonight with three applications. This is a major site plan application. So it triggers all the different reviews in our chapter 320. At least I had to do a preliminary one which is why the staff report so long because it is for the creation of more than 10 parking spaces. And there are several requests in here including approval for more than two times the minimum number of parking spaces in relation to Caledonia Spirits itself. This would be offsite additional offsite parking for Caledonia Spirits. So you have to factor that into the base Caledonia Spirits use. And then there's also two requests for variances from specific landscaping provisions. One is from the street trees requirement and one is from the shade trees requirement. Both of those things that the street trees is triggered because it's major site plan along a street frontage. And then the shade trees requirement is triggered because of the creation of the parking spaces. And a new parking lot. So those are the major items and the major items that are in here in red. There's a few other notes about, sorry, in the staff report. There's a few other things that are noted. A lot of those things really have to do more with things that the applicant should just be aware of for future permitting. There is also, sorry, hold on one second. Are we not, that's not supposed to go up. There's also a question about how the board wants to handle outdoor lighting and the pedestrian access. And those are things that really I raised more because those are provisions that we get, that look, or looked at, but based on this particular site and the way things are done, it's not like they have to do lighting or have to do the pedestrian access under the regulations, but there's some options there. So, that's how I see it. And I'm gonna pass it over to Mendee if that's good for you, Rob. Absolutely, that's great. Thank you, Meredith. Thank you for having us here. This is my second visit to the board, but we're, as all of you know, we have a major manufacturing facility that we've built in downtown Montpelier on Gin Lane. And we also have a bar and retail business at Gin Lane. And so we have different needs for the business based on the time of day. So, last spring, my, Ryan and I, we were able to buy the little piece of land right in front of the factory, which is 0.28 acres. And that's the subject of tonight's discussion is that little piece of land. Used to be an oil spray garage for cars there. And as part of our development of Gin Lane, the garage that used to house that business was torn down. And the other thing that happened that was very surprising during the pandemic is that the railroad decided to put in a new railroad line and keep both of the lines surrounding that land active. So we have a situation where we have almost no usable space and a house is sitting there as well. We still have the house. So that's sort of the little history of the land. So when the railroad came in, they had to clean up the lot as they finished up the railroad and they took down all the trees that were in their right of way. So when we talk about trees, they had strict requirements for us as we built Gin Lane in not to have any trees in the line of sight of the railroad. And since both those two lines that come to an apex on the corner of our land, there's almost no place on the lot that isn't in line of sight of the railroad and unfortunately, we're definitely big tree people. But in this case, I think the railroad dictates what we can or cannot do in their rights of way. And most of the lot actually is very constrained by their rights away. So I just wanted to give that background. So when we get to the tree discussion, you'll have some reason why there are no trees there. But while we're doing this project, it's pretty exciting project for us actually because it has a silver lining. The lot is actually a brownfield site. So you have a brownfield site that needs to be remediated and working with Brian from DeWolf Engineering and Stone Environmental, we came up with what we thought was a very clever plan to have parking, but to have it to be green parking. So through the use of using geoblocks and geopavers, what you're gonna see when it's all done, the lot will be remediated and capped for environmental purposes. And then we'll put these geoblocks and geopavers down. The grass will be able to grow through. So what is now kind of an old gravelly ice ore will become like a grassy yard with a driveway going down the middle to the house. So we feel that it's quite a major upgrade. And per the railroad, we do have to put a picket fence around it to keep people off the tracks because as I say, it comes together and there is danger there. So, but it's kind of a great solution to providing the parking we need for our business as it grows for our employees and when there's overflow parking when we have a lot of people. Our schedule at the factory runs from five a.m. to sometimes 11 at night with our bar staff. So we have quite a span of time where we need parking and at any given time, we can get an extra people and need a little extra parking as well. So the employees will move down to this lower lot and make room for our customers. So that's the plan. We think it's a good plan. And quick question. What's the fate of the house that is there currently? Oh, that's our next permit application. Okay. It's not part of this. It's not part of this. We've had our hands full with the pandemic. Yeah, I can't imagine. So that's, we're not sure. We're not sure, you know, it was rental property when we bought it. It's no longer rental property. We haven't decided. That's the best answer right now, yeah. And I was just gonna say, Minty, if you're done, I'm happy to just give a kind of overview of the design if that's useful for the board. Or also happy to address, you know, some of the things that Meredith had raised in the staff report as well. Absolutely, go ahead. All right. Can I share my screen on the Zoom? Oh, I can't. Yes, please. Great. So just in case anyone is not familiar with the site, this is just your standard Google overhead photo. So here's Berry Street running along here, turning into Pioneer Street, Granted Street, and Stonecruiser Way comes in over here. Unfortunately, it's not the most recent photo, but this property right here is where the distillery was constructed. So here's Gin Lane. And then this is the property in question here. So this overhead photo shows the sort of long standing railroad track that runs along the south of the property. And then the recently constructed railroad track essentially runs along this little tree line, and let me get a little closer here, runs along this tree line here, and then crosses Gin Lane and across Berry Street sort of caddy corner along there. So that's the property is pretty unique in that it's bordered by railroad on the south, railroad on the north, and then, you know, public street on the east side. So it's, as Minty mentioned, it's quite constrained. This is the proposed site plan. So in the same orientation, but just so everybody knows, here's the railroad track to the south, here's the railroad track that's to the north and the west, Gin Lane to the east, Berry Street, you know, a little further to the north. This is the recently constructed bike path and the crossing right here at Berry Street. So here's the existing house on the lot, and the parking will all be to the east of that. Right now, the driveway used to come out on Berry Street, but when the railroad came through and put the tracks here, they relocated it onto Gin Lane. Here it is, just south of the signal box. So we're essentially proposing to just move that, basically one driveway width further to the south along Gin Lane, just to provide some additional separation between the railroad crossings and this drive. And then the parking lot, this sort of square cross-hatch area will be the geopave. So all of this is permeable pavement. So it's like a system where there's a plastic matrix that's, it's stiff, it's put down over a prepared sub-base of crust stone. Then it's either infilled with topsoil implanted for grass or it's infilled with like a piece stone, like a small maybe like eighth to half inch kind of washed stone. So that the center section with the cross-hatching, the square cross-hatching will be the stone. So this essentially will look like a stone driveway. And then where we have the indication of the actual parking spaces, this will be grass surfaced. So the visual effect of this, as Mindy said, will just be, what you'll see is the driveway and you won't really see the parking spaces because it'll just all be grassed area. Then we are proposing split rail fence here along the railroad right of ways. And I'll just flip over here. In terms of landscaping, you know, in order to maintain the sight lines and safety with cars along Gin Lane and pedestrians along Gin Lane and the two railroad crossings on Gin Lane, we've got choked berry shrubs here along Gin Lane and then ornamental grass plantings along the North between the parking area and Berry Street. Just to be clear about the use of the parking lot here, it is intended to only be used as overflow parking for employees. So at times when there's not enough parking, which is already happening at the distillery, then employees would come in and park in this parking area and then access the distillery by walking down Gin Lane. So I'll just stop for a second here. If anyone on the board has questions about the sort of general design of the project or where things are, things like that, happy to answer them. Kevin. So Brian, the parking will not be used by customers who are then walking to the building and accessing what services you have that are there. Yeah, that's not the intention. I mean, if there is like a really large event or something, it's possible that customers may park there, but on a day-to-day basis, that's not the intention. My main concern is the safety of the site. And I mean, the trains, when they traverse that area, they