 I'd like to call this October 3rd meeting of the Montpelier DRB to order. Introduce the members here starting on my right. Joe Kiernan. Seven O'Connell. Rob Goodwin. Three of us here are in the chambers and on the zoom platform we have Jean Leon. Can you hear me? Yes. Yep. And then Catherine Burgess and Sharon Allen. Sharon Allen vice chair. Hi. Alrighty. Thank you. Meredith. Yeah, we do have some changes tonight for how we're doing this, but so I'll turn it right over to you. Okay. So let me. Okay. Well, Catherine just got on. So I'll make sure she's aware. We've got a little technical issues going on. It's not really going to affect those remotely. I'm remote because I had some issues with my work laptop. So I had to be down here on my PC. But otherwise things are going to be kind of back to just still the normal hybrid meeting. So for everybody on the workup, I'm going to share my screen here. And can you guys see the presentation? Yes. Because since I can't look at the big screen anywhere. So for those of you who might be viewing tonight's development review board meeting via Orca media, you can participate via the zoom platform through either the video option here. So you can just type that link right into your web browser. You can call into this phone number and put in this meeting ID. And if you do that, you'll be able to ask questions, raise comments and discuss tonight's application. If anyone is having problems accessing the meeting, please email me at mcrandle at Montpelier hyphen vt.org. I'll be monitoring my email throughout tonight's meeting. Let's see, everybody on right now is on is a board member. Just a reminder for anybody who does log on via Orca turning on your video is optional. And please everybody keep your microphone on mute. When you are not speaking this will reduce background noise. This is mostly for people on via zoom, not those members in chambers on microphones. Okay. I'm going to just pass this back over to the chair tonight. I have a reminder. And this is for, for Sandy to in the event that I get comments and, and from the public and they aren't able to access the meeting, then we'll need to consider continue tonight's hearing to a time and place certain. Okay, I'm going to hand this back over to Rob. Right. Thank you, Meredith. We have a motion to approve the agenda for tonight's meeting. So moved. Motion by Joe. Second. Second by Kevin. I'm all those in favor. Joe. Hi. Hi. See Sharon. Hi, Catherine. Hi. And Jean. Okay. Rob myself was, yes, we have an agenda for tonight's meeting. Yeah, you'll notice there's a few more people on the zoom platform right now. So we have an agenda for tonight's meeting. We have an agenda for tonight's evening. Elevated level of a sickness at city hall, I guess. And so we opted to. At least. Some people opted to. You know, not come in. But we do have three individuals here in the, in the room. And with that, we will. Welcome our guests of the evening with our first order of business. We have a motion to approve. The minutes. Do we have enough people to approve the minutes from the 19th? Yeah. Yep. Anyone have any changes or motion on the minutes? Motion to approve. Seconded. Motion by Kevin second by Joe. Joe. How do you vote? Yes. Kevin. Yes. Sharon. Yes. Catherine. Yes. Jean. Yes. Yes. But Rob votes. Yes. Minutes are approved for September 19th. Okay. So the only out case we have this evening is for. 138 main street. And this is a review to request. Demolish fortune D's on a historic building. And we have a Sandra here in the room this evening. Sandra, would you just briefly introduce yourself? Okay. Oh, you're going to have to make sure you're speaking right into that microphone. Nobody remotely could hear you, which means the minute kid take or can't either. Okay. I'm Sandy. Is it on? Yes. Great. Perfect. Thank you. Okay. Well, we'll turn it right over to you Sandy in a little bit, but we'll have Meredith give a brief overview of the application. Just get us up to speed and then we'll move along. Thank you, Rob. I'm going to keep this really, really brief. So this is a historic building 138 main street. It's on the national register of historic places. Because of that. And because of the language in our demolition provision that says any portion of a building that is on that register or the state register that is proposed to be demolished needs to be or be approval. There's, there's no definition of what portion means. And so I, I have to send this to the DRB. Based on my read of what portion could mean theoretically. There's really that, that's the, that's the only aspect of this that's going to DRB. That provision section 3004 is the only place where the board really needs to make any kind of determinations. And, you know, the, the. The board could try and make us finding that something like this doesn't need to be before the DRB, but I don't know if that's really logical given the language that's been in the regulation. So it really comes down to, does this proposal meet the specific criteria that are in this provision for being able to demolish a portion of a historic building. I've tried to lay out where I could with the information that Sandy was able to provide. That's, that's what's before the board, a quick little reminder. We know this provision is