 The fifties, it used to be a six building lots there, but that was back then. And now I'm proposing if we could do something different. I haven't done before is to create parking in the front for all units and proposing to build six single family homes, they're about 30 by 30. And something has been done and saw burnt in a couple areas. This is something to be new, I believe, for the village, but I believe something interesting and it would be a good concept and a good for beginners, young couples with one child maybe or two. No garages. And then I did contact the railroad and they're going to willing to give me, there's a line looking at it. I don't know what side that would be. They willing to give me that dead end parcel, had no access to it, is the permanent easement. So I will pursue that. So I just wanted to get a feeling before, you know, it's go forward and spend tons of money on engineering. And I just want a blessing. So if you guys could give me a blessing, I'll move forward. And I would be in front of you for the sketch plan is what you're looking at right now. And hopefully we could have something move forward before summer is over. Robin, am I looking at something right now? Is there a plan? Can you not see it? It's coming to be coming from Gabe's side. No, let's see if we could send it to you now. I haven't seen much, but one thing I will say is, Gabe said the park would be in front of the houses. It's would be in front of the new houses. It would be behind an existing house on Maple Street. So it wouldn't be street frontage that has the parking. Oh, thanks for the correction. All right. So that's that crazy lot that. So I think the railroad tracks used to go through there, right? That is correct. Yeah, because we did a little something on off of Birch Lane, which is on the other side of Maple Street. And I had the same deal. It had a old rail spur that went through it. And I know the I know the house that used to be on the front of the street was the front of mine. And so there is a large lot back there that, you know, could do something interesting. Yes. And I thought, I'm sorry, go ahead. Well, I see it on the screen now. So thank you. And that's an interesting concept because parking and housing is, it's more of an apartment type setup where you walk to your apartment, which is fine, you know, Robin, what is the I just I see a number of hands up. So I'm going to ask Robin from the staff and the things that tell me what the zoning really says about this. And then I'm going to open it up to the floor. Did we lose Robin? No, Robin forgot to come out of mute. He certainly has the square footage. It's just a matter of hard sugars out and, you know, hard goes when you design development gets involved. You can see what we're looking at the moment. There's a house on Maple Street. There's an existing driveway. And it looks like the black dots look like vegetation. And then the parking. And then you sort of walk to it's quite similar to what Bill in the kit did. I'm not sure you're familiar with that, John, but it was actually very nice. He did have covered parking. But and is there a limit to the number of like the column units that you can have off a single driveway? Is it falling to that kind of thing? And well, no, one thing we did change the code was it said that any more than five units had to be blacktop. But we changed it to say it could be gravel. That was for the property wasn't specific to that property off Lincoln Street. Oh, can't remember the name of the property owners. So I think this will come down, you know, as it's a PUD, it'll come down to design. Yeah. So it's a PUD. I'll say that maybe some of the neighbors might have something to say about it because the units are arranged fairly close to the property edges. And I'll also say that it'll probably test our PUD language that tends to look for why this is such a great idea because it's different than what's regular and what's typical. So it's that trade off between while we're getting a little more housing and a little more density, which has been something we're looking for. But in the meantime, we've preserved some open space and we've protected the general character of the neighborhood and we have something special to offer. You are right next to Maple Street Park, but you're sort of tucked away in a location that's a little bit off the main pathways. So maybe connectivity and a way to create a real interesting and neighborly feel amongst the people that are on the parcel might be you know, something to shoot for. Right. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else on the Planning Commission have a question at the moment? And other people in the audience, Mia Watson, you've had your hand up for a long time. Are you ready? Yes, I am a member of the Essex Housing Commission and we've been trying to attend planning committee meetings when possible just to be present and aware of the discussion. I'm just here to observe, but if you have any questions about our work as it relates to planning, I'm happy to answer those questions as well. So thank you. I would be interested to know what the Housing Commission thinks about sort of these infill developments. We've had some that have been deemed successful and some that have been deemed maybe too much or not quite what everybody was thinking. My personal feeling is that housing comes in all kinds of shapes and sizes and if you build it, it'll be good for somebody, but you want to do a nice job to make sure that the community maintains respect for the development because if it's not done you know well into what we hope are minimum standards then you know they tend to not be successful or they fall into disrepair. So what does the commission have a stance on infill housing at the moment? I don't think we have a written policy about that, but generally it's been the opinion of the commission. I think most of the members that you know Essex desperately needs housing. This is infill development so it's not like it's being built on pristine woodlands or anything. It's you know in the middle of the existing development and it's it's especially interesting to me because this small size and that it's from what I understand he was saying that it's intended for homeownership. Building you know I don't know the details about this project but building new single family homes almost exclusively happens at the high end of the market so very few options are coming online currently for people who are just starting out or people who want a down size and are of moderate means so you know I'd be interested to see what prices are you know possible you know especially given the escalating costs of development that we're seeing right now, but I without knowing more about the project I think this type of project in general sounds like what the what the village and the town of Essex need. Thank you. I'll add that over the years Gabe has become increasingly sophisticated in his delivery of improved you know good quality housing at a price that nobody else can really get to so it's really a win for the village to have somebody develop parcels that that are providing that housing that we don't so desperately need and and not way off the chart on price so he's got a pretty good track record going and I do look forward to seeing what this turns out to be. Nick Meyer your hand is up you can't hear a thing you're saying so whatever is going on if you're there now's your shot I don't hear a thing from Nick Meyer I'll move on to anyone else at this point and if Nick gets his microphone sorted out we'll listen to him. I'm not sure if this is the time to make a public comment about anything is that okay anything that's not on the agenda and specifically if it was about the current plan on the screen that would be ideal. Okay it's not on the current screen what's on the current screen so should I wait? Let me just ask if anyone else has a comment on Gabe Handy's concept plan that's in front of us right now hearing none Gabe thank you very much I'm going to say continue to work with Robin on developing the plan Robin I expect that you'll bring any let's say technical issues to us to review that might have to do with with how this development might fit into the land development code but as a PUD I think you have a pretty good starting point. Thank you very much for listening and taking me on tonight unexpectedly I appreciate that very much and I look forward to seeing you. Thank you Gabe. Bye bye. All right Sarah you are on. Okay great thank you I apologize I do have a meeting that I have to get to at 6 30 so otherwise I would stay longer. I just wanted to let you know that some other parents and myself have formed a group that were naming Essex for Healthy Kids and in light of the potential vote for a cannabis sale in Essex we are coming together to raise concerns about any shops should it pass should it go on the for the vote we don't know yet and should it pass we're very concerned about the types of shops that have been coming to Essex Junction. I think we think that some of the adult shops and smoke shops and vape shops are far too close to schools far too close to where people are congregating as families with young children and we we'd like it to stop so I'm here to express our concern and we want to sort of be ahead of the game here before any decisions are made to find out what we need to do to make sure that the integrity of our village center is kept g-rated honestly. I also think that you know it's kind of hypocritical that we're teaching our kids right now about the dangers of pot in school and health class and I think it would be ridiculously hypocritical and conflictual to place a shop that sells pot near our schools that just says don't do it oh but here you go you can have access to it if you want or boy you know this is really okay so we are also wanting to really educate the community about the dangers for our young children and their brain development as part of our effort as well