 Okay, welcome to the May 17, 2021 meeting of the Montpelier Design and Review Committee. I will let staff and members introduce themselves by speaking their names. Martha Smirsky, Member. Eric Yolbertson, Member. Ms. Pritchett, Member. Steve Everett, Member. Ben's still there. He's showing us there, but I'm not hearing him. Ben, you're muted. Benjamin Cine, Member. Okay. Meredith Crandall Staff. Tammy Burry, Recording Secretary. Okay, welcome everyone and Meredith, would you like to explain the remote meeting procedures? Yes, I have to admit this is one thing I'm going to be glad when I don't have to do all the time. All right, so I'm sharing this screen. This is mostly for people who are new to the way we do this and for those watching from home. All right, so for anybody watching from home on Orca Media, you can participate by using the Zoom link here or calling in to this phone number and using the meeting ID. Zoom link, of course, should be able to see all the video, but either way, you can participate in the meeting if you decide that there's an application or discussion going on that you want to take part in. If anyone is having problems getting into the meeting, you can email me at this email address down here at the bottom. Now, for those who are already in the meeting, if you're having problems, please use the chat function in Zoom for any technical difficulties. And I will, that's the best way to deal with that if at all possible. The Zoom meeting is being recorded as well as streamed live via Orca Media. Turning on your video is optional. All public testimony will be taken verbally. And if the chat function is used, it'll be added to the public record. Please keep your microphone on mute when you're not speaking. This reduces background noise. For those participating by phone, you can use star six to mute yourself or unmute yourself. And that way, those of us here on Zoom can actually see what's going on. If you're interested in speaking on a particular matter that isn't the matter that we know you're on here for tonight, like applicants, we know you're on for your matter, but you can also talk on other things. And if you want to speak on those matters, please raise your hand either physically or by using the raise hand button on your toolbar. If you're on the phone, you can press star nine and that will raise a little image of a hand so that we'll know you want to speak. If none of those options seem to be working for you, please feel free to state your name and a pause. Once the chair has recognized you to participate, then please unmute your microphone. Confirm that you can be heard. And if you aren't an applicant for that item, provide your full name and address for the record. And we ask that any public comments be limited to two minutes. If there are public comments, there'll be some back and forth and discussion. And then the chair might move on to somebody else. In the event that I get emails that the public is unable to access this meeting, it will be continued to a time and place certain. If you're having connectivity issues, try turning off your video or closing other applications on your phone or computer. If anyone is having problems in this, the share screen or if anybody from home wants to follow along, you can download our all the meeting attachments on this page. Note that all votes taken during this meeting that are not unanimous will be done by roll call vote. I'll now hand the meeting back over to the chair. Okay. Unless anybody has anything to add at this point, do I hear a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Eric. This is Martha. I second it. All in favor of the agenda, speak your names. Martha. Lance. Eric. And Steve. So we can move forward with the first application for 147 Main Street. This is an application for a sign at the Inn and Montpelier and the social restaurant. Is there the applicant here to explain their application? Yes. This is Michael Drake. Good evening, everybody. Good evening. So I've had them participated in one of these before with the city, so you just let me know what specifics you'd like me to detail or just provide a refill review. Could just give us a thumbnail summary of your sign. We can see the picture of it. Just give us an idea of the materials and the details. Of course. So as context, the inn going back 20 years had a full service restaurant on site. One of the pictures I provided to Audra was a fine dining sign that home underneath the Inn and Montpelier sign through that time, which would have been approved and had since been removed over the last 20 years while there wasn't a public dining option available at the Inn. You know, we would like to maintain the social sign, which is a similar size to that old public dining sign below the Inn sign. It is a polyacrylic board with the social logo and emblem effects onto it. It is white plastic. The dimensions you all have right there. One thing I re discussed with Audra was adjusting the lights, which are raised an angle that might be a bit blinding. So we're going to rotate those lines and those lights to point in more toward the building versus the street. That's probably all I should say at this point. Please let me know if you want me to share the application materials at any point. Audra, is there any way to see the lettering below the social? It's