problematic. It's currently before the environmental court for an appeal. So, but this is still what we have to work with. Back to you Rob or Sandy. Absolutely. Thank you. Okay. So where we get going, we are going to swear you in as a witness for the tonight's meeting. Is there anyone else on to provide testimony? I do not see anybody. Okay. So all those interested in providing testimony on this application, please write your raise your right hand and be sworn in as a witness. Do you solidly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth under the panes and penalties of perjury? I do. All right. Thank you. All right. So you give the, give you the floor to give us a update on the project and where things are going. And I will say we are kind of focused mostly on the, the chimney. I know that you've presented before the design review and there's a lot more going on to it. So let's bury the, the details of everything if you don't care. Of course, no, I actually think most of it's not relevant to this discussion, except for the fact that this building is incredibly inefficient in terms of energy use. And an audit was done and it was the worst of any building the person had ever audited in over 20 years. So one of the items that needs immediate attention is insulating the highest roof on the building and there's only 32 inches of available space inside the attic at the edges. And because it's a roof, it's a flat roof with a roof drain going to the center, it's only eight inches high in the center. So in other words, a man with equipment cannot really get in there and easily insulate the attic. Our options for insulating it are very limited. We're going to use cellulose. So when I got up there, it became very apparent that the roof needs to be replaced either in kind or with a more modern, longer-lived material. In any case, the insulation is going to make it very hard to ever get back in again and do any changes. So this is kind of the moment of all our, you know, forever or just leave it alone. Change it now or forever leave it alone. Chimneys coming up through that highest roof. One is not historic. It was made whenever they added propane heat for that hot water heating. And then one is historic and a very bad repair. And two are on the west side of the building and their own decent repair. You cannot really see these chimneys from the ground. So we realized that it would be far better for the building to remove the chimneys and be able to roof over them. In other words, eliminating some of the major points of leakage potential, especially once the attic is filled with cellulose. If there were a leak, it would be very hard to detect it until there was a really big disaster. You can imagine super heavy cellulose possibly collapsing the ceiling below. So it would all have to be vacuumed out in order to make any repairs in the future. So this is a good time to remove them. One of the things that's really important in terms of energy usage is that they're not only a point of water infiltration, but a point of air exchange, cold air and draft coming into the building. So even if they're sealed up down below in the rooms, the cold air would be coming down to the point where they're sealed. In terms of energy efficiency, the state of Vermont discourages any new chimneys being built. So in fact, the state of Vermont is trying to get away from combustion. There's really no sense that these chimneys would ever be used again. So the criteria are, well, first of all, this did get approved by the DRC to remove all four chimneys. The criteria were very difficult for me to address. I hope you have the letter. But they're really designed for an entire building being removed and a property being used again for another purpose. So it's difficult for me to assess financial viability and if there are other options. Really the only thing that would need to happen if they were to stay is repointing one of the three chimneys. I'm assuming that the one that's not historic is really kind of not relevant to this discussion. But the one that needs to be repointed is in bad shape. But again, even that's really not an argument. The very important thing is the risk of damage in the future and the long-term economic consequence of not taking them down. I did an analysis for DRC. They were also reviewed by a historic preservation consultant, Alex Tolstoy. And you know this already, but the DRC has several professional historic preservation consultants and it was a unanimous decision for that. So I think, Meredith, it wasn't unanimous. I did an analysis walking from both directions along Main Street and there's only, I would say like 20 to 30 feet where the West ones are visible at all. And probably like 70 or 80 feet along walking towards downtown Montpelier from the roundabout where you can see the East chimneys. Again, the one you can see most is the one that's not historic. And you can't see the chimneys from anywhere else on the ground. Meredith did take a picture of them from the park but the above Hubbard Park. But the reality is you can see almost all of every roof from Hubbard Park. And I would say that it kind of blends in with the rest of the roofs. There's nothing making this standout as an historic important roof. From above. So just, I mean, that's just to