go pretty slow and they're pretty careful and they ring their bell and all that. But, you know, I'm just a little concerned about how the safety of people using that extended parking lot, how that'll be handled. I mean, is there additional lighting, signalization, just things of that nature? Yeah, so both of the railroad tracks have, correct me if I'm wrong about the one by the road, Minty, but I believe both of the railroad tracks have not only lights, but gates on them. So when the trains come by, you get the bells, you get the flashing lights and the gates drop down to block access. So it's certainly really well marked in terms of the railroad crossing and, you know, I would say a lot better than some of the railroad crossings that are in downtown when there's a lot more pedestrians that may be crossing. I'm not sure the ones across Berry Street have gates, but they have lights for sure. The one crossing where you're referring to going into our lot, we have the most highly regulated one with gates and everything. So it's very safe going into our parking lot in Jin Lane. So that would be the one that you would be addressing. Right now there are no fences. So we're actually taking a lot that was directly on the railroad tracks and making it safer through this project. Per, you know, I spent a lot of time working with the railroad guys to, you know, to get some kind of idea of what they would allow us to do or not because we really are constrained by their requirements in their right way. They have a lot of privileges that is part of their role. Yes. And they have a lot of sway when it comes to trees. That's correct. No, we don't really want those trees there, sorry. Claire, did you have a question? Yes. I had a couple of questions around the demarcation of the parking area and the parking spots. It sounds like the travel way will be gravel, but the parking stalls will have the pavers in which the grass can go through. So the travel way will be visually a roadway surface and then it's just the parking stalls that will have that kind of grass paver. Is that correct? Yeah, that's right. Even though the whole thing is permeable, it'll look like a gravel drive in the middle. Gotcha. And then is there any wheel stops or any kind of marcation to indicate kind of where people would park in the parking stall area? So there aren't, you can't really put wheel stops into this system. On the North end, where the majority of the parking species are, there's the 15 on the North side, it'll be constrained by the landscaping. So the chockberry bushes here on the East side, the grasses as well as the fence on the North side. And then here on the West side, there's an existing sewer station with bollards. This area is pretty well-defined. You have a kind of similar definition on the South with these bushes here. We hadn't planned any particular demarcation here, but the driveway itself kind of lends you to understand where you should be parking your car because you pull off the driveway and then stop essentially, as well as because this is going to be the overflow parking, you know, Caledon, you will have some control over how people park and also some ability to instruct folks as to how to do it. So we feel that the proposed level of demarcation is appropriate to the overflow nature of the parking lot. You know, if we put a lot of demarcation here, then we have a lot, we have more chance that someone is going to end up parking here who we don't necessarily want to be parking, whether it's bike path access or, you know, folks that could be accessing the distillery from a closer parking space or something like that. Great, thank you. Hey, Rob, it's Michael. If I could have a quick question. Yeah, go ahead. And maybe I'm just not understanding the response here, but how are you proposing to limit access to the lot when you determine overflow parking is not necessary? It's, there's no physical barrier to park a lot, but we're trying not to make it look really obvious that you should park here. So if you're a visitor to the distillery, you're going to come down Gin Lane and you're going to see the very large paved parking area and all the signage in the distillery itself in front of you. Really, no, there's nothing to sort of hold people into this parking lot. You know, if they're, what their intention is, is to visit the distillery. You know, we're not planning to like gate it or anything like that, but the fact that it's just going to be a gravel driveway and then the rest of it will appear to be grass will I think people's desire to park here. But so just a, I guess, two quick follow up questions and what's the significance of calling it overflow parking? Why not just call it additional parking? I guess I'm lost on that. And then to Kevin's earlier point, if we are concerned about safety and access and you just have an open parking lot, what's preventing people from, you know, parking there and going hiking around or just doing unintended uses there? I guess I'm a little confused. Why not just gate it? Well, I do believe that we get people who are accessing the bike path. And I do believe that we get people who want to go down to the town's riverfront right of way that we have that was granted to them during this project. So we already have people who are just interested in walking around or walking on the bike path, parking up on Gin Lane. And we've never had a problem with that. It's an open place. It's a hospitality place. We want people to feel welcome. So that has not been a problem. The town does plan to finish the connection from the bike path, Gin Lane. And that was supposed to happen this summer. I haven't checked on it lately, but that was supposed to happen. So just by default, I'm sure that some people who park in our parking lot now are associated with either the bike path or whether they're biking or not. They may not be biking, they may just be walking and we're fine with that. Some of those people are our customers. So it's not a problem. We can also, we do a lot of work with cones to keep people like off the grass where they ride on the grass and stuff like that. We can also cone off this area easily with just in the driveway. You can just put a few cones and people won't go in there. But I don't think it's going to be something that's going to be used improperly by anybody. I think it'll just be an open area and we'll use it when we need it. It's not gonna be every day, but it'll be sometimes and we'll see, you know. But we have trouble with people just showing up like that. Yeah, I guess, I mean, I work for a different town from on and open access parking lots keep me up at night. But, you know, I applaud you guys for being willing to be flexible and open. And I guess if you're willing to take it on who am I to say otherwise, but just curious. Yeah, that's a good point. We hadn't worried about that, let's put it that way because we're, as I say, we're a factory but we're also a hospitality business and we welcome people to our site. Yeah. Two questions and then I'm gonna process questions for you Meredith as well. So first, I'd be interested to hear about the documented need for additional parking, you know, both in terms of current state of affairs and future. And I also like to hear unless I missed it somewhere in materials, whether you have bike facilities bike parking right now, both for staff and for visitors, especially given the conversation right now around the bike trail. I'll take the second one first. We absolutely do have bike racks up on the, in the main parking lot near the facility. And the other question was What's the documented need for additional parking now versus what do you project changes to be in the future? From day one, as I say, our schedule, we start with our manufacturing crew, comes in early, then we used to be open at noon. As most hospitality businesses have had a hard time opening, so has Caledonia Spirits, but we're well on our way now. But what we found when we were going great guns was that our, our census in the parking lots, so to speak, was variable. So if we were expecting a group, say, hospitality group, we haven't had any of those recently. Be sure you're, oh, I'm sorry. That's okay, I can't take it. Okay, that we would ask the employees to park around back or along the side or down on Gin Lane. So we've already had to relocate our employees at times to accommodate an inflow of guests. So, and it can happen at any time during the day or in the evening. We like to think we can predict when it'll happen because people will call up and reserve, so we know what sort of demand. Right now we're constrained by COVID because we do everything by reservations, but when you're not a reservation-based business, you can get more people at certain times than you're expecting. So all of that has led us to, we know we need more parking and we could just park down in this area as it is. We could just park there because it is flat. It's gravel, but it is a contaminated site and we need to fix it. And so we decided to formalize the actual parking down there so that it's clear for employees where to park. And it looks better. It's gonna look a lot better. And yeah, we're pretty excited about it because I think it'll make it easier for everybody. And Brian's gonna talk a little bit about lighting because we do believe we need better lighting on that lot. Yeah. Process question is Meredith and I received his email with comments on this. I just wanted to update you about that. So yeah, well, when we get to the public comment stage here, once the board has finished asking its questions, I'll be able to take the email that we got and put it into the record. And I can circulate it to the board members who are remembering. Sure. Abby. Hi, I'm curious about the number of spaces that you've applied for. I believe it's 22. Did you, what is it? What's the kind of magic number about 22? And did you look to have fewer at all? Did you expect for options? That's what Brian came up with that could fit is I believe is the