sort of faded out in our representation. Yeah, I don't have another copy. Michael, do you have something else? I'm trying to... Just let us know what it says. We can't have been reading. It says, yes, of course. It says the social and it says food, ampersand, drink, Montpelier, Vermont. If anybody goes to the social's website, which is thesocialbt.com, it is that exact social logo and emblem just effects on a printed material. Okay, thank you. Michael, what is the material used for the Inn at Montpelier sign? It is wood. Was there a reason that an acrylic was chosen for this addition? It's a lighter weight material. We didn't have to modify the post or rest of the sign anyway. It seemed complimentary with the color scheme. So that's it, no other purpose. Had you thought about continuing with wood? We had. We decided to go with the polyacrylic. Because of the weight? Yes, ma'am. That's certainly one of the considerations. Is that a polyacrylic special material for signs? Yes, it's a hard plastic used across the industry for signs. Who's making the sign? We had a boutique online sign maker make it. So it's a special material made specifically for signs? Correct. Probably similar to the sign foam that's been used in a number of signs that make it more weather resistant as well. Yes, sir. We expect a long life out of it. I'm wondering two questions. One of which is, do you intend to do anything to the top of those posts? Or are they going to be left just kind of, they look unfinished at the moment to me? Are they going to get... Those are the signs. We have not touched those signs in any way. Those are the signs that have been there for my understanding probably 1988 or prior. I'm open to suggestions on there, but that's not something we've planned to do. And I imagine that would require additional approval by this committee to do so. The earlier picture of the sign shows a more detailed cap on top of the post. Is that, are they gone or is that still there? Those have not been anywhere on the property since we took it over. I think we could approve the opportunity to put caps back on there at this meeting. To me, it just feels pretty unfinished the way it is right now. And I guess my other question is, and maybe you said this and I missed it and I apologize. Are you running two separate businesses, meaning the social and the anima pillar? Or is it one business? So it's technically one corporate entity. We just decided because the social as a larger restaurant with its own particular type of food style and cuisine and people going there just for the dining separate from staying at the end that we were best served by having two names. So everything's registered with the state, with all the appropriate bodies that there are two DBAs doing business as under, you know, as part of the corporate entity, which is endeavors incorporated. But it is one technically one corporate business that maintains both of the doing business as names. As far as the posts go, we could give as we could give a recommendation that the top of those posts be capped. Certainly have to comply on that. And a style similar to what was on the, there was a picture of the previous sign and it shows caps on both of those posts. And if those posts are standard size, either four by four, six by six looks like it's at least a six by six. You can get caps that merely attach to the top of the post and any number of details. Sounds great. We will hunt those down and apply the Montpelier and green color scheme to them. And yeah, no problem. We will match the old photos. Okay. Great. I think it'll make it look very nice. Agreed. I mean, that whole building is such a classy building. It's just, it's beautiful that it's been, it's retaining all of its character. Yes, we do love it. I'm super excited that you purchased it and seeing people out on the porch is really fantastic. It's been really just incredible to drive by. In the past, prior to your owning it, I feel like whoever had the light bulbs in it, they were really like jarring the way on the porch and just inside the door. I don't know if that, and that's more of a winter thing that it is now, but it was something every time I drove by, I was like, ah, maybe there's a different kind of shade of light bulb that could be inside those fixtures that didn't feel as jarring. Yeah, we've been switching to, you know, there have been some bumps that went out like on the backside of the porch and we've switched to warmer lighting. You're right. The difference between industrial style lighting that's kind of colder and harsher and a kind of more natural light. Yep. That's great. Thank you. That's been on my mind as like something, every time I drive by it, I've been like, ah, it could be so awesome. It's so awesome. So we're super excited for the work you're doing there. Thank you. Thank you. I agree. It's wonderful to have that building used again and looking forward to having a meal there. So another supporter. Wonderful. Please do. We are thrilled with the support of the community so far. So we're happy to have the in breathing life again, the community and being able to be used by so many people. So that that was the goal. Do any committee members have any other comments, questions or suggestions? No, Eric, don't. Okay. Steve, hold on one second because we had somebody come in partway