but for you guys you have the planning commission not guys the planning commission I want to know we want to know what steps we need to take or who we need to speak to to make sure that should something pass these shops are not within a certain radius of our schools and our families who are in our walkable bikeable community thank you thank you um I think that's a uh a fine sentiment I'm not sure what the rules actually tell us about that right now I know typically there are uh you know radius radii from schools and other key places that you know you can't have certain things we're we're in the middle of rewriting our land development code so we'll take a look at what we might have in place there and I'm guessing we'll work with within the regulations that will be imposed on us by the state if something passes at the state level and within any guidance that we get from our salt uh our village trustees that that typically like to weigh in on this kind of thing um I'm not sure that we have um I'm not sure what steps we take as a planning commission other than to listen to those uh those guidance uh take that guidance which is kind of uh for us it's we work at the discretion of the trustees and uh then the legal issues are something beyond our control as well but um where we can um maintain protection for our community we will and so I'll say we'll we'll wait and see what happens but uh I don't know Robin what do we have in there now for you know like well there's not a lot I mean the zoning code isn't a morality code it's uh it's a code to break start categories but I will say as we don't have enough committees we're now forming a cannabis committee and they'll be taking a look you know roots to school and so on obviously you don't want to think near any any root to school or anything like that so they'll be looking at um the best way forward I do believe but it's you know it's a moving target that the earliest I think could happen uh in the village would be May 2022 but the cannabis committee is hoping to have its first meeting maybe later this month probably later this month uh there's a group of five or six people on it I'm just trying to think of what the nearest let's say uh retail establishment of any kind of that sells something that is not uh allowed to for sale for minors and I'm guessing and I could be completely wrong but I'm guessing its central beverage fairly close to Summit Street and um uh you know Fleming in physical distance even though they don't see them right together uh that because they sell tobacco you know so um and other products but uh other than that I'm not aware of anything that's actually uh you know that close to one of our schools um you know or certainly within one of the distances that are normally established like 500 feet or something I don't know what they are but so so people may want to think about how that gets measured and what regulations are in place to establish those but um the planet commission as Robin points out uh isn't necessarily the body that determines that kind of thing um so um any other comment on this subject commissioners members of the public okay thank you very much Sarah uh what's on our agenda now Robin well I will say that uh Will and David from the Essex energy commission committee are here tonight and I'd like to talk to us um give some input to how we can craft the code to be more responsive to energy needs of the community awesome uh so who would like to go first um hi mr chair john this is Will Dodge I'm the chair of the energy committee and uh we have uh David Scopen is joined tonight who's another member of the committee um and I think that that might be um Phil March as well who's another um committee member and I think um Robin asked us to come after we made a presentation to the select board uh a little while ago the the Essex select board and I'm gonna just um plead uh that I would have loved to have made a much more Essex junction planning committee specific presentation but due to a combination of workload and other things I don't really have a a uh a something tailored to your committee but I thought that I would at least kind of go over some of the highlights of that presentation it's okay with you um and then we can maybe talk a little bit more about the specifics with the recommendation um at the very end awesome so if that's okay give me one second and I'll just throw this up so again this is kind of a repeat of what we talked about with the select board but um since one of those uh just to kind of give an introduction um the purpose of the of the energy committee and you'll see it's under town of Essex Vermont letterhead but the the some of the purposes of our committee is to track municipal energy usage and recommend make recommendation to the select board targets and actions for decreasing energy use same thing with looking at renewable energy sources and increase the efficient use of energy within town operations looking for options for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects managing data helping with annual reports and looking at educational programs we have the right to request appropriations through the town for operating expenses um as well as a um you know funding to look at our duties and the reason that I put this slide up in part with the select board was to say that since the inception of the committee we have been acting as though we are the energy committee for both the town and the village really without distinction but with but also noting the very uh important differences in some senses between town and village and after we had a kind of a lively meeting about it earlier this year our position is that we're going to keep trying to be the energy committee for both the village and the town until someone tells us we can't which will hopefully be never but we'll be prepared for that uh if it when even when that happens so in 2019 both the trustees and the select board adopted an energy plan that is that covers town and village and that has various different goals some of them are land use focused and obviously you guys I think at some point had a look at that plan but if you hadn't then we should probably um make that more um for for another time it had transportation goals which were focused on some of the things that you guys have been very focused on basically bike ability walk ability using more public transit and trying to reduce uh transportation related energy demand thermal goal which is basically the big one being a hundred percent residential weatherization 38 percent commercial and industrial and then other goals which you know switching over from fossil fuel or finding other ways of efficiency and then a renewable energy goal which had a lot of tenants to it but to boil it down basically talking about a minimum of 15 megawatts of solar on existing rooftop and paved surfaces throughout the town and village um so some of the things that the energy committee has been focused on in the last little while one of the best things that have really happened in energy and Essex is the hiring of Tom Yando and he's not been here tonight but Tom is working with the town and the village on a whole variety of projects so just to give you some examples this is the town fire department building when Tom started there were like gaping holes in the doors there were problems with the roof and there was a lot of like old you know light bulbs that needed all be changed out as a result of changes that Tom has been made he's cut the utility bills for that building by about 50 percent another project that's being worked on is the the sandhill park pool it has there's been a demand for some time because of like the swim team and others who have to jump in that pool first thing in the morning to at least have some level of heating that's kind of a concern but since Vermont gas was running a line through there anyway Tom managed to get 96 percent efficiency boilers to ultimately have a heated pool and in doing so ended up with $4400 back from Vermont gas which is obviously a good thing Tom's been working with Vermont gas on insulation work for the memorial hall which is an Essex center there's more money needed because efficiency Vermont can only provide some amount of money and same with Vermont gas so it's an ongoing project but we're ultimately trying to make that a more comfortable space for everything from summer camps to the community players to even meetings and then there's some other projects like for instance this is the town office in Essex Junction where we're replacing all the fluorescent light fixtures with LEDs with dimmable lighting to make it a little more livable and easy there's some other projects that I haven't mentioned here like Tom's continuing to work on the police station which serves both town and village to deal with energy problems there so those are just kind of a snapshot of some of the things that we've been working on when you look at kind of one of the overall big goals which is weatherization what the energy plan points out is that the thermal sector is really the highest level of greenhouse gas emissions in or the second highest ghd emissions and the highest energy user in Vermont so there's been a lot of focus on weatherization and part of what we've looked into especially our colleague Phil March is the fact that over time based on records that are with the Department of Public Service a lot of the weatherization efforts which are based which are measured based on what's called the blower door test which you can guys see the schematic here is really showing up that a lot of houses that are supposed to have been comprehensively weatherized are not at least in Essex and specifically in Essex Junction are not really going through comprehensive weatherization on the whole there's been audits done that have looked at kind of measures to somewhat improve the leaky doors and insulation but ultimately it's not been a focus of efficiency Vermont and it's something that