number, right? Yeah, honestly, that 22 spaces is what would fit reasonably on the lot without disturbing the house or the pump station or getting in the way of the rarer tracks. So if anything, they could really use more than that. But this is what we could reasonably fit on the lot. Okay, so how are you estimating the number of spots that you need? What's kind of your estimated range, if you will? For formalized spots, I think that puts us up to what? I had that number two weeks ago right in my brain and I set it aside here. I think it brought us up to, was it 78? How many do we have now, Brian? Yeah, I'm getting there. Let's bring you up to 79, according to my calculation. There is also a house there, as we mentioned. So the house actually needs a couple of spaces as well. We do have, you know, when we're busy, we're using every single spot up on the main parking lot and sometimes down gin lane. And when we host things like two winters ago, we hosted the Montpelier Farmers Market. People were parked everywhere all over. This lot actually gives us a way to formalize that parking when people ask us, hey, can you host this event and this gives us a place for our employees to park? It gives us, you know, better parking, safer parking for everybody involved. Go ahead. So just because Brian and Minty and I had some conversations in between these two hearing dates because I'm allowed to talk to them. Yes. I think when we had a conversation at one point, you told me how many employees you have for the factory and then maybe also some of your other staff. And I think that was part of the consideration as well if you add those two together and then bring in. Yeah, currently we have 58 employees. They're not all in Vermont. I don't know what the exact breakdown is on the top of my head for the Vermont employees that are in and out, but as I said, they have different schedules. So we have some in the morning, some in the afternoon into the evening. So I would have to get you the exact count, but it's variable. That's the point. The point is that our parking demand is variable. So most of the time our parking in Caledonia spirit is just fine, but when we have an event, when we have say a hospitality group comes in 15 to 25 people, parking demand goes up. So it's really all about, and that's why we call it overflow parking because it's here's your current demand. And this is what happens when X happens in the distillery. So it's extra parking that we need on occasion. And if you're doing really well, maybe more than every, not every day, but certainly once a week that we would have extra people that we might have to request the employees park down below. But particularly if you're having a daytime event, so you have both types of staff in plus you're, during the day, hospitality. Yes, and before the pandemic, not right now, but we know it'll come back. At least we're hoping it'll come back. We had a lot of events. We had people having lunches and, you know, birthday parties and stuff like that. During the day, we had things at night where we needed this kind of flow of extra parking because it met the needs of our business. Yeah. Thank you. And thank you, Robert. Yeah, I just have one, over on the parking issue question for Meredith. So if this is staff parking versus public parking, is there anything different as far as the site development requirements? Either or? No, the regulations themselves do not distinguish between the two. And that's one reason this comes to the board. Exactly. As to your judgment as to how it should be dealt with, whether or not, you know, and originally it sounded like it was just employees, which is what seemed to be in the application, but it sounds like there might be some other minor use of it as well. So it's a question for the board as to how they want to deal with it. There may be some use by the public. Right, that's what I mean. We haven't spent a lot of time thinking about that, but that's what happened with our regular parking lot. People come in, they park, you know, they want to walk around and they're not customers, but they do show up because we're a public place and it hasn't been a problem. I don't anticipate it being a problem. This just gives us more room to accommodate things like that. Kevin. Yeah, just a further question on the number of parking spaces. Your business is relatively new for that location and I'm gonna guess that if pandemic aside, the business will grow as more and more people become familiar with it. We hope so. Yeah, that's your plan, I'm sure. So what have you done to anticipate that demand, you know, five, 10 years out? You mean in terms of parking? Yeah. I think we think about where we could access parking. We can't park on Berry Street, but there may be other places nearby that we could access for parking. We have thought about that. And I would say that this proposal is Caledonia Spirits thinking about their parking and their business growing. When the distillery was originally approved, you know, there was a number of parking spaces and the number of parking spaces was approved was really the maximum that would have fit on that lot. Like you look at that, I think it's large, but we used up every single foot of developable space on that lot. So that's, you know, I think that Caledonia would have proposed more parking for the distillery under the original proposal, how they had space for it. And, you know, now they have the opportunity to, they had the opportunity to acquire this lot and they did and so they're, this is part of how they're meeting, you know, current demand and looking to make more room for future growth as well by having an alternate place to put employees to free up more parking at the main distillery parking lot. Thank you. Katherine. I realized in our discussion, we haven't spoken at all about the permeable paving or aside from in the opening comments. So I'll say personally, I'm very excited to see it in use. I'm wondering if maybe your engineer, you could speak to the durability and how it handles the winter, et cetera. And also whether you're gonna incorporate anything. I realize there's not signage, there's not demarcation on the spots, but are you gonna have educational signage or any materials on what the permeable pavement is? Is this like learning opportunity for people? Yes, yes. The whole site is not marked right now, but it will be at some point for all the different aspects of it. It's an interesting site and Brian is being very honest when he said we used up every inch of it because the whole site is actually a stormwater system so that we don't pollute into the river. We're way above the flood plain, but we have to be really careful about everything. So, and we haven't done what we've wanted to do, which is the whole idea of the honey and the wildflowers and all that. We just haven't gotten to it because we were only open, what seven, eight, nine, 10 months before the pandemic showed up. So it's definitely on our list to have pollinator habitat and then we would also highlight the green aspects of our, I think a good term for it is pervious pavement so that we're not withholding, the stormwater is able to go down through the ground. And to speak to the durability, the system is designed, so the reason we did the graph in the parking spaces and then the gravel on the more traveled center section is the gravel does hold up better to regular traffic, but both systems are designed to support traffic loads and with the amount of sub-base that we're proposing below the permeable paver structure, we're meeting the manufacturer's recommendations for pretty heavy access fire trucks and things like that, even on the grass areas. So this is a product that's been used in the Northeast. Certainly the gravel part holds up very well, the paving, the grass part, if it's, or plowing, I'm sorry. The grass part, if it's plowed a lot in the winter, you probably need to do some maintenance in the spring with reseeding and things like that, but it generally is certainly for the kind of, even the heavy end of the use that's being contemplated once a week having people park out there, it's more than durable to stand up to that. I just also, I've been meaning to point out and I hadn't had a chance yet that while there's no distinction between employee parking or overflow parking in the regulations, the parking section of the regulations does encourage the use of permeable pavers for low use parking areas. So this kind of parking area was contemplated in the regulations, even if it wasn't specifically, there weren't specifically like different requirements or standards for this sort of parking area. Claire, did you have a question about parking? I do, yes. So I really appreciate the approach here to this parking area, both from kind of the environmental aspect and also the aesthetic aspect of kind of creating this area that has the visual look of maybe more of a grassy field look. So you're not kind of creating this paved area that's not being used all the time. And you kind of alluded to this in a statement that was just made. And I was curious about like, is there a tipping point where the use is kind of that overflow parking? Maybe it's not being used all the time. Is there a tipping point where kind of the durability goes down and if it's being used more and more and more and more that you would have to kind of reconsider the kind of paving approach and consider a different type of surface if the parking lot was being used at a higher level than kind of originally anticipated? Yeah, so the only durability issue if it was used more than we are proposing is that it'd be difficult to maintain the grass cover in the grass parking spaces. The actual structure of the permeable paving system is the same, it's just the infill within the actual paving units that's different that is there to support the grass. So if in the future this becomes, it becomes an issue to maintain the grass there it would be possible to remove the grass and fill and replace it with a sort of stone infill and maintain