through. I just want to make sure I know what through their on force. Mr. Higgins, can you let me know what application you're on to hear about tonight? You'll need to unmute yourself. Yes. The Matt Lewis. Oh, okay. So that's that is the this this hearing right now is the design review committee. Mr. Lewis's continued application doesn't start until seven o'clock and that's the development review board. Okay, I'll come back in then. Okay, I'll see you then. Bye. Bye. Thank you. Nobody else has anything to add at this point. We can go through the criteria for science in the design control overlay district. Criteria number one, the size, location, design, color, texture, lighting and material of all exterior signs within the design review overlay district shall be compatible with the building and structure of the site and surrounding properties. That's acceptable. Where appropriate, signing shall respect the original sign placement and sign bands on historic structures. This ground sign has been there before and it is appropriate at this location. If a building has multiple tennis, in this case, it does not apply even though they're two separate names, but it's the same business. So I'll just call that actually I'll just call it acceptable. Sign design, color and typography shall respect historic precedence where appropriate and shall be the appropriate scale for existing and new buildings. Again, this sign is replicating the sign that was there before and is acceptable. And again, the recommendation is that the tops of the two sign posts will be capped to duplicate the detail on the previous sign posts. And do I hear if all in favor of the applications speak your names? Eric. Steve. So the application is passed. And Meredith, do you want to describe the next step? Yes. So, Michael, we'll get the form that Eric just or sorry, Steve, just one man through signed off on. There is an optional change in there. So what we'll do is we'll send you a copy of that for you to sign off on that you agree with that option. And then because trying to remember, you're not changing any lights, I don't think we had to do any administrative site plan for this. So then once we get that back from you, we should be issuing that permit in the day or two depending on how we're who's here to actually issue it. Perfect. Imagine expect that via email. Yes. Yeah, we'll do it a lot faster. Wonderful. Well, thank you very much, everybody. I do apologize for seemingly having put the cart before the horse here. I thought I was going through all the right processes, but seems like we missed one or two with COVID and everything. So thank you for the consideration. And I do hope to meet all of you over the coming months now that with everyone's diligence that COVID seems to be on the downtrend every month. So thank you, Michael. Good luck. Thank you very much. Good luck with your project and with the success of your business. All right. Thank you. Everyone have a good evening. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We can go next. I guess there's a four informal review of 101 Northfield Street. It's a pre-application proposal. Is someone here to describe the application for Northfield Street? Yes. Paul O'Leary from O'Leary Brook Civil Associates is here, along with Joel Page from Scott and Partners who will likely do most of the talking. And the owner, Rick Bove, is online with us today. Okay. Go ahead and describe your project. So I'll start. So we're looking at the former Brown Derby parcel next to the Conor Lodge. I'm sure most folks are well familiar with the property. And Mr. Bove has an option to buy the Brown Derby parcel. And we're just starting the permit process. And we would like to share our concepts to see what you have for comments. What we are proposing and what we sent to you is a 42-unit market rate housing building. Appears to be four stories from the roadway, three stories from the back. Surface parking at a ratio of about 1.41. And a number of different amenities within the building. And I will kick it over to Joel Page, who can describe the building and the architectural design and its features in much better detail than I can. Thanks, Paul. Good evening, everybody. Liz, good to see you. I haven't seen you in a long time. Nice to see you, Joel. I hope everyone is doing well. I don't know what you've seen to date for drawings. Have you seen anything? Shared it amongst anybody? Because I can pull up the screen to sort of walk through the project, if that's desirable? That would be very helpful. I was not able to print out any of your schemes. So it would really be helpful to me. Sure. I'll bring that up. Joel, I shared what you shared with the neighborhood meeting. So they have had it, but like Mark said, sometimes they aren't able to print them out and it's good to be able to look at things. Sure. I'm going to walk everybody right through it. Let me get my screen. So yeah, the big picture. I'm going to orient you on this site, sort of schematic site plan. Everything right now is very schematic, but the general concept of what we're trying to do is in these drawings. Here's Northfield Street. So Pealier is down this way. This is the wing of the existing Econolodge. And this is the Brown Derby site. This is the road you want to take to get up to national life and continue this way down to