we're trying to change through some discussions with the legislature and so forth and it's going to get me to a point that I'm going to return to later on about what I think we or what the energy committee feels that we can do in terms of net metering which is kind of the renewable energy front right now the Vermont statutes allow for up to 500 kw of generation credit for off takers and that includes municipalities right now the town of the town outside the village has a contract for green with green lantern solar for about 200 kw meaning that there's about another 300 kw of offset potentially available if a solar company builds another project similarly with the village we have a contract for 150 kw with on core solar meaning there's still 350 kw to do more with so we've been in discussions with Norwich technologies about looking at a single project that might ultimately allow the if it's cited the right way you could have both the town and village taking advantage and ultimately offsetting that extra 650 kw of credit so those are some of the things that we have been doing and focusing on I'm going to just hand it over briefly to my colleague David to talk about why we're concerned that not enough at the town and the village level is ultimately being done and to kind of give you a sense about what it is that the committee thinks about so David you want to join in sure certainly one of our chief focuses is on reducing the overall carbon footprint for the simple reason that a fellow like Bill Gates would write a book how to avoid a climate disaster which I'm not going to bore you with as you know it's a moving freight train it's heading our direction we can't avoid not acting on it so with that I think one of our focuses is going to be to be very very strategic if we think about how to lower our carbon footprint we might say well buy an electric school bus if I stop and think about it a little more carefully I realize that if children are going to and from school in the family car I have a carbon footprint there that I could eliminate by simply putting them all on a gas powered school bus so some of the things we're we're hoping to do in the very near future is have someone who is very skilled at and strategic about looking around and seeing where some of our our leaky doors are etc like if we're thinking about buying an electric weed whip well what about bowing and and using and trimming half as often or if we could get our our our neighbors to drive half as much you make one trip and and hit all the different things rather than two or three a week so those are the things we're thinking about and it's obvious that we could probably change things significantly by simply being a little more conscious and efficient and with that I'll turn it back to will thank you David um so what I'll just describe you know with with that in mind and the and the you know the the fact that we we kind of need to be doing more to protect the planet and to protect our communities when it comes to energy usage and greenhouse gases here are a couple of the things that we've made recommendations to to the select board so one is to try to install some solar at sandhill park in the building it's turned out that that's a very good slot potentially to not turn it into a giant solar panel but just to have some strategic ones both on the rooftop of the building and maybe in a couple of choice places around the pool another important one that's and all of these are all grounded at some part of the energy plant itself but to be um get you doing more by getting encouraging the town to use electric vehicles and electric maintenance tools whenever possible at a bare minimum when the current vehicles that the town uses are sort of at the end of their useful life we ought to be replacing them with electric another one which we already talked about is looking at that net metering for use of the 650k w capacity and maybe potentially citing something that is you know part in the town part in the village to take advantage of that that that credit that's out there both for money and in terms of our renewable generation um another but these are some of the ones that come a little bit closer to the the junction planning commission one is to really work with the community development office for weatherization promotion in 2021 um what Phil's work showed is that we're that even though the energy committee and others have been and we've even worked with other energy committees from Jericho and from Westford we spent a lot of time with Efficiency Vermont and the button-up campaign trying to make weatherization successful but they're really not um not getting to where they need to be and given that Essex Junction has the greatest density of housing in the area and thinking about them trying to get to a hundred percent residential weatherization we need some more partners and need some more emphasis to figure out how to kind of tactically get our hands around dealing with that another idea that we that we really like and this kind of comes in part from Tom Yandos experience is the idea of a hired energy building inspector who's looking at different properties whether as a result of permitting or maybe just through kind of volunteer knocking people on people's doors to ask them to look at whether there are steps that can be taken to ultimately make sure that when a building is deemed you know it's supposed to be energy efficient if it's actually meeting its goals so some of the things that are actually in that energy plan that was adopted in 2019 include thinking about um incorporating the Vermont Building Energy Stretch Code to cover all development in the zoning regulations for the town and the village and also consider kind of a way that when houses are sold if it's possible to have a means of ultimately having the energy inspector look through and see if there's possibilities to take advantage frankly of all the money that's out there for weatherization but that's just not seeming to reach its targets it's not a perfect analogy by any means but it reminds me a little bit about vaccinations and the fact that it's one thing to have a vaccine out there but the important part is getting it into people's arms with weatherization it's similar there's plenty of funding plenty of resources out there but to actually get it into people's attics or people's doors is a much greater ask the the last two recommendations that we talked about is a potential annual budget for our energy committee so that we can work a little better with folks to to actually make more of of those goals and also to regularize the check-ins on energy plan implementation among all the committees in Essex whether it be you know both of the planning commissions the the town select board and the village trustees and even like the bike and walk committee and the trails committee as something important to do so ultimately we're trying to make a little more progress on this very important goal we really appreciate all the work that you guys have been doing and would be look like we lost them there got them back that we got them back wasn't me will might have been John but it wasn't me it was the product of a long day so I appreciate that it's always easy to hit the wrong button at the end of a long day sorry John one thing I would say is you can get an idea of some of the benefits if you check out design five corners Facebook site we try to publish aspirational things on that site rather than what might happen in other Facebook sites let's just say one thing that a lot of municipalities been doing in Europe is they've been they've stopped cutting their median strips they've stopped you know trying to create lawns in the property owned by the municipality this not only saves staff time it saves fuel it saves the number of machines you need and it also creates places for pollinators to come and then they go into Diane's back garden and pollinator apple trees and go to John's and pollinators bird trees and it's really holistic approach to you know saving energy which looks at as many options as possible and I kept my last one I printed it might have been swindled in England they saved 45,000 ponds a year was that $60,000 a year just on petrol and other things by leaving the median strips in and plus they look beautiful the nice thing about if a meadow you don't actually have to plant it all you do is go into it occasionally and cut out what you don't want as in wild parsnip it's amazing what nature will let you have and all it costs you is a little bit of patience that's great and I should have said at the outset I think one of the most valued and maybe underutilized energy resources that the town and village has is Robin Pierce because Robin has done like amazing work on his his weatherization guide and so part of of our thinking is like we need to make better use of Robin and that part of that might be to team up more with the CDO but I can't imagine that that it wouldn't help even for some of the stuff that Robin is trying to achieve if there was like an energy coordinator or an energy building inspector that ultimately helps to look at you know whether some of like the new buildings that are coming into Essex Junction ultimately you know do what they're supposed to in terms of energy production absolutely well and by the way the checks in the mail well let me chime in I actually sat in today on a web presentation by renewable energy Vermont and they went over legislation in the state that has either passed or is waiting for next year but my thoughts and comments to you guys on the energy commission would be to really stay in touch with what the state initiatives are because they're not small they they've got some really big legislative initiatives out there to try and hammer on energy and so does the federal government and and they're basically saying that there's a lot of money available for example today they told us that there's two million dollars being put forward through efficiency