the permeability of the paving system and then mitigate the issue of not being able to maintain grass in there. But as I said, with the amount of use that we're contemplating here it certainly will be able to hold up and have a decent grass growth over the parking, the permeable parking spaces where grass is proposed. Great, and I guess I had a follow-up question there that kind of made me think you'd mentioned that the design with those pavers is a way for you to also manage the stormwater runoff. And so if for some reason that was all being overloaded in some way then there would be kind of a trigger to kind of revisit the surface area, the durability and all of that, right? Yeah, I mean, this system is pretty good at maintaining its permeability as well because it's got the structure of the plastic paving units. So you can use a very open grade stone that would normally be like driving on marbles if you didn't have the structure below it. And then below, let's see, I have a, it's probably not super easy to see on these details but let me see how big I can make it. So below the, this is sort of the plastic part that's infilled with the open graded stone. And then below that is additional open graded stones we're proposing like below the plastic part there's another six inches of stone. So that not only is very high permeability so like well beyond the permeability of like lawn it also provides quite a bit of storage for stormwater inside that stone. So when we put this in, it's going to be far more permeable than if you had just put grass down even in the lot and it maintains its permeability pretty well over time. Thank you. Could just get a weather report here from the board I think that this issue of whether we're okay with these permeable paver system is something we have to determine tonight. So folks want to raise their hand or say yes if you feel like you have enough information and are okay to move forward on that issue. On specifically on the permeability issue, yes. The material, yeah. Yes. Yeah, good. Yeah, good. I feel like we've had a pretty thorough discussion on parking here. I think there's maybe two items that we have to address in the staff report related to the parking. One of them is the issue of ADA compliance. Yeah, Brian has a little bit of that. Brian has a hand. He sent that to you, right? Yeah, I have it here on the screen as well. Hopefully you can see it. So in order to maintain the ADA compliance for the comment that we got from Mr. Lyon at the DPW, we can simply restripe a bit of the existing parking at the Caledon Spirits main parking lot. So this is illustrating the location of the existing ADA parking. And right now there's three spaces. So these two spaces here are two nine foot spaces with a nine foot aisle. And then currently there's a five foot aisle and another nine foot space here. If we remove the striping from this aisle and the ADA symbol from this space, sort of put the striping on the other side of that, total aisle and space, then we can move the aisle in between two spots here and create a fourth accessible space next to the distillery, relocate the sign. So that because these are both nine foot wide spaces with a nine foot wide aisle, these both qualify as van accessible spaces. So we'll have two van accessible spaces, two standard ADA spaces. And yeah, we sent this to Meredith very recently. So I'm sure folks haven't had a chance to look it over, but it's a pretty straightforward change to maintain the ADA compliance for the site overall. So just a summary, you have two ADA van accessible and one regular and you're just gonna add an extra regular. That's right. Yeah. Any board questions on ADA compliance? Any other board questions generally related to the parking? I think we've got lighting and access and landscaping issues, but maybe we can get this parking taken care of. I'm okay on the parking. I do have some additional questions on the landscaping and lighting. Absolutely, yes. Okay, sort of just directly related to the parking, but different is the access. So could you run through sort of how folks would get from this parking lot to the Bar Hill, employees would get back and forth? Sure. So essentially we're proposing that the access would be along Jen Lane. It was noted by DPW and this is in the staff report. I'm just trying to pull this particular section up. Jen Lane is a city street. It's classified as a low volume shared street by the city. And this we got from Mr. Lyon at the DPW. So for a low volume shared street, pedestrians are allowed to use the roadway and shared with vehicle access. And DPW determined that this parking lot wouldn't create enough traffic along Jen Lane to change the classification so that there's no trigger for the city to add additional pedestrian or bike facilities along Jen Lane. We don't really have the facility to add pedestrian access along Jen Lane because it is a city street. So we're relying on the determination from the Montpelier DPW that it's appropriate for Jen Lane to be used as a shared access space for pedestrians, vehicles and bicycles. And so the access would be along Jen Lane and then through the existing parking lot along Caledonia Spirit's development for folks to access the distillery. I feel like the split rail fence is gonna be a deterrent from folks crossing the tracks directly from the parking lot, shortest distance. Yes, absolutely. They don't go that way. On the other side of the railroad track are elderberry bushes and it's steep. So they're very unlikely to go there. I've never seen anyone cross the track and come up through the bushes. They always go, they actually go to the end where the, and then they go onto Jen Lane and up that way, up the driveway, yeah. I've personally done a fair amount of bushwalking around that for the development and it's not an effective crossing. No. Yeah, that's good information to... It's not inviting. Let's put it that way. On the map, it just looks like, you know. No, it isn't, it isn't. And I spend a good deal of time with the railroad guy walking and he said, I don't want people crossing here. You gotta put up a fence, you know. What is there, is it a right away or do they actually own the land? They have a right of way on our land. On your land. On both sides. And how wide is that at the right of way? That's because that's what railroads have. No, no, my question was, how wide is the right of way? Oh, 25 feet. Either side of the tracks. And it's shown here on the plan. So this line is the edge of the right of way on the north. And then it's a little hard to see here for some reason, but this line here is the edge of the right of way on the south part of the property. So it's 25 feet for... And you'll notice it goes right through the house. Oh. So for, I mean, for zoning, wise purposes, typically, you know, we basically count the, you know, the railroad tracks or the railroads property. And then a lot of the time, the right of way line for all intents and purposes, we count as a boundary line, really, because you're gonna have to set back your buildings from that too, a lot of the time. So. It is like a boundary line. It's pretty much a boundary line. Unfortunately. We lost a lot of land to that boundary line, yeah. Any other bar questions on access between, I think specifically the next issue we should tackle is the vegetation and landscaping variants. So Meredith, would you give an overview or sort of the key sort of zoning requirements for this? Yep. So the two that are, that the variances are being requested from are the ones I'm gonna outline because everything else was compliant. So the first is the street trees. So once you hit a major site plan, you have to look at this subsection for street trees. And street trees, this is just, I wanna throw this out there, that street trees are located within the road right of way or those that are where the center of the tree trunk is located within 10 feet of the frontage line. So street trees are only gonna be along the boundary line that borders gin lane. And there are minimum street tree requirements if you have a major site plan that has street frontage involved. I'm not gonna go into the details on those right now. So are you suggesting that the street trees would be along gin lane where the bushes are? Right, they'd have to be, if street trees are required, that's where the street trees would have to be placed. So under the regs with over 100 feet of frontage on gin lane, when you just take these requirements on their face, it would require at least two large street trees and three medium or small street trees along the street frontage. If this were your standard major site plan, development of a vacant parcel along a street with major site plan. In this case, any place here where you would plant a street tree, it would be next to one of the two railroad crossings or in between them. And that's why the applicant is requesting a variance from that. Do you wanna tackle street trees before we then go to the shade trees? I have to tell you, the very first thing that happened on this site in order to build gin lane and get it all sorted out with the railroad, the very first thing they did was request that we take down all of the trees right where we're showing those bushes because they were concerned about the person in a car not being able to see down the track or vice versa, the train conductor not being able to see someone on gin lane. So the very place where you would like trees, which would be nice to have a row of trees down there was the very place where all those were removed when we first built the facility. So I have a feeling that that wouldn't fly. Do you, what do you think, Brian? Well, certainly the railroad has requested. So I was gonna address this because it comes up in the staff report. So we had the letter from Vermont Rail where they requested that trees not be planted at the crossing but our communications with them is that their strong preference is that trees not be planted anywhere on this property, which really has to do