highlight a couple of things here. So in your application, you provided a sort of a mon Montpelier historic district amendment, which serves to give the listing of the 138 Main Street property. I guess I don't I don't see chimneys being mentioned in any of the descriptions of that. Probably because they're not visible, right? Really from down the on the ground level, right? Correct. I mean, the the tower on the southwest corner that it's a like a Belvedere is is an important historic element and everything possible would be done to preserve that. Right. Yeah, right. What are the, was it wood heat or propane heat or were they multiple, multiple uses or what was right now it is oil heat with propane hot water? Okay. The oil doesn't they don't use any of the chimneys or do they as far as an exhaust? No, it's got a separate. So there's one more chimney on the middle roof and then there's the metal asbestos chimney at the very far back end of the building, which there's a plan to change that. Right. Okay. More members have any questions for Meredith or the applicant? It's mixed use has, I think eight apart, I'd say eight offices and three apartments. I mean, Meredith, is there anything more to this than us accepting the BRC recommendations? I mean, like it just seems like we've had a lot of issues. It's been discussed in appropriate venues a number of times, but. So before, before I answer that, I think Sharon had a comment or question. My only comment was that. That the impact is so small. Visually, I looked at it also, you can hardly see the chimneys. As somebody who notices a lot of details, it's not something that I would walk by and think what's wrong with that historic building. And that the increased efficiency is, you know, is. Somehow I lost you, Sharon. Yeah, your audio dropped. And anyway, I don't know the way we go. It stopped all over here. I just thought that it was, that, uh, that it was a very reasonable. Very reasonable thing for us to approve this. Based on the impact, it's such a small impact that if there were a bigger issue with, you know, some kind of historic demolition, it might be, it might be something we would want to get into a whole lot more, but this just seems very small and like it should be fine. Okay. So I think. Going back to what Rob asked me. It's what it is, it's just making sure that the board feels comfortable fitting this particular situation into the specific criteria that it's supposed to have to weigh this kind of. Of. Of question for determining the whether undue financial hardship exists. Right. And the factors that you have to consider. So I think. From what I'm hearing from people saying, we can. Fit into the, you know, the criteria being considered. It's really focusing in on. Knowledge of the properties. Historic historical significance. Clearly the owner is aware they're doing a lot of work to do rehabilitation where they can. You know, You know, You know, You know, Structural soundness of the building. So in some ways this goes, this is like a reverse rate. The chimneys could have potential. Negative consequences for the structural soundness of the building. If the chimneys are removed. Okay. And then going down a bunch of these others. Like Sandy said, maybe the board feels comfortable saying that they don't really apply in this situation. Those other criteria. You know, You know, You know, You know, There's a lot of input from the community organizations and the experts. You've had that. They're all in support. And then it comes to this weird. Determination about. You know, finding that. This is where it gets weird. The building cider object cannot be feasibly used or rented at a certain time. So I think. Yeah, or in denial of the application would deprive the owner of all reasonable use of the property. That's the. Typically the standard for. The undue financial hardship. Aspect. The board has never really. Made a decision under the. Clear and substantial benefit to the community clause that is an issue. So I think that. I think that would be something else. But if the board can rationalize it one way or the other, I'm happy to rate it. They want to. It's this is, this is a problematic provision. It's. Causes issues. I was kind of thinking that the part B. We can do. Joe, you got to move your microphone towards you. I was thinking that part B is kind of the only way we can do this with the application. So I did mission the. Fund due. Financial hardship hasn't really been explored, right? We've explored it before, but it hasn't worked out very well. That parts of the appeal. It's, it's hard to prove, I guess. So I mean. Sitting here from my point of view. Clear and substantial benefit to the community. The building will be more efficient without the chimneys as stated by the applicant. And more weatherproof as well. So I think that's pretty clear. Yeah. So I think that's pretty clear. Substantial. Sure. Yeah, I could call that substantial to have one more, more efficient historic building. And obviously the weatherproofing is. Pretty substantial benefit as well. So I think we can go with that and. And make a motion to approve this. Unless anyone objects. I'm good with that. Yeah. I definitely agree regarding community benefit, both in terms of. Yeah. Dressing climate change and example of