Vermont for energy efficiency and weatherization projects not only in residential locations but in workforce and other business opportunities so there's apparently a lot of awareness about energy there there's the climate council the state of Vermont's climate council which is trying to develop right now programs and policies that will come into effect next year so so the state's really making a committed effort at the legislative level to support these ideas and concepts it may take a while to trickle down I will say that Tom and other is doing a great job locally but that we really need to to find the connection between what the state is doing and their goals and what our local community policies and goals are and a few guys can help us with that and look for things that we should be including in our regulations I know that would be really helpful I'll draw your attention also to some very controversial but ongoing discussions in Burlington about BTU use and energy fuels and you know they're basically calling for new and existing buildings to be carbon neutral by something crazy like 2030 I forget exactly what the date is but but it's it's some significant push to improve how much energy is used in their built environment and you know they feel like they have the muscle to go ahead and do that and I know that's not quite gotten out to us that in the suburbs but those goals are out there in many communities and people are pushing to various degrees to get us all on the same page and committed to that so I would look to you guys to kind of help us you know really formulate the strategies and get it into our common approach thank you John that's great I and to let you know Tom is actually he is now going through the land development regulations and he he says he has a laundry list so we'll we'll try to formalize that and give that to you guys and maybe we have you know we meet again once we've got something so we can have another discussion but I definitely appreciate those thoughts and we are definitely keeping the pulse of what's going on with the Global Warming Solutions Act and all the federal money yeah there's there's a lot going on I see a hand up Natalie would you like to make a comment yes um I'm I'm also on the Essex Energy Committee and I am 100 in line hold on I have to make have David mute his uh my husband David is in the other room here um I fortunately we have folks on the committee with their fingers squarely on the pulse of the Vermont legislation to some degree the national efforts and definitely what they're doing in Burlington and I would love to see us being as intensely committed to and moving forward in the same way that I I'm delighted to hear your support and your interest in us being having some real leadership in these areas the the key thing is we have to just keep pushing and pushing it's the the initiatives are there at the state level but if we do not we just have to keep leaning in on it consistently and the folks in Burlington have you know that the counselors especially in Burlington on the city council have really done some very cutting-edge work around moving us around climate change mitigation so music to my ears John to hear you say are you paying attention and we are absolutely so I'm hoping we can um move Essex and Essex Junction right along in um in in step with some of that real um climate positive uh thinking that we're beginning to see around the country good I'll just add one more thing which is um our uh AIA Vermont well I'm a architect so I'm a member of AIA Vermont I happen to be chair of the public policy committee and we've been following a couple of bills in in the legislature closely and one of them is contractor registry and the initiative there is to try and actually even have a list of who the contractors are that are out there making improvements to people's houses and and to other buildings and and right now there really is no no consistent way to know who they are and what qualifications they have and so that stalled in the in the legislature this session I didn't quite get across the finish line before before they closed for the season and we're hoping it comes back and gets through next year because it's so important to to include those uh contractors in the discussion of what's going on how are you doing it are you sure it's working do you got you have the right weatherization policies and procedures in place at the details right did the blower door test actually happen did you measure properly uh you know to get your results and and it's just critical because research in the last 10 years has has proven that air infiltration is more important than thermal insulation it just you you can't have well insulated building without stopping the airflow so most of the housing stock that we have is built before this uh you know critical review of of air leakage and it's just it's not where it needs to be if we're going to live in a cold climate and turn our heat on so um whatever you can do to keep that message going forward to get these things done to help with the climate council work um will be appreciated by everyone all right anyone else nobody all right um anything else on energy in general or or i saw on our um agenda where did i do with my agenda um on our agenda we also had a discussion of five design five corners and design review amendments are we ready to jump on to one of those robin i think so um regina has been waiting patiently regina hi for some reason my video is not turning up oh there we go hello everybody hi regina um so i sent over a memo on monday did folks get that okay all right so mostly what i would like to do is just sort of continue our conversation about um the purpose and location of the overlay so again consistently uh expanding the concept of the overlay um into trunk routes to help um fold up the same level of historic preservation and design for the areas approaching the village center um so the memo just uh hopefully is helpful to explain what the purpose is in the current as currently worded in the village center and also applicability because we talked about that quite a bit like in these trunk routes are we is everything kicking in at the same level or is there um a lesser degree of projects that would have to be subject to the design review um so first recommendation on this memo um is just to ensure that we have some of those specific comments that are specifically in the design five corners concept worked into the purpose statements for the village center so that's pretty straightforward um and then uh carry those as appropriate into the trunk routes as well then um i've got some recommendations on the locations for the overlay so if it's helpful i can share my screen with this map that we've got that would be great i see a historic map but is there another one with uh the overlay that that memo has a hyperlink in it but that's what i'm gonna open here oh yeah okay uh so let me zoom out here and then now i've lost my memo so let me just see if i can get this at a better spot myself okay so we'll start with main street this seemed like a fairly easy um decision last time basically go to 81 main which is sx town hall and i think it makes sense to sort of follow it across to educational drive um and i'm assuming we're kind of just thinking that this is one for the most part one parcel deep on this road yes okay just while we're there there there is a i don't know if your map goes that far but uh there's a petition in front of us or at least there's a suggestion of a petition in front of us to consider altering the zoning along main street going all the way up uh to crescent crescent view and i'm not sure everybody's aware of that but uh you see how that gray section keeps going all the way up to uh you know where it stops there and there there people that are interested in in having that gray overlay go basically both sides of the street all the way up to there so i just want to throw that out there as we are thinking about it because you know graphically it's not a dumb idea it's actually kind of all all possible and all um you know it would be easy to understand why they're asking for that but um i don't want to slow you down right now i know that's a whole separate discussion but i just thought everybody should see um you know just kind of what we're being asked to consider and and we can treat the rest of that as a separate discussion i i just i don't want to prolong it john i just jump in my memory we've seen a request from one property owner who's told us they've contacted other property owners but i haven't seen any response from them yet and it reminds me of an application or request we got from a family under house intersection of central street and educational drive last time around and from memory i say the sharpeners who want to change the zoning so they can have a duplex and um the answer was no at that time yeah and i'm not suggesting that we we have an answer or that it's it's a reasonable thing to consider but but the the request is out there and you know graphically it has some merit but i i think it's a a bigger discussion than we're prepared for right at the moment so let's stick with Regina's presentation uh i don't think it's a stretch to imagine it going out to educational drive an 81 main street yeah okay all right so then over to Lincoln street let me zoom out here so um discussion from the last meeting was to go out basically to hear north street grove street intersection um so i think that makes sense and um i apologize we will get this corrected on this map but this red up here is the multifamily mixed use too it basically looks exactly the same as the village center on this map but so we're talking about both sides of the road here between the railroad tracks um Lincoln and the other side does that make sense and can you uh point out where can we tell where Whitcomb service center is because that's kind of the landmark going out that way and it's i'm not even sure what happens