with the fact that once a car gets past one of these two crossings or a pedestrian or vice versa, you're in between the two crossings here because this track comes down at an angle and then comes to meet this track. If you're headed in this direction, any tree that's planted here or anywhere along the frontage is blocking some view of what you can currently see of a train approaching the tracks, approaching the crossing from this direction. And similarly, if you were headed north on gin lane even though we couldn't plant a tree here because there's a sewage station but even if you planted a tree here, if you're coming along gin lane, there's a point at which that tree is blocking your view of the tracks as you're approaching the crossing. So that's generally the safety consideration and the sort of unique circumstance here is that you have this triangular shaped lot with railroad tracks fronting on two sides. And so there's visibility issues in almost any direction over this parking lot. And that's beyond someone who's stopped at the crossing. We want to make sure that anyone who's approaching the crossing has time to be able to see a train approaching. And that's why we're requesting the variance to not plant either of the street parking lot trees. Safety is the main consideration. So the question I have is so the current plan is for no street trees, no shade trees, correct? That's correct, yes. Okay, so everything would be low growth shrubs and so on. So if we were to insist on some tree planting where could you put them? Well, our contention is that you can't put them anywhere because wherever you put them they block some amount of visibility of the railroad tracks. Any other questions from the board on street trees? Just with, I'll just comment just with the information we currently have I would be inclined to agree with the no trees. Safety is really a major consideration. Safety is like their number one. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a shame because it's, It is a shame. You look at that on a 90 degree day and that place is going to swelter. Well, yeah, at least it's not pavement. Right, and I would point this out too it doesn't really go to the variance criteria but both the aesthetic impact and heat island impact of a typical paved parking lot are mitigated in this case by the materials we're proposing. The stone is going to be like a light color stone in the infill of the geopave and the grass cover on the parking spaces will have a significant mitigation on both the visual and heat impacts of this parking lot. Sure, and you are using some innovative techniques to deal with the with the ground water or with the spring water and water issues in general. Yeah, I mean, basically we're doing our best to make it look as nice as it possibly can given the situation. And I find the argument of the safety argument compelling. I would not want to create a situation that we would potentially regret down the road. And I doubt you'll find another property that looks like this in Montpelier. Okay, the next landscaping issue Meredith you want to give an overview? Yeah, I'll give a quick overview. I mean, I think that everything that Brian and Mindy just said applies to the shade trees as well. But for parking landscaping, there is a shade tree requirement when you're having a major site plan with 10 or more parking spaces, which we've triggered here. And I'm not going to go into all the details on this, but there's a requirement that you have enough shade trees to shade the equivalent of 40% of the proposed parking area. So I didn't end up calculating exactly how many shade trees that would require because the applicant here is applying four variants to say that they can't put any shade trees. And just to go through really quickly, and this is partly for the record. You know, the variant standard is in section 4603 that applies to both the street tree and the shade requirement here that they're asking for a variance from. And the basic elements are that there are unique physical circumstances or conditions with the subject property, that they're peculiar to that property and there's unnecessary hardship due to these conditions. And it's not some circumstance that's created by the regulations themselves or the district. And because of these physical circumstances, there's no possibility that the property can be developed in strict conformance with the requirements, the shade tree or street tree requirements. And so the authorization of a variance is necessary to enable the reasonable use of the property, that that unnecessary hardship has not been created by the appellant, it says appellant applicant, and that the variance is not going to alter the essential character of the neighborhood or the district in which that property is located. Substantially or permanently impaired the lawful use or development of adjacent property. And here, all adjacent property is pretty much the railroad. Will not reduce access to renewable energy resources or be detrimental to the public welfare. And then finally that the applicant is proposing the least deviation possible from the regulations to afford relief. So I don't know if anybody has any questions about those variance standards. It's all in the pages 16 to 17 of the staff reports, but I don't know if there's anything that you feel hasn't been addressed yet. I think we're all, we're pretty good. Any other questions for the board on the landscaping variance? Okay, seeing none. I guess maybe we'll turn it over to Brian to tackle the lighting. Yeah, so further conversation in between the previous hearing that was scheduled on this one with Meredith. We would like to propose some lighting for the site just for safety and security purposes at this point. Unfortunately, we were not able to get anyone who was available to prepare a lighting plan, but I can give you a sense of what we would like. And then we would just request, it really just comes down to all designers and contractors who could have a better lighting plan or extremely busy and we just couldn't arrange to get someone to do it. But essentially, we would look to put very similar lighting to what was approved for the main distillery. So this is the, you can see on the screen here, this is the pole light that's used at the distillery. It's an LED light. It's fully cut off in downcast optics. You can see it's night sky approved. It's DLC approved for efficiency. I don't know if anyone's been by the site at night, but I think it actually came out really, really, really great there. It's one of the better examples of site lighting I've seen around. So we would generally propose to have one site pole light likely in about this area, but it would probably depend a bit on what our lighting designer decides. And then to have one light mounted on the building. So we at least have some lighting in the parking lot. Lighting would be controlled by photo sensor. And then, Minty, I think we were going to put them on motion sensors so they wouldn't be on unless the parking lot is used. Is that correct? Which would address the maybe non-authorized use, just to have it unlit most of the time would probably be a good thing. Yeah. So the lights would only come on if there was motion detected in the parking lot. Someone was out there, but then if someone was out there, whether it was someone, an employee using the parking lot after dark needed to see to put their, because you don't put your key in the door anymore, but needed to see to access their car safely, or if someone who wasn't supposed to be there was there, then the lights would come on and discourage anyone from being in there at night who shouldn't be in there. So again, I know we don't have the lighting plan requirement, but we just request that the board would allow us to submit the lighting plan based on our testimony tonight as a condition of the approval. Yeah. And I think that that's okay by me. Any board members have any issues with that? Our questions. Claire has a hand up. Claire. Yeah. I mean, I would be an advocate for the, kind of the very low key lighting, not on all the time just to go with the aesthetic and the kind of the low usage. I live near here. And I guess just the point of caution with the motion sensor is there is quite a few deer around. So, you know, you probably don't really have any close neighbors. That's maybe not a big issue, but yeah, I would be kind of an advocate or a supporter of the most minimal amount just to keep in keeping with like the aesthetic of kind of the parking area that you're proposing. Yeah, and I don't, hopefully it wouldn't be terribly noticeable if the deer set it off here. There are some street lights along Berry Street and then the area behind it as count on your spirits is much more regularly than they will be here. So it's sort of in between two areas that are already let for, you know, the street all night and the Caledonia turns off later in the night after folks aren't using the space anymore. Bernadette. Brian, so would you be able to have the lights in the parking lot on a timer? Cause that is one of those. There's a, I can't remember if it's in the riverfront. Did they put it in here about lighting needing to be shut off? Well, I guess that's why we were proposing to use the photo cells. So it's only on when there's someone was there. Right. Except that there's, right. But that's the, it doesn't deal with the deer issue. So I just didn't know if there was a way to have a timer so that even the motion sensor wouldn't start it. But I'm sure it didn't frequent. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Bald eagle, maybe. Okay. Should we move to any public comments at this point? I believe that we've addressed the major issues here. I have the information I need, I think, to make a decision here. Yeah, Brian, can you turn off your share screen? Yeah, I'm working on it, Meredith. Somehow I got everybody's pictures on top of my Zoom. Hold on, I got it. There, thank you. Yep, you're welcome. So I am gonna share, let me make sure I have it open. Hold on one second. I have an email from a citizen, although I didn't get her address. I'll make sure to have that for the record later. I've emailed her and requested it. So I'll make sure to put it in the permit file because I'll need that. And I'm just gonna summarize these at this point. A lot of these things, the questions have already been asked by board members. So this is from Cassia Renzio. And so she has one question about sort of why the Tree Warden and the city's Tree Board haven't been consulted and whether they should be for all future street tree or shade tree issues. This is a side note. That's not something that's in the regulations as a requirement. Normally if it would be, if there was actually a proposal for a street tree or a proposal that might affect an existing street tree, yes, I would run it by the Tree Warden. In this case, because it is such a specific safety issue and something that really isn't in the Tree Warden's purview and it's much more in the boards. That's one reason it didn't run by Alec if the board felt like I needed to. I can do that. We can continue to hearing again and I can run it by them if the board feels like that's necessary. The other category, another category of comments is that Ms. Ranzio is asking for at least some trees and we've talked about that and if the board has further questions, they can. And then there was a question about bicycle access and storage and that the board requiring that and it sounds, you know, we've already had testimony that the Caledonia spirits does have bicycle access and then storage, can't they have bike racks? And then I'm gonna scroll down. She has a question about river access and making part of the new parking lot available for people to park in and it sounds like the applicant doesn't have any issues with that at this point and that it hasn't been a problem so they don't see that being a large impact. There's comments about the permeable pavers and liking that there's permeable pavers and asking that the board ask for an interpretive sign. That's already been discussed this evening. And then there's questions or comments about having the board request for improved pedestrian access. Again, those that we've discussed that, I don't think there's really any new points here. There's a discussion about believing that the housing board and parks commission have had their eyes on adjacent Sabans pasture for future housing and parkland and that there might be increased pedestrian traffic. Something for the board to note is that Jen Lane up to, I think it's the second railroad track is actually a city street. So the second interior railroad crossing it's after that that it's driveway for Caledonia spirits. So it really is, if there's enough increased pedestrian traffic the city, the department of public works would be the one to trigger the meeting to get somebody to put in more sidewalks. And we don't, at this point, the city's got a lot of other projects that they're working on when they're looking at development. And that person needs to know they were planning to put a sidewalk from the bike path to Jen Lane. Yep, and I think, I almost think, yeah, sounds something comment about, I thought she said something in here about that, hold on. Yeah, no, it doesn't. Yeah, just that there's not currently pedestrian access from the Berry Street bike path back down to Jen Lane. And there will be, and that's one of the things that we got in the comments from the department of public works is that there will be that pedestrian access linking through. And then finally, the final comment on here, let's scroll down, sorry, is that asking that if there is lighting added, that it be turned off after business hours and that it be kept as a low level of light. All right. Any final questions from the board on this application? I would also entertain a motion to close the public hearing and yes, Don. Well, if you want to comment, you got to go up to this microphone up here. Is everybody in here? Sorry, Don. Yeah, and identify yourself. Yeah, and identify yourself. My name is Don Marsheim, I'm a civil engineer. And I applaud the use of the porous pavement. However, I would suggest when he mentioned the light color that they not use crushed granite because that would give you the light color and that's an obvious product available. But we found that the crushed granite from the quarries up here contains radon and we've had problems with that in other projects. So I would suggest that we don't wanna have radon brought into a place where we're gonna have infiltration into the ground. So you can use other stone, you can use river stone or whatever, but I'd suggest not the crushed granite. Thank you, Don. Thank you, Don. Do we have any motions from the board here? I'll make the motion to close the public hearing on the 17-gen lane. I'll second that. Reconvene in the executive session. Motion by... Second? Yes, second. Yes, I'll second that. Okay, I will call the roll. Can I just have a little discussion? Okay, so maybe somebody can make the friendly amendment that will reconvene in deliberative session after the close of the public meeting because we're not going into deliberative session right now and waiting on the next application. I'll modify my motion to include it. Thank you. Okay. And Claire, you need to agree to that as well. I will second that amendment that was made. Okay, Kevin, how do you vote? Yes. Michael. Michael, do you vote yes? No, we couldn't hear you. Yeah, I vote yes. Joe. Yes. Abby. Yes. Catherine. Yes. Claire. Yes. That is unanimously approved. Thank you very much for your presentation this evening and we will discuss this after the meeting tonight and we should hear soon on a decision. Great. Great. Thank you, Brian. Thank you, Brian. Thanks, everyone. Next on the agenda, we have an application for 186 Murray Road. Back as an engineer. Alrighty. Just make sure you speak right into that microphone when you do talk done. Yes, ma'am. Excuse me, Bob. Thank you. Could we have like a two minute break? Yes, let's take a two minute recess. Okay. Thank you. Transition here. Okay, I'm going to call this meeting back to order. Is everybody ready? Well, I don't see faces for Abby and Claire. Okay, there's Claire. And Abby, maybe just give a thumbs up if you're there and ready for us to get moving. I think Abby's not back. Donna, he's the only one that's going to be speaking on this application. Actually, I haven't seen Keith, is he on Zoom? Yep. So the applicant is on Zoom, apparently. So there'll be two of us. Keith's here as well. And this is just a sketch plan, so you don't have to swear anybody. Oh, perfect. Yeah. You're good. I knew that was going. And this is a sketch plan. So we could, I mean, theoretically, we can get started without Abby. We have a quorum. Okay. And we've got another application after. Yep. Oh, turn it over to you, Don, I guess to get started on this sketch plan application. Okay, my name is Don Martian with Grenier Engineering. We're working with Keith Doyle on the subdivision. And I have to start out with an apology that through the process of with help from Meredith and the assessor's office, it turns out that two of these lots, what we were calling lot two and lot four, are separate standalone parcels already. So they, they're already subdivided. We misunderstood that. So the subdivision actually becomes, instead of a four lot subdivision, it's a two lot subdivision, which is the farmer Bill Doyle house and Keith Doyle's house now. And the, we'd have just over in Beaker there and a one acre parcel directly to itself, both on Murray Road. So it, so unfortunately that we've, we've given you a revised plan that reflects that, but it is different than what we presented. Aside from that, we'd expect to extend to the municipal sewer currently has a six inch line that goes from the Doyle home down to Townhill Road. That's more than enough for two additional houses. It's plastic, looks like it's in good shape, at least what we could see. So we had expected to use municipal sewer. Similarly, the lot on Westwood would connect to municipal sewer in front of the home eventually. And they would all have, apparently I was also there, there's no municipal water on Westwood. So they had all have individual drilled wells from that point of view, from a traffic point of view, even with all three lots on Murray Road, you'd expect to have a maximum of, or estimated the number of additional trips of 29 a day. And the most would be four or five during either the AM or peak hour, PM hour. So that we don't believe is a particular issue. And as we've noted in our narrative that the impact on municipal services on essentially one new lot, although you could expect maybe, I'll go back also. At the moment, both the two preexisting lots have need languages, language that prohibits development of any sort. We're trying to sort that out because both husband and wife associated with that original deed to the doils that contain that restriction have passed. So we need to pursue that because our understanding is other lots in the Westview Meadows area had similar restrictions and they asked and were granted permissions to permission to build. But that's at the moment, we'll have to represent that there's no building on either of those two lots. And if that happens, that'll be subject to the zoning permit later anyway. And that we haven't sorted out how to address that particular issue. So essentially at the moment, we're asking for one new lot, which would potentially have a single family dwelling on. In which lot would that be? That would be what we're calling a lot, A2. It's the one directly adjacent to... Directly adjacent to Keith Doyle's current house. So essentially that's the only new lot. And there are a number of comments in Meredith staff report that are valid and we'll have to address before the preliminary. But that's basically our summary. Claire has a question. Yeah, go ahead, Claire. Yeah, I guess I was wondering Meredith, thank you for the staff