Northfield. As Paul mentioned, it's 42 unit building. Three stories at this elevation, four stories at the lower elevation. It's a sloping contoured site. It starts kind of up here where there's a berm of cedar trees and works its way downhill to the street. So we're taking advantage of the grade to fit the basement first floor, so to speak, into the landscape. Mix of two bedroom and one bedroom apartments with a couple of efficiencies mixed in. The intent, the big picture intent of the building is to try to maximize the site for some green spaces that can be used by the residents also to sort of keep the building back away from the road and have some planting. So the size of the building is a little bit less obvious when you're driving up the road. We will try our best to maximize solar gain on the roof so we can put solar panels there. Also heating and cooling will be pretty much what is the more contemporary well-insulated buildings are doing now which is using duckless mini-split heat pumps for heating and cooling with a backup electrical baseboard heat for supplemental heating and a full ERV fresh air make-up air system. Kind of going into the floor plans just generally. This would be the second well start down at the lowest level which is what you would see sort of at the same streetscape height. The back end of the building has various amenities, laundry, lots of tenant storage, mechanical rooms, elevator, machine room, elevator in the building allows full access to the building by everybody, dog wash and little fitness center. Up at the second story the parking is out at this end fully ADA entrance. You know the usual amenities at the big entry into a building mailbox is no business center and then vertical access to the floors above. There are various community spaces within the building that can be used by the tenants on each floor and the idea is to try to break the building up. We have some nice daylight that will come through this area here sort of a shaft also daylight at the end of the quarters which sort of draws you in as you go on the building will be fully sprinkled. Our energy efficiency goals are to achieve the maximum we can given our budget trying to meet the efficiency Vermont high performance goals and then each floor sort of mirrors itself on the way up again these central corridor amenities spaces and daylight quarters happen throughout the building on each floor. View-wise these are sort of perspectives. This would be coming from Northfield down the hill. You can see the economy to the background trying to reduce the height of the building by having a more flat roof so to speak also a bit of a parapet to hide any of the amenities on the roof as best we can and the nice thing about flat roofs is we can manage store water on the site which makes Paul happy. Another view coming from Montpelier playing with different sidings we're looking at trying to use durable sidings that will reduce the amount of maintenance that Rick has to do over the life of the building trying to break up the scale a bit as we can with materials and with the undulation of the outside form of the building. Again some more perspectives kind of getting a feel for this is the backside parking lot side of the building and then a bigger picture here of sort of the site as a whole coming up North Street Northfield here Montpelier here the lovely Econolodge church and then some of the neighboring houses with a tree separation trying to reduce some of the through adjacencies between the spaces. The interesting thing is because of the sloping of the land these folks basically looking at the top level of the building and not down below so scale-wise we're hoping it will blend in relatively well considering its size and then just general elevations of the building. So that's sort of the big picture you can get an idea from here you know this is the undulation of the site across section through it street side parking lot side so we've had a lot of fun Montpelier does need housing and this is a great opportunity to provide some for the city would love to answer any questions you've mentioned your problem still that the parking is all street level it's all it's behind in here okay so yeah it's go back to this so it's here's the street which is probably I don't know 20 feet below parking up here so I don't know if you're familiar but with the street you know right now there's an existing curb cut here that used to be part of the Brown Derby there's a parking lot above it yes I used to live at the condo's first green association over here so I'm pretty familiar with the area so that still exists we're going to be enlarging it or improving it and and that will contain stormwater management and other amenities that we need to make it work on the okay thank you Meredith this is a gateway are there any special pieces of the regs we need to deal with the deal with gateways no this this one I mean there's nothing special for this zoning district the zoning district is mixed use residential it's not one of the zoning districts with its own design or architectural standards um and I don't think we have anything I don't have anything for that and the design review regs either um because even though it's a even though it is that north field street is a gateway I don't think our regs have anything for this particular