on those those tiny little triangular parcels there as you get closer to the the intersection you're talking about like are there any structures out there small yes there's a small small house that's actually below grade on i think that tightest triangle out there um and i'm not sure the age of that building but it's been around for a while it might even be a railroad building for all i know that somebody put a house on and the next one back is Whitcomb's and then and then you have some other like the the larger that that one right there is not Whitcomb's but they they kind of use some of it um i think that's the the what's the word um congregated housing it's it's a collective no that's the one south of that that's actually Dave Whitcomb's house i think right there the one south of that is is the it's a yeah it's like a halfway house kind of thing it's the hard center i'm good no okay um um okay yeah so you know you've got two purposes worked into this and i almost i spent a lot of time figuring out if it actually made sense to separate these a historic preservation overlay a design overlay separately because when you start to look at some of these parcels it's almost like one of those might make sense because it might be a parcel that you would likely see turnover at some point and if it really becomes something different you probably really would want to have that design review um but they're not necessarily historic so you wouldn't necessarily need to be concerned about that um but i think it still makes sense to have them combined as one because they really are supporting each other um so i don't i don't know if that helps to think about it in that way whether this stretch makes sense or does it make sense um well i'll just give my own thoughts which is the the design review overlay has a good amount of language in it about historic properties and about maintaining the character of the village area that it's in you know the neighborhood so um i would prefer to see the design control district overlay um than just strictly a historic because i think it it allows the village a little more uh a larger chance to kind of have something to say about the imagery and the the visuals as people enter the village mm-hmm yep right yep nicely said john okay so let's go to pearl street so pearl street is the longest stretch let me zoom out here um as we talked about it would go to west street extension um what my memo is is saying is i'm not sure if it would be cleaner or more logical to stop at the end of these two here uh because i think this is all right of way here and nothing would happen um and this is just railroad tracks on this side of pearl street so i'm thinking the only real stuff that you'd still want this to apply to is the um whatever district this is the highway arterial zoning district and what's the what's the blue just a little further out what what does it change to that's multi-family mixed use um and i'll take the zoning districts off so you can see so that's that you know weird yeah yeah i don't know it i'm i'm uh it's it's a real look how big those parcels are compared to the the housing parcels behind them you know it's really a special uh the special group of properties although um i'm not sure why it changes and doesn't keep going all the way down to susie wilson road really um but you know it's where's the the music store isn't that kind of down in that along there somewhere i mean it's hard to know what's then you have a whole bunch of uh new i don't know how old that map is but the newer apartment buildings that have uh grown up there yeah this map is old um the music store is where you see where it says pearl street uh on there um that's about do there or it's the gray blob that i think it's the gray blob and the next the next gray blob to the left right because i think that one gray blob there's an apartment complex yeah that's might be on the spaghetti strip um that's spaghetti it's it's long it actually goes back to another house there's a there's a set of apartments i went i looked at that place when i got here to look for a house um there's actually a house in the back it has these condo two strips of condos and then you got the house in the back it's kind of an interesting sort of layout um but i guess my point is you know if we're we're trying to be big picture thinkers about what happens along the stretch of street and and why does a certain zoning district want to stop and something else start and and i think what i'm trying to say is that over the last five years or 10 years we've seen some improvements like the apartment buildings and and there's some uh long time uh you know uses there like the music building that um have defined a certain character along that street and and it it's tempting to say that those are uh the that that's the trend you know to have more commercial and and um you know larger residential activities there but uh i'd be very curious to hear what Regina and Robin think about that and the rest of the commissioners hey john this is patrick i was just thinking as you were speaking uh you and uh diane that whole strip is currently kind of under development to some extent you know as soon as you get past susie wilson you're starting to get that feel of entering the the village to an extent especially now with that bike path going in and that whole section of road i believe is is kind of um it's all getting shifted a little bit isn't it so your point to why not it's why it doesn't get extended all the way down to susie wilson in terms of the zoning districts um is kind of an interesting thing to think about considering that the current relay out of everything that's going on in the introduction of the bike path that's going to be put in there and it's our it is our main transportation route that is that is the bus route in and out you know in and out of our especially out to our uh sx community and everything on it is is is sort of saying uh you know we are the kind of property that you know all of this efficiency and using less fuel and promoting public transportation and promoting uh you know a completely different way of of supporting a more effective efficient fuel use belongs on that road and you know if we can i mean they're making all kinds of improvements as you mentioned uh susie wilson road uh going toward berlington with the fort and all of it's all uh you know high level housing that has been for years and years and years uh you know it wouldn't be a bad thing to see more uh housing and more uh support structures i mean there's been a real lack of things for people at the fort especially because of their zoning um to to go visit you know like uh right so is it the brewery that moved out because they couldn't be zoned properly yeah so i mean is it too much to i know like uh regina you were suggesting to kind of stop around warn and warner or so uh just because that seems to be geographically in terms of the zoning districts but i mean we were thinking west street is it too much to say to go all the way to susie wilson knowing it's just that one strip and as we were just saying um with all the redevelopment that kind of is the welcome to s6 junction as soon as you get past susie wilson is that or is that is that just way too much uh oversight that we would want to have um and is it more of a question around zoning districts and simplifying that which is a whole different potentially conversation yeah from that is sort of what the can of worms which is an okay can of worms to open that this conversation is sort of more leading me kind of a little bit more to that and you know i haven't looked at all of these in super great detail but i don't i don't know robin and your thoughts like is it really necessary that there's four completely different zoning districts no i well i think you know i agree john said about uh lincoln street i think the overlay should be primarily about design and if an individual building happens to be historic then it'll kick in because that individual building right but no i think yeah it's this all the time you know when you're coming into an urban area the meter of the road changes you know doesn't happen quite like that here very quickly but you know if you're in the countryside you might see one hostile and you might see two houses and then there's three four five six houses now suddenly it's all houses or it's taller buildings so i think there may be a way with the design overlay to create a meter in the street that just gives you you know by almost by osmosis a sense that you're getting closer closer to the densest part of the community yeah but is susie wilson road and all the stuff that's going on there actually a magnet at the other end right well you know what i you got all the stuff that you can go do and and live next to and be supported by a long susie wilson road and yet that in our scheme is is kind of you know you're thinking that's where the one house is or the two houses are and that we're trying to build up to get the five corners but i guess i'm arguing that there's there's the other end of it is actually as close to a hub of another kind than than than the part by five corners yeah i think i was trying to say something similar that john i just didn't didn't say as well as you did um yeah i mean here or as soon as you cross five corners you're into a denser area but yet again you know it's you know it's only on one side of the road because the other side of the road is dominated by the trucks but yes i think the design i don't see why there can't be three four-bendroom structures along that stretch i don't see any reason why that couldn't happen so i guess i have to interject here is that we're talking about pearl street from susie wilson down to the jug handle and and regina there the reason that there's the purple on the other side of warner is because the jug handle is is the next block over so you've only got two houses then you got a jug handle um so at the moment the the pearl street section