report on all of these. And but specifically on this one, it looks like a lot of work going into kind of evaluating kind of the layout of the four lots. I was wondering if maybe you could just help point us towards maybe any of your comments that would apply to this revised plan. Yep. So, I think that for the final subdivision for even just the two lots, we would wanna see just a preliminary checking where you'd wanna put that driveway on lot A2 and just getting a sense of whether or not it meets the distancing requirements from nearby driveways. It's not a make or break for the subdivision but it's good to have that heads up for future development whether or not you're gonna need a DRB waiver of those distances or an exception because sometimes then even just a single dwelling unit is gonna require a DRB approval for that putting in that access. And then it probably doesn't hurt to have a little bit better understanding of the source for the traffic impact numbers that you have just because it's, I'm sure it's from the ITE but just being able to point to for single family homes, ITE states so many trips per day and so many in the peak hours. It just helps the board and then that way it's in there in the record where it comes from. They've dealt with the sewer especially because there's not gonna be a proposal now for houses on that bigger, further lot, further up Murray Road on the end. Hold on just a quick scan. So you're correct in that case it would be, we would just be connecting that lot because the sewer runs right through that lot too. Yep, lot A2 can connect to the sewer no problem. Everything else, we would still need the draft plat for the final subdivision application that actually shows where all the new pins go, all of that data and we would want that as complete as possible just needing basically the signatures to finalize it. So that's one thing that's still needed. And sorry. You pointed out that we need to move the proposed driveway on the existing lot. I mean, we should do that just to clean it up. That's, we would deal with those two other lots. The existing lots you and I will talk about and key separately that would be two other different permit applications. That wouldn't be the subdivision at all. You know, we'd still need to have something in your final narrative about the electric utilities just because that is an item that comes up frequently but you've got the overhead lines going up the street. So that's not gonna be a problem really, I don't think. And that's it. I mean, when you narrow it down to just these two parcels there's not a whole lot more that I think needs to come in. Right. Go ahead, Kevin. Yeah, and that's what I wanted to make sure of. We're just dealing with your current plan is just that one lot basically, right? One new lot, one new lot. That's all that needs subdivision approval. That's the only thing that requires subdivision approval, so your application if you're gonna go that correction would look different than what we have right now. Yes, we'll correct that. It would just need to be updated to reflect that. And how the covenant on the development rights for those parcels, that's not our purview, obviously. And so all of that would happen on another venue, not this one. I understand. Yeah. I haven't figured out that venue yet, but you're certainly right. Well, yeah. I think there may be some genealogy required. Yeah, I mean, I think that there's a number of these issues we can go into more thorough detail once we have all the information at the final. And I don't wanna be redundant here. You've been here before, so you know what to do. Well, and we'll need Keith and you and I can have a meeting, whether it's in person or Zoom before the final application. We can talk, I'll get you the meeting minutes, not that there's gonna be much in them about this, but I'll get you the meeting minutes and we'll talk and go through a little more in detail about the holes I see with moving this to just the two lot subdivision application. And then when, before you actually submit that with the fees, we can have a meeting, our conference, to go through it and just make sure that there aren't any other holes before it gets submitted. Well, that's great. Before we start doing the survey work to get the plat ready. Yeah, exactly, before Keith is paying for a surveyor to do the plat, we can all meet up and make sure that we're happy with what's on there and what doesn't need to show anymore. So, of course, some of the few places where there actually pins are actually on the adjoining lot to the one that we're creating, so we're in pretty good shape there. Good, good. All right, I think I'm set here. Thank you, thank you, Don. I think I'm all set. I see nodding going on, I don't see any hands, so. Well, this is just a reminder, sketch plan review and there's no specific action that the board takes for sketch plan review, it's advisory and that's what we've done here this evening. We always appreciate the input. Thank you, okay, thank you. Don. Okay, the next item on the agenda, I don't have to think anyone here in person, but Simplini, I believe, is on the Zoom. And this is an application related to the removal of two chimneys at 79 Main Street. And Meredith, do you wanna give an overview of the application? Yeah, so as you said, this is application for demolition of some chimneys on 79 Main Street. This is a structure that's listed on the National Register of Historic Places. So we're dealing yet again with demolition of a part of a historic structure. Now, this is a little different from some of the other ones the board has dealt with because you're dealing with something that's, in some ways right now, it's a decorative aspect because the chimneys are no longer functional. And for the application, in addition to them no longer being functional, they are causing structural weaknesses and issues in the remainder of the building right now. Now, there is the, if you look in the application, I included the copy of the building permit application, because on that part, it clearly says that the plan is to save the bricks, the ones that can be, that are in good condition, right? Save those for potential use in replacement structures. So replacement chimneys. So the applicant is considering replacing the chimneys with something that is going to look like these chimneys but isn't going to have the structural problems that these do because they're no longer supported all the way down. Somewhere along the way and nobody really knows where. They got cut off and they're now just resting on wood. And we have letters in here from our building inspector and our fire chief who's also one of the health inspectors saying that this just, this isn't safe, but we don't have, that's one of the big, big things that we don't have in this application is something from an engineer. I think that the applicant said that they might be able to have this. So I think it's probably the right time to pass it on to Tim. Okay, Tim, over to you. Yeah, Meredith, back to the summary, basically the old chimneys sometime way backward cut off and they now rest on eight by eights on the attic floor. And they're really large. So I guess that we have had engineering ventures into look at it and really more looking at how we can replace or how is this going to work to? Put something back that will have the visual impact and not have the structural problems with the amount of weight that's up there right now that's just dead weight sitting on the old beams and currently the sections above the roof, the mortar has just eroded and those sections are in really rough shape at this point. The one actually to the right toward the blanchard block, it's shifted back significantly with just the force of the wind and nature this last year or two. And so that's our concern. So we really want to take them down and we are evaluating different options for replacement. I got a call from Eric Gilbertson today, talking about it in in Grafton where they dealt with a similar situation. They used a fiberglass chimney system which I haven't seen yet but we will investigate that. You know, our goal is when we replace, we want it to look good and we want it to make sense. I mean, at this point, it's the safety issue for us that's motivating this request to just demolish and remove them until we can have that plan ready to replace. Kevin. So, Tim, is the current situation? I know it's hard because you want to look at him. He's coming from here on my computer. I'm good, thanks. The current situation, is it actually posing a public safety issue at this point? Yes, no question about it. So like, I guess that maybe you can elaborate on that. It's not an imminent public safety but a budding, you know, public safety that actually needs to be taken. Where are we at here? It's well beyond budding. The pieces above the roof are, they're really dubious and, you know, if one of them falls up there in that location, you know, they're just gonna come raining down on busy sidewalks on Main State Street, you know, on the Blanchard Block side, which is the one that looks the most dubious to me. You know, that's the alleyway where people pass through all the time. I really, they need to come down to mitigate that. And then, you know, certainly even to replace, they're gonna have to come down and then rebuild. So it's, there's no benefit to leaving them. You're not gonna save what's there. Kevin, yes. Do you have a timeframe as to when the replacement would be installed or plans that you would have to have a schedule for that? I really don't. It's something, you know, we'd like to just deal with it and deal with it reasonably quickly, but say within a year might be more possible. It's just a matter of coming up with the right solution and then coming back, permitting it, whatever needs to be fabricated. Certainly, I think in most of the options we've looked at for potential replacement, there's been different types of interior structures that would need to be fabricated. Several of them had