drive-in no it would be a gateway drug I just have a couple of quick questions number one is there any provision for outside space either from within the units using a french balcony or some similar something similar or is there any outside are there any outside decks patios to allow people to be outside and in the fresh air we explored different options of that kind of approach but there it's challenging to implement on a building of this size so generally our approach is is we will provide outside amenities around the building and there's easy access so you can walk to the park that's behind national life and I know that you know back up this way there's some nice walking loops as well so that's kind of the approach to taking it's very nice to be able to have some exposure to the outside either certainly during the warmer months and then occasionally even in the colder months when there's a pleasant day and you get a warmer day with a lot of sun it's very nice to be able to to go easily outside and not have to wade through snow maybe one thing I've done another project is there wasn't so much of an outside thing but we had a french door and you could open it but you have a barrier like a guardrail yes that door so you can get that feel for outside the challenge to you know with decks and anything like that is one is a long-term maintenance that we're always want to be cognizant of and two you know if you're on the top deck you're doing pretty good but if you're down below and we don't have to do a good job waterproofing and managing that you get the wet ick from everybody above you so it's a something we have to keep in mind I didn't agree with saying if you want to make the building attractive for market rate which is keeps climbing if you want to make it attractive for market rate I wouldn't look at anything myself that didn't have something on the outside either a deck or a french balcony or something so I could open up to the outside on a nice day no I can't disagree it's good good points I also completely agree with Steve I also wonder a little bit about whether there was some sort of whether the the way the windows worked whether they were sort of sliders that accordion to open to create a bigger sort of opening at least in yeah no yeah right now we're because we have cooling in the building because we will have it these are we're looking at awning pike windows we could look at the I would typically the danger with sliders is long-term performance from past experience and then casements the danger with casements is they don't hold up over time so trying to find the right balance of window window type and durability as as as a challenge sure I also was thinking more the accordion kind of by fold window and I do think that there have been some significant leaps forward in window world in recent years I like the euro tilt turn time it's it's interesting that in France and Italy they managed to do french balconies and they still have the original doors that are 200 years old it was good wood back then no your points are well taken the one thing I one thing I think we need to discuss and this building is considerably larger than anything else in the neighborhood other than the national life building which is not really in the neighborhood with this it's it's a big building in a neighborhood of single family houses could you talk about your thinking I'm not sure how I feel about it as a gateway that way but could you kind of discuss your thinking sure um well the scale of the building we have to meet the market requirements for buildability so that that it causes the number of apartments the other part of it that we were we scale was significant in our thinking but and one nice aspect of this location is is that pretty much everybody there's no houses that are in direct view here on this side of the road the first one is Steve's house it's over here so this you we're not directly impacting the the immediate neighbors on this side and because of the scale of the terrain here we're hoping that we will have minimal impact on the neighbors on this side the church folks actually were quite supportive of this idea they stopped by our public gathering the other day there are more concerned about traffic and when we explained that we have this existing curb cut here and then eventually if this project continues we may eventually have another look at another curb cut down here which will then become the main access to the site reducing traffic up in this area so yeah scale is important it's hard to take a four-story building and make it too small so we try to break up the feel of it with the with trying to use different materials and different proportions the challenge will be in my pillar if we want to have affordable housing or marqueray housing or more apartments they will be of a scale like this because in general most apartment buildings seem to be in the 25 to 40 range to make it affordable for folks to build depending on where they're building in the lot size you're you mentioned a connollage is that part of your plans in the future to do something similar there if if everything worked out and and I'd rather would have rick speak on this but if if everything worked out in the future that would be an option that we would be interested in yes one thing you can do to minimize the