that's blue um is you've got some single families most of them have become multifamily internally uh even if they don't look that way then you've got the apartment buildings that are interspersed in between single family homes with occasional business which happens to be apartment buildings or what the music store which isn't the music store anymore by the way it's got somebody else in it and there's a construction company that's got their um office there with their their construction equipment behind it as so and then of course then we have um going to be where good stuff is currently it's going to become an apartment building so it's a it's a set of a mixed bag of some commercial um and and apartment buildings with an occasional um house um that's in there so which is different from the purple strip which is really more commercial um even the single family homes over there was kind of interesting one single family home used to be a real estate guy and now it's now it's actually a house as far as I know unless it's being rented out um but uh it's a commercial strip low-grade uh commercial strip not the big shopping center which of course is then in the green section that says esic shopping so it it transitions it becomes more commercial as you come in uh but there's a lot of commercial going on in that section so uh but it's just it's just the different degrees um and yes I live in that lovely little yellow block behind there on that purple strip so it's my it's my daily daily adventure out under pearl street so you got your hand up yeah thank you uh I was gonna say I mean if we're talking about design review and like with this overlay and I would be on board to go all the way to Susie Wilson but I'm gonna say if our desire is to have the review of these trunk roads then I then I could make the argument why not go on all the way out on all these trunk roads all the way out to the borders of the village if that's the idea is that we want to make sure that these trunk roads have like maintain some sort of cohesive vision that we want for the village we're pretty close on nearly all of them I think main streets probably main and maple are the shortest interesting I I I agree with film my husband is keeps braiding me about you know when I come and I talk about talk about what we do in our meetings um he says you know dear it's all apartment buildings until you get to you know right up here um at the 159 shopping center um so it's yes I think we should extend it all the way out because otherwise uh we aren't having any control on our trunk roads and yes it's only one side um nice thing having the state have their conservation district um and the railroad is is made that very long strip with the only one side with any housing or commercial development uh so I'll interject that is that yeah I agree with Phil we need to go all the way out at least on pearl street because otherwise it defeats the feats the what we're trying to get for Regina aside from the you know the politics of trying to make that happen this is that uh do you see any uh you know regional planning issues with that concept no I don't think so I mean I think what you want to be careful about is really the harder piece is the historic preservation and essentially that map is in the memo to show roughly those are the properties that are going to get kicked in for that purpose all this other stuff isn't going to get kicked in for that purpose and I think that's the I think that's what I would be concerned about in terms of setting an unnecessary hurdle and making it more difficult for some of these properties to um become less stripped like which is what they're like now and what you would ideally hope you're evolving things out of so I think that's probably fine and in terms of like a fix it's certainly easier to just keep the underlying zoning districts as they are if there is some logic to it I'm still not quite sure that there is or there isn't but um but just putting the design overlay on top of them I think is probably fine yeah that's what I anticipated because then it recognizes the difference of the different districts it also makes them subject to design review as well sort of the second layer which I think is important when the trunk roads coming into the village we want people to arrive and think hey this is a nice place let's go deeper and not let's turn around all right so sorry Regina am I correct that the so that you're saying the concern with extending the overlay is that we have that historical the historical part in it as well so would it it could also be a solution to separate the historical from the design review yeah I don't I don't think you have to though because it's it's clear that even though these will be together and combined as one overlay the standards are actually two separate sets of standards in it and the historic preservation standards only kick in for properties that are either already designated or eligible for designation so that's it's a very it's much smaller subset and it's a lot closer to the village okay thank you so I think it's okay yeah I don't think it's going to be a problem no I think it'll actually work very well and the design portion just strengthens in the areas where we have nothing yeah okay so that that makes sense okay so let's just keep going here I think park street is a much easier conversation basically it would go to cascade which I think is okay right because this purple is basically just nothing's gonna happen there that makes sense yes yes we do okay um all right then so maple street let's just zoom out and think through the same concept um I looked all up and down this stretch I think there's lots of different reasons to go much tighter um there's reasons to go sort of further out um I was kind of really thinking about it from a perspective of what would get kicked in from historic preservation but also for all of these other homes kind of comes back a little bit more to what what we're going to set the threshold threshold for um but a lot of this is just residential and this is where I'd be a little bit more concerned that you're kicking some of these folks in because they might want to put an addition on their house so uh I guess the parcels that I mean maple street park is essentially village uh operated and and um you know it's got its own situation going on there that whole purple section is up for grabs uh the police station got built on there that's you know nobody's gonna have a problem with that but um that really because of the way they've decided to consider developing that into smaller parcels that the front you know the maple street area could be completely different in 10 years you just don't know you've got you've got the possibility of some very large building showing up there uh and you know it'd be pretty nice not to see the back end of some light industrial thing happening um along there uh and and I agree that the the whole light yellow section is uh you know aside from the church in the in the school it's you know it's very obviously residential so the real question is how do you how do you keep the portions that could develop into things that you might not want as the gateway to your community uh from being out of reach uh design wise you know we're we're lucky that the police station actually fronts onto the road but but the master planning for the rest of the purple section there uh I don't know that there's a requirement that they actually address the street the maple street side and and that could be uh you know a pretty big consideration for how that builds out right yeah I had this conversation with my wife actually after our last meeting about that whole area and I was yeah what are what can we is there anything we can do on like as far as this with their I don't know it looks like it's a pretty big uh clock I can't remember it might be 20 acres but I can't remember yeah and they did present a master plan with that I believe they did um and yeah I totally agree with you about like that's that's a major section that could be built up yeah all right so how about the portion between the existing uh village center and maple street park we have we what did we just say we were going to try and go out all the way to maple street park and um or where are we with that yeah so there wasn't a clear decision about quite exactly where to go when I was looking at it I kind of ended up landing on uh camp street in the endsfield essentially um because this there's one business in here but most of this is just residential um doesn't necessarily matter for the park but there is this one sort of condo thing going on there or rental stuff going on there that might change over but you could just sort of carry it if you want to keep the light industrial in you could just really carry it forward on the south side here and maybe up here and at mansfield but even this some of these little houses are they're probably historic though so it's let's look at this going yeah I'm going to digress a little here I'm just thinking about the purple section I don't know if we can have something in that says something like of it if a develop a new development doesn't address the street then it should have a 25 or 35 foot vegetative vegetative buffer or something with that elk that means they'd be losing a portion of their property but if they brought it into compliance with any design review we come up with in terms of addressing the street etc then they get more space I don't know if that we're working on but just a thought Robin if I recall the spot across from ADL is that there were ball fields bordering on a what is a mild wetland area because they it was always and still has cattails on it yeah and the trees aren't doing as well as they they used to be and in fact the cattails look do or seem like they're doing better um so the elitidestral area is correct me if I'm wrong I still they can still go to six stories can't they um I think with a waiver if I remember I'd have to