steel. The chimneys that are there now are actually, if you're looking at the photos, they're really much bigger than you might guess from these pictures or from the street. When you get, it's like, you know, you go four stories up and they really are big. Yeah, they're substantial. There's no question about that. And they're multiple courses of brick thick. And so just. When did the, can you summarize for us the review? Yeah, Tim, do you have a piece of paper over your microphone? I don't do it now. No. OK, nobody's microphone keeps moving. I don't know. OK, so hold on one second. Let me get to my design review. So design review, the design review committee, which intending at the design review for that meeting were two of the city's historic preservation specialists. They really, they approved it under all the applicable criteria with notes about that the demolition is required due to safety issues and, you know, that they really want bricks, especially the good bricks that are still good and would be good examples that are removed during the demolition to be saved for replication during the replacement phase. You know, I think, I think if this had been a plan for demolition without replacement, they would have had a lot more questions and conditions. You know, they did have a comment about wanting to make sure that when they were replaced, they looked very similar and had the S in the same type of bonded brick. But at least something that looked like the bonded brick. But they, I mean, they seem to feel that demolition in this instance made sense that it was a safety issue. And I'm inclined to agree with that report. I mean, public safety should always be our first concern. I mean, I might suggest that we put some kind of time frame around what the replacement, when that would be, you know, ready for installation or, I mean, I don't know. I'm throwing it out there for discussion. Yeah. Well, and that's the, you know, a typical zoning permit would have a two-year window with an option for a third year if it's requested before the end of the permit. Now, this is a little different because the job, the demolition will be done once the chimneys are taken down and stuff is, the roof is capped, right? This is an application just for the demolition. Yes. But I don't think it's beyond, I think it would be reasonable to ask for an application as long as Tim's OK with that, you know, an application for replacement. But we also don't know, you know, we don't know what the economy holds and everything else. So it's going to be kind of up to the board what they think is reasonable for how long, if it would be like two years we have to see an application or, you know, two years with the option for the applicant to request a third, I don't know. I know Claire has a question in there. Claire, go ahead. Yeah, I guess I'm kind of like a little bit struggling with kind of our kind of approval of options. I mean, I guess I'm looking at this in the absence of having the reconstruction plan. I'm hesitant to kind of condition an approval on a reconstruction. And I'm just wondering if the cleanest way is just to look at this as demolition. And when reconstruction happens, that's another component. I would just, I just don't want to be in a position where we're potentially looking at, you know, a condition in which says you must reuse those bricks in the reconstruction where we don't know that that could be completely unfeasible and I wouldn't want to kind of tie our hands with something like that. So I guess I'm kind of throwing it out there. If we're looking at kind of maybe just looking at this as just a demolition and removing the reconstruction kind of off the table for the purposes of the approval that we're looking at tonight. That would be a cleaner way to do it. Here's my concern. It would be fine to permit the demolition this evening. And I'd want to do that in an expeditious way so that it can be taken care of sooner rather than later. But at the same time, I'm just very aware of the visual impact that that building has with its two chimneys from State Street in particular. And so my thinking is that if we put a condition and we can word the condition in a benign way, I suppose, to address the visual reconstruction, I use that word intentionally because I don't think that I would mandate that they use the old materials. It might come up with a facsimile, which works just fine and is much kinder to the old bones of the building. So that's where I'm going. That's where I'm going with this, is that let's get the demolition OK, keep the sidewalk safe, but let's put a kicker in there so that we don't find ourselves in 2025 going like, huh, whatever happened to those chimneys. So that's my thinking. We lost the screen here. It's been on so long, it probably got warm and rebooted. There we go. Yep. It's old. I tend to agree with what Kevin just said. Any other thoughts from the board? I would ask Tim what he thinks as well. Tim, what are your thoughts on our board comments so far? I haven't heard anything I disagree with. It seems reasonable. The two-year window with an option for a third certainly is in line with what I'm thinking, so I'd love to do it sooner. It's nothing that will pay to have it drag out for us. We'd rather just do it. One question. Do you have any sort of additional information as far as where you're at with the engineer you've worked with or whatnot? I know that you've probably got some draft plans of what reconstruction might look like and whatnot. Do you have anything to share at this point? No. I mean, I've talked to the engineers about what's there and how to redo it. They initially talked about was there a way to stabilize it and save those. And it just really wasn't a satisfactory option. So it's like everybody I talk to seems to have a different version of what they suggest or how to do it. At the last hearing, somebody said, oh, at least nobody's talking about a Z-brick. And I said, somebody actually suggested that. And it's not something we want to do. Although the concept, I mean, if you look at options we're thinking about, I know on the new transit center building, that has a brick facade on it. But I believe those bricks are a thinner, like a 3 quarter inch brick. And so they're real brick, but yet there's a lot less weight. So possibly a system that could be constructed that would stay up there, stand up to the winds that barrel down State Street and still have that historic element is an option we're talking about. But I don't have a picture of it for you yet. Yeah. Yeah, I think, Tim, part of the issues that for the demolition of even part of a historic structure, the burden's on the applicant to provide enough documentation to let the board approve it. And so that's like if you had even anything in writing from your engineers that you've worked with, even if it's just an email, you could even forward it to me. And I could then send it out to all the DRB members while we're here, anything like that, talking about how it's not really feasible to repair what's there. I don't know if you have anything like that, that the repair isn't feasible, that you really need to tear it down and build something different that looks the same. I don't know if you have anything in writing like that. I don't. We really jumped right. Meredith and Rob, this is Michael. Yeah. I'm curious why can't we just pin the design review board binding to this showing of need from the applicant and then move forward with this two to three year time frame. I feel like if the historic preservation experts are good with it, I'm just sensing the internet room here, but it feels like we're good with it. And I feel like the workaround is this two to three year window, and we just pin this proof of evidence to the design review board. Yeah. The board has the option to do that. I was just digging to make sure that Tim didn't have something else to add to the record. Yeah, we jumped right to solutions. And I didn't write it, so I'm sorry. But I can get it for you, but I can't send it tonight. From what I'm gathering from what information in the record and whatnot, I think there is a public safety issue here, and that's first and foremost. And I think that the board can deliberate on the exact path forward, but we've got the information we need to come up with that path, sort of in line with what we discussed here. So unless anyone has anything to add, I'm going to entertain a motion. Hold on, let me just double check that there's not something else you need to discuss. Well, we can make the motion and then open the discussion. So I'll make that motion to close the public hearing and take this up later this evening in deliberative session. Is there a second? I'll second that. Second from Joe. Is there any discussion? No, I went through the staff report, we're good. OK. So I will call the roll on whether to close the public hearing and take this up in deliberative session at the end of tonight's public meeting. Kevin, how do you vote? Yes. Michael? Yes. Yes. Joe? Yes. Abby? Yes. Catherine? Yes. Claire? Yes. The motion, oh, and Rob votes yes. The motion is approved and we will take this matter up in the deliberative session at the close of this public meeting. Oh, we already did that. You can't close the public meeting until I send out the actual invite, sorry. Yeah. So our next meeting will be on November 15th. Yep, and we do have an application that we will be meeting. As long as everybody knows that they're going to get an email from me with the link, we can do that in a few minutes. Well, thank you, Tim. Best of luck with the rest of the project. And I think that I will entertain a motion to close this public meeting and enter into a deliberative session. So moved. We just have other business. I don't know. Is there any? No, we don't. Other meeting, November 15th, adjournment, we're good. OK, we're good. I'll second that. OK, we guys, we have to vote on this. Kevin, how do you vote? Yes. Michael, how do you vote? Yes. Joe. Yes. Abby. Yes. Catherine. Yes. Claire. Yes.