a. Energy efficient historic building. One. Awesome. Thank you, Jean. Jean's all in favor of that. All right. Unless anyone disagrees, I can make a motion. Go ahead. I have a motion to approve demolition of the chimneys on the main street to facilitate replacement of the roof on the main building. And other energy efficiency improvements as described here in. With the following condition of approval demolition of chimneys to be completed to the 60 days of commencement, including removal of all materials and debris from the site. Second. Got a motion by Joe and a second by Sharon to approve the application as stated in his motion. Okay. Is there any discussion? Seeing none. Joe, how do you vote? Yes. Kevin. Yes. Catherine. Yes. Sharon. Yes. Jean. Yes. Yes. From Jean. Rob votes yes. That's unanimously approved. So you will hear a from Meredith in a few days. I guess 60 days here. I have a question. So. The team has been working diligently and trying to weather as the building since May. Yeah. I apologize. This didn't come before the board earlier, but I didn't even get up to the roof and see the problem until August. And we immediately submitted it as soon as we could and became aware that it was triggered triggering DRB review. We are at the end of the outside building season where adhesives will actually adhere. And we have to insulate that roof this year. So they have to come down and the roof has to be sealed over so that water doesn't leak in and it has to be insulated. Otherwise, all of this weight needs to wait until next year. So I don't know. I don't feel right asking for a special treatment. I'm not doing that. But the reality is that. By early November, I would even say some depends how, how cold it gets at nighttime. That it just can't be done pretty soon. So I think what they'll be planning to do is put a temporary. Cover over once the chimneys are down. And then they're going to have to wait until next year. And then they're going to have to go down into the roof level. I would like some direction about what to do because it's a very real problem. Are you saying that you can't. There's no way to do the complete demolition and restoration of the roof within 60 days. I think it has to be done within 60 days or asked to wait until next year. But at the end of the 60 day period, you're going to have to wait until next year and seal the roof. That's fine. That's fine. But it's so. Demolition. It's just the demolition part has to be completed in 60 days. So removal of the chimneys. And removal of the chimney debris needs to be done in 60 days. But when is the start date? Yeah. The start date will be when the permits. So, so. Officially. The permit is valid 30 days after it's issued, right? Which is. Once the written decision is. Has been. Signed and, and submitted, you know, all of that has happened. With this. The way this is drafted, the permit will get issued the same day that the written decision is signed. Or, you know, as soon as we can, if it gets signed at five o'clock, it has to wait until the next morning. Nobody has been here to participate in this hearing. No neighbors have been here to participate in this hearing. You've gotten a vote and the decision. So, you know, anything. Anything you do before all that effective date during the appeal period, all of that. That's it. The owner's risk, right? We all know that the, the, the final, you know, crossing T's dotting eyes of the approval is happening. It's not like I'm going to come out and say, Hey, you've started work. We're going to work to take this permit for the demolition of the chimneys and separate it from all your other permits. So that you get all those other permits for everything else that you're planning to do. So that's it. As soon as I can, I'm just going to talk to Audrey tomorrow morning because I wanted to wait until we found out what, how tonight was going to go. And then it's just waiting for that written decision. And I'm going to get to it as quick as I can. I've got. I really am grateful to her today and everything else is being issued as of tomorrow. Yep. And that's, I've got, I've got. I just don't like people I'm associated with working without a permit. And I completely understand that. So that's it. So that's it. So that's it. So that's it. So that's it. So that's it. So that's it. So that's it. So there's decisions of the two decisions that needed to be written before your decision. Done as of this afternoon. So I'm playing catch up as well, since we were so short staffed the last two weeks. So it's going to happen as quickly as I possibly can. Thank you very much. That's it. Other business. For this evening. Next meeting. October 17. Yes. Yes. Thank you. And there's a couple applications. One. One. All right. Perfect. I mean, it should be on the pending applications website already for anybody who wants a little preview. Yep. And you've got the attendance, I believe. I took attendance. Oh, perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Motion to adjourn. Motion by Kevin second by Joe. Joe. Yes. Kevin. Yes. Catherine. Yes. Sharon. Yep. Jean. Yes. And Rob, myself votes. Yes. Thank you all for bearing with the technical logical difficulties this evening. It worked out just fine. And you all have a good couple of weeks. Yeah. Thank you.