visual impact of a building that size is very careful selection of color schemes yes looking at your original drawings that would definitely tone down the orange oh come on yeah I agree I mean yes these are first preliminary one of the one one of the recommendations in the cityscape plans that have been around my pillar for the last 40 years and highly recommending using earth tone colors basically softening the colors depending on the scale of the project can't complain with that no good idea so again color color is part of the design and it's an important part of the criteria may have said but I didn't fully get it what the materiality of the the siding is is it a cement board or is it some sort of composite yeah it would be something durable we probably were we could head in the the direction of cement board the lower tier this area along here we're looking at some sort of mason rings sort of to help ground the building yet to provide a durable sort of base to it I play a lot often with metal siding which can sound a little industrial but if it's done right I think it can be interesting and and have a nice feel to it but right now we haven't fully nailed down the direction of the siding but it'll probably for costs will end up being some sort of fiber cement product panels and lap siding and other options and when you say metal you're you're talking more like the kind of ribbed metal roofing or yeah yeah but yes but they make specific siding as opposed to roofing similar you know kind of texture kind of product idea sure I was just looking to get in the right family yeah yeah could you chat a little bit about the plantings how big they're going to get I have no idea so the idea would be probably at some point we'll have a landscape architect come on so plantings you know typically we'll start out as a one or two inch caliber scale because it's what is affordable and then they will be selected to grow to a certain height and I think you know depending on what the intent of the ultimate landscaping will be it'll be I really don't know other than that you know depending it'll depend on the tree species and the plant selection so ideally we want to have trees that will grow to a you know 30 feet high or 25 to 35 feet high in significant locations so that they become view blocks as well as shading devices and then institute or bring in you know landscaping of different sizes of bushes and trees to help fill the bigger gaps in and to create some visual interest the total height of the building on the five-story side 45 feet I think is our maximum height yeah I would hope that the landscaping would be designed to screen so to make the building a pair smaller yes yeah and you would I think you'll find over time let me go back to that that the building will you know will get the landscaping to grow the building will start to blend in and it will become a building that you get used to like much like the other buildings that you go by every day I share Eric's concern about the size I grew up in that neighborhood and it just seems mammoth in compared to what else is around there I understand however that we need housing in Montpelier you said that there was a sort of a cost point in building something like this that it's not cost effective to do anything under 25 to 40 units had there been any thought of doing something more around 25 or 30 units I'll let Rick jump in on that one if he is available no Rick you'll need to unmute I think if you want to speak on that one it shows that he's here okay oh yeah so I don't have those those the numbers that we could go down to this this is the sweet spot we did look at just sort of to run back to the building itself looking at taking the building and creating multiple buildings on the site but it's sites not it's big but it's not that big you know so it's challenging to you know we could create two buildings I don't know if we're gonna gain anything that way and then economy of building is easier when it's one building than multiple buildings so it becomes a cost benefit game to play one comment I do have is it seems difficult to approach as a pedestrian if I am walking from Montpelier and I want to get into that building I realize the sidewalk is on the other side of the street I would imagine there would be some considerations made to move the crosswalk but it feels as though the way it's landscaped and I can't quite see the entrance on the lower side but to have to walk all the way past the building uphill and turn around versus having that path that you were just on somehow connecting a little closer to the road and just sort of sure that could easily happen this is the entrance at the lower level yeah is there is there an image of that that you could show sure right here yeah so right now we were we had a call earlier today the technical review folks and the discussion of I think there is potentially a plan for a sidewalk on that side of the road at some point so that's in our discussions I don't know where we'll head yeah even just gesturally making it feel more human scale and more pedestrian friendly and more sort of like neighborhood that there is like it's not just something you drive by and I like that all the parking is behind it and so it feels like a real should be a real opportunity to be a gesture to the street to the pedestrian some