check that I think with a waiver they can go to six but I'm I'd have to check to confirm that because I thought when they had the master plan the police station of course they were they wanted that to be a rental versus uh when the town insisted on buying it that kind of blew some of their plans but I thought that everything in this Robinson Parkway to Mabel Street area of purple was um intended to be that that subdivided um the industrial development correct me if I'm wrong and everything south with former IBM building was was just continue to be in industrial area yeah I know you're right it was satellite industrial I know we talked about then creating a jogging track or something around in and so on as part of the master plan well let me uh paint a painting with picture which is if you go if you drive up route seven and you get uh just past chimney corners and you start seeing the catamount industrial park that's light commercial or a light industrial you know and it's big warehouses and it's furniture stores and it's bus term uh bus uh what do they now uh uh you know a transit yeah uh you know but it's it's buildings that are large and you know they may not need a lot of parking but they they have uh you know very large uh structures on them compared to what else is around here and uh you know the circulation might suggest that um you know that maple street actually sees the back of these things and I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out is if there's uh you know they can plant a lot of buffers in there if they want and I'm sure that you know we can figure out how to make that work but uh you know there there may be some reason why we want uh at least the maple street corridor to have a little more uh you know just presence uh you know there needs to be some notion that the things that are visible and and fairly close to maple street um have to provide some uh backstop for your view there that's more than the back of a building it may not work maybe the buffer is the way to go but um you know for a long time it's just been a big field so when you look down there you you just see a field and it's like oh that's a nice field and up until a few years ago they were still playing softball on it yeah I will say that um a couple years ago maybe longer or not tractor supply looked at the front of that property didn't decide to come forward with that proposal yeah so something like that's possible I mean the land does drop away um from maple street so if an applicant decided they didn't want to address um maple street with a buffer um we could control the view shed and other things um you know we do need we do need um businesses that employ people not just houses uh or retail I don't know when they took that picture but look how empty all those parking lots are yeah really that parking lot hasn't been used for a long time yeah really hasn't the first time I I did a project at IBM which was 20 years ago the I had to park in that parking lot and I was lucky to get a spot and you know look at it now um all right uh let's get back on track with with uh Regina's current proposal which is to go out towards uh um Mansfield Avenue and Camp Street yeah and and the and the if we did that and you did are you still talking about one one parcel deep in there and it looks like there's an orange section that somehow a bunch of the parcels are both yellow and orange that happens yeah but I think we are talking about all design overlays going you know one parcel you know there's some really big parcels in there I've seen and heard people you know the houses that are out front are actually nice uh you know contributing buildings whether they're listed or not they're out they I'm sure they're eligible and they have a large parcel behind them that uh you could imagine uh could be developed and I'm not sure most people would even notice um that happening but uh why do we know why that zoning doesn't follow the parcel why why it cuts them in half is that just to trickle them out that's not uncommon in the Village Giant happens and it happens on Park Street happens in other places too would we have a reason to want to modify that so the maybe the larger parcels could actually see some more infill development how I'm thinking housing of course well I I guess my question is is there there is a development that it's farther up the street um I took my bike out the other day and there's I noticed this house that used to have these concrete cylinders in front of it is gone it's I think it's 41 maple it's gone it's been demolished and I hadn't what where that there was like an acre behind this house but now that house gone it certainly would open it up to development that I wasn't uh contemplating that's just what Andy was looking at right yeah that's the parcel yeah Gabe handy's presentation where he's proposing to um uh build um I think it was six units in there as a PUD and it is a fairly large parcel kind of sitting there essentially land block but there must be a right of way through through to it but it's railroad on property it used to be on a rail line there was an old rail line that went through there right um and so uh Robin might be able to show you his his concept plan for that but um you know somebody's trying to make that work and again it would barely be um you know it if you didn't kind of look down through an opening uh in Maple Street you almost wouldn't notice it was there but um it is actually pretty visible but it is now without that house being up I mean it um like I said I didn't know wasn't aware I always knew that that house was there and they had used cylinders to uh to create a kind of wall so the house was not um on a hill it was more of on on a bluff um but I know that a lot of the houses that were in that section there uh are somewhat historic I know that Camp Street is one of the older streets uh in in the village um and it used to have get this camps on it um so um well Camp Street eventually goes back down to a condo association I believe um but uh but stop stopping at Mansfield Avenue might make sense um for uh that overlay district I'm just not aware of how many how many his how many buildings on that street are still in a historic nature a lot of them have been altered a lot yeah I would I bet it's 50 50 there's some beautiful old houses now along that that's correct there are yeah um I like I like the yellow and purple ones kind of interesting all right so what we said before was that the um the overlay the design overlay would afford us some uh ability to to review projects as they came in there to see what was happening and and we would be able to have the village center historic requirements in there or not what did we say about that I think it makes sense to keep it in there unless yeah like I this stretch is a good example that um if you look at the historic sites map in the memo um it goes all the way through Mansfield Avenue basically but you know the only thing that would kind of make sense if it felt like you know these first two blocks really have lost their historic character at this point then maybe you keep them out of it because it is a higher level of burden but I agree I think it's hard to say I think it really is mixed in there what still has historic character that you want to preserve and what um what doesn't which is fine it'll just be sort of a case by case yeah and I think that's what we're hoping anyway is that you know okay where you do have a contributing building or it's eligible or it's uh you know that um has that much character then uh we we um should be able to use the rules that we have in place to protect the village character not necessarily an individual structure there's there's kind of a bigger picture going on right um and uh and and that just gives us a chance to have something to say rather than nothing and and we were careful to write them to say you know like this is not like Williamsburg Virginia we're not going to tell you everything you'll have to do on these parcels we're going to have a little to say but not not to the extent that it's secretary of interior standards and and so on it's not mandatory yep okay uh Phil you have your hand up yeah thanks um I was just gonna say that I I think why not just extend it down to those last uh five parcels past maple street park and the one one parcel down one parcel in on the other side before the the school and I think that if we're gonna go down that route and then see what we can do with the light industrial section but to me for me that makes the most sense and I think and I I mean I live on Pleasant street or walk on maple and I think there is a lot of character on maple street down in that area so I think it makes sense for me I'm counting on the historic map and there are 28 structures along most of them on the north side of maple street but there are 28 structures between kind of where the railroad lines cross and where you get to camp 28 structures that are on the historic list already on maple street so but then none after that so none going east on maple street so I guess I'm I'm in I'm definitely in support of Regina's suggested limit and I would like to see maybe those larger parcels well you know I guess I'd like to see somebody explain why the zoning should change in the middle of somebody's parcel and that that kind of I've been on both sides of that before and it's it's kind of obnoxious when you have a parcel that you know is is in two districts because it it can really impacts potential development on that parcel significantly and I'm not sure that's what we're trying to say anyone else any members of the commission that have not said something yet like to say anything any members of the public have anything to say about this particular discussion I'm seeing me and yes I just wanted to say I definitely appreciate the discussions you're having and I know that historic character and preserving the village is important but just speaking from the housing commission perspective