sort of welcoming sort of architectural feature pathway entrance awning type pergola thing I don't know but a strong human scaled gesture I think would be really nice on the street side not just like a door sure well there could be a so we have some seating here which is kind of hard to see in that drawing but it could be something more than that you know and and more of a direct access we wanted to have that to the sidewalk if it ever happened sure I think having having some shoulders seating would be nice I assume the bus is going to run by there since it since it goes up to national life we would we would encourage that hopefully we can create a bus stop love bicycle parking as well and by storage in the building which would be nice I've been working with another company and they provide electric bikes for their employees to use which is kind of fun what is the walkway leading to the lower right um and brown what is that there it's notional it's a community garden or some sort of garden area that's nice trying to bring you know we're this very conceptual but trying to create some wildlife or butterfly garden flower gardens yeah community you know so tenants have a have a place to go they can have a garden space but also you know it has a visual interest for folks going by on the road nice yeah you have some benches around the city scattered around I think yeah yeah one one thought was to try to have like a little meditative walkway path I don't know how practical that is but there's some seating here which could be a view into the garden it could also be a view out across the roadway and I don't think we can see into town from here but no okay thank you what what is the exact direction that the front of this building faces it faces sort of east so it's parallel basically with Norfield street which pretty much runs north south I'm still concerned about the size of the building in this neighborhood and the precedent it might set for other projects in this particular location I don't have a huge problem with it but part of you know our design review standards talk about compatibility with the neighborhood and it's pretty hard to see how this fits in the neighborhood I also realize that that you know cuts out any kind of an apartment building or on the site so right you hit your head on the nail I mean it's part of a bigger discussion you know to bring housing into cities or areas especially you know more smaller scale villages or towns like Montpelier it's a challenge you three four-story buildings of any size there's limited lot locations for them we there are of a scale that will be a bit different than what is typical unless you're sort of building up around by the college so it it's a challenge if this was an historic neighborhood I would have a real problem with it yeah it wouldn't look like this it's a historic neighborhood yes totally agree Eric I'm not certain how we define neighborhood because if I was to think about all the condominiums that are not too far from this thing that doesn't feel radically different to me and I appreciate this as a as a building a little bit more than these long rows of condos that are not very far from here right first grief condo association and those up on that air hillside can I maybe help a little bit and just read what we have in the regs for scale and massing for projects that don't involve historic buildings for new development would that be helpful yes yes yes please what we've got is the scale and massing of new buildings shall be compatible with surrounding structures and there's a sub point compatible scale and massing can be achieved by incorporating a variety of shapes or materials such as columns windows and their placement doorways roof segments and wall patterns so it doesn't necessarily say that it has to be the same size as the nearby buildings right the surrounding structures and that's that's what we have for scale and massing for new development so we'll do we can do a deep dive into it I think because this will be the first time we've reviewed a brand new structure under these new design review regs and so these these will all be in the DRC recommendation forms and we'll make sure to circulate that ahead of any official review of an application okay thank you Meredith you're welcome any other comments questions suggestions from the committee members I'm excited to see this lot have something really happened on it so I appreciate the effort that you put towards this and I think I understand the complexities of building buildings and the efficiencies gained by sort of grouping it all together and I think you've made a nice effort towards creating something that would work and I have high hopes for something that is well built with beautiful materials that lasts a long time with real strong efforts towards making it pedestrian friendly and and like those outdoor spaces feel not just token but actually usable and used and I also take Steve's point that if I was to rent anything in a market rate place I would want my own personal access to the outside thank you I reiterate that as well I think it's much more attractive if there is available outside space whether it's a deck or a French balcony or something that allows you to feel like you you can be more directly connected to the outside environment without having to go to a community deck or patio or I mean if you get 42 units in there and you're anywhere between 60 and 100 people in there if everybody wants to be outside at the same time it gets can be a little crowded and and the other thing again to minimize impact I think color choices are very important very important for building this size sure no I agree that that makes a huge difference if you look at some of the better projects that have been built in Burlington uh Stowe and other places color and material choices have been huge as far as how successful a building has been let me um I just pulled up an option we worked on Rick will probably shoot me for bringing it up um but just from a we were concerned about scale on the area on this side toward the church and one thought we had was we could take an apartment off one end and put a roof terrace it could be shared by folks on it um it would reduce the scale on the streets this end of the building um but there was a different approach we were looking at as an idea I don't know if that would solve everybody's vision of outside space and an apartment but it would be a nice amenity I would strongly encourage that I think that that's a really nice feature I think that we don't use roofs enough and I think that as a tenant in that building I would be inclined to spend time up there I think it does bring the scale down as much as I can see in your current rendering but I can imagine it doing that and I think that you would breathe some life to the exterior of the building that um I think would be uh I that would be a very welcome addition from my standpoint I think the paint colors that you choose uh and the materials for the siding and things that has a lot that will have a lot to do with uh its impression as a large building and uh so anything you can do to reduce that appearance of a large building would be very helpful that's why I mentioned the landscaping and uh colors really make a difference I think those subdued earth stone colors that don't jump out at you would be much better okay sure yeah earth stone colors make it blend in with its natural environment much better yeah how about a little pop of color once in a while here right there either is a trim or an accent possibly but maybe not large panels of it on siding or or entry you know like the entry doors perhaps yeah yeah or umbrellas on the rooftop terrace with the martini right perfect does the applicant have any other questions or anything that like they had at this point uh no I appreciate the feedback it's very helpful this is the first time we've sort of brought this out of the closet so it's great to hear what people have to say and um we will take it into account and in our next iterations of this we appreciate your coming before us preliminarily to take a look at some of the feedback and some and again what we the feedback we're trying to give is based on criteria that set up for us to evaluate a project in the district we logged in on a Samsung a Samsung SMG950U could whoever that is let me know who it is has somebody signed in on two different computers right now the zoom ghost I got they're not muted so okay then we can move forward so anyway good luck and in your design work and we look forward to seeing more more more in your proposal and it's it's nice to see something that'll replace the old brown derby which was there and had its own special character it certainly did thanks again and look forward to seeing you both again sometime soon thank you appreciate the feedback have a good night thank you very much Rick I don't know if you remember me this is Eric Gilbertson but hi if no one has anything else at this point we can move forward has everyone had a chance to look at the minutes and do I hear any suggestions or changes this is Martha and I have no changes looks good to me if there are no suggested changes do I hear a motion to approve the minutes I'll move to approve the minutes I will second all in favor of the minutes approving the minutes speak your names Martha hi and Steve so the minutes are approved does anyone have any other business so just a note about summer schedule unless somebody has something else to add okay so this is especially for the DRC members because the their annual calendar went out in January but it said that our first July meeting would be Monday July 5th turns out because July 4th is on a Sunday City Hall is closed on the July 5th that is our required holiday so the first July meeting will be Tuesday July 6th um and then we're actually going to be canceling the first August meetings that would be August 2nd so that I can get a vacation in now our agenda says the next meeting is July the 7th no it says June 7th June 7th I'm saying not July June 7th is our next meeting yes next meeting June is fine just July and August that I was telling you July so July is the 6th yeah July is okay you did July 6th okay I just want to give everybody a heads up early and we'll we'll follow up with an email so you have it in writing too okay thanks Meredith thank you if anyone has nothing else to add at this point do I hear a motion to adjourn I'll move to adjourn so good what all in favor of adjournments speak your names Martha yeah Steve so meeting is adjourned thank you all and have a nice evening thank you thank you take care of you thank you bye have a good night