I'd encourage the the planning commission to consider allowing the densest possible most housing friendly policies when there is a discussion and a debate just because you know I think it's essential that we make every effort to allow more affordable development to continue in the village so I appreciate the work you're doing and I think it's very interesting thanks thank you anyone else I think you didn't ask me if I anything to say but you know I always do I think it makes sense to just go around the back of the properties at front street so whether it's a small lot or a large lot you're subject to the same design overlay so you mean Robin for these parcels that John is talking about yeah the whole parcel would be in the overlay yeah the criteria is it fronts the street therefore the whole of the parcel is pulled into the there's only four parcels that that applies to and three of them are very large yeah and one of them is not quite so large but I'm not sure why the line was drawn now anyway that's my recommendation I'm happy to have others comment and then Regina and Robin can talk about it and maybe we can get a coordinated plan that shows this overlay boundary for one of our upcoming sessions yeah um and because ultimately we have to kind of take some kind of vote on this and and recommend that it move forward yeah and I think it's just a little I mean it can be a um evolving discussion but I think when we get into the more detail about what exactly is getting kicked in it is helpful for you to have a good solid sense of what areas you're talking about because that might influence what the criteria is if that if that makes sense um which I'm hoping to start talking about a little bit now if we have time all right um I'm going to try and hold us to eight o'clock tonight just for fun okay that sounds good um but I'm sorry can I just get a little bit of a sense because this property is potentially uh gonna come forward do I think we're still just talking about one parcel deep here right or do we want to we're currently talking about one parcel deep so um I'm not sure that uh you know gets gets covered um in in our current discussion but uh I think that parcel has its own challenges in that it has an awful lot of butters um and and so the scrutiny on on how you develop this without um you know bothering let's say the neighborhood uh is gonna gonna hold it to a pretty high standard already yeah I think it'll probably come through before we finish with the code update anyway yeah that's what I was just thinking okay um all right so but I do want uh to echo uh what Mia said which is um in general uh the the exceptional clamor over housing in the region uh me you know our our places that are walkable and within reach of the bus station and the train station and the amenities that our village has to offer which are many um should receive our highest attention for uh allowing the most flexible uh housing options possible all right Regina sorry it's funny you bring up the train station John is it uh your chronic mission yeah after you you gotta let Regina finish and then we can hear about the train station uh so I'm gonna stop sharing and then just so the last point in the memo um is uh so we're clear on historic preservation essentially you're kicked into historic preservation if you're already listed or you're eligible for listing um and like John explained there's some flexibility in there you're not like being crazy about this um the can I ask one question so structurally that's built into the um village center district that's how can you figure out how to structurally build that into the the uh village as a whole because because there are lots of historic or eligible structures that are outside the village center and and I can't remember how the the land development code gets you to to the language about historic if you're outside the village center yeah so currently it's only in the village center I think what we've been talking about is extending it via this overlay to these trunk routes are you suggesting even more than that I'm just wondering you know if if somehow if you're on the list of historic eligible structures no matter where you are how are how are you dealt with and and that you don't have to answer that now but that's that's a worthwhile question because uh you know the list is completely um uh not contained within the current language boundary and and so if we want to extend some type of extra consideration to any building in the village that's on the historic list or eligible to be on the historic list that's a entirely uh you know we haven't dealt with that at all so I don't know the answer to that I'm just uh I'm suggesting that there might be it might be something that we want to look at and and we may decide to do nothing unless it's on a trunk route and and it gets a lot of traffic and people can see it and it's highly visible maybe we don't do anything uh let's say Natalie your hand is up again quickly because we have 15 minutes to get the rest of Regina's presentation okay just just wanted to say um how much I appreciate the fact that you all are thinking about um that smart growth approach to things where things are bikeable walkable amenities close enough the energy committee loves you for that thank you for thinking in those terms thank you all right Regina okay um so in terms of applicability for the design part of it my suggestion in these uh outer areas is that you get kicked in for this level of review um if you're doing a proposed addition to an existing building or a demolition and reconstruction regular maintenance exterior alterations and change of use would be exact sounds good yeah sounds good to me the only thing that I would be slightly hesitant about is a current single family home doing an addition that's not historic um you bring up a good point in that there are all kinds of ways to do additions to historic buildings that don't necessarily have to be historic in in and of themselves and it's one of the greatest challenges architects have it's a lot of fun uh you know how do you do something that doesn't uh negative the the real test is are you negatively impacting the character of the the main building or are you different enough but still sensitive that uh you have created a supporting structure and and not detracted from the main structure and that's really the test because you you can you can build all kinds of things you know you can build a glass box next to a historic building and in certain contexts that's deemed acceptable so um I don't have a problem with the general idea that um somebody's going to build an addition onto a historic building but I think that should be covered under the review process yeah I mean I think yeah so what about non-historic single family homes that's what I mean that well if it's in the view corridor I'm thinking uh or you know our overlay district I'm thinking it's still it still applies yeah the design review yeah yeah all right America just a historic the historic fact just means we have a different set of tests to run it through but uh you know and some sensibilities to to be careful with but the general principle applies what are you doing what does it look like and does it maintain the character of the village right and you know again going back to historic ones John I mean from my perspective we're looking to see if what they're doing is sympathetic we don't want a full addition uh sometimes it's nice to see be able to tell the difference between the the historic building and the addition it can still be sympathetic but clearly say we built this 2021 and put it onto something that was built near team 90 you know yeah good anybody else all right carry on that's it end of the memo so maple street is still confusing but otherwise I think we have a clear a clear way ahead so we will move on yeah I liked what uh Phil said where he said you know maybe we take the design district out to the point where we reach uh the light industrial and we deal with the right industrial as a separate entity I think that's what you're saying Phil yeah and to be clear I also I'm fine with going up to Mansfield as well with the recommended plan as well but I just said figured why not put it out there as well to the school okay good thank you Regina thank you John can I talk about the train station now um yeah we just all we really have left to do is is approve a set of minutes but um sure go ahead and tell us about the train station okay it was interesting I was at a ccrpc meeting uh Tuesday and um they were just scoring uh done by someone based on equity and um just going through it and I don't know whether the person was familiar with the actual train station and I started to think we shouldn't be calling it the s6 junction train station we should be calling it the s6 junction multimodal facility because it's actually the only one in Chittenden County that has buses and trains in the one location there's nowhere else in Chittenden County that you can get off a train and on to bus or vice versa at the same location it's the only one it's also in the designated village center it's also on paths sidewalks it also has you know taxi stands for as long as taxis are still used so the um ccrpc being their usual accommodating self I've said yes they will change it to the s6 junction multimodal facility because it's more than a train station but the interesting thing about the equity review was I'm not going into too many details in the original uh table the train station was number three after the equity review the train station was number six which dumbfounded me having grown up in a very low income household with no cars available public transit was critical not just to get to your job but to get to the interview to try and get the job so it had been my impression that an equity review would actually keep it where it was or bump it up um in the scoring it did not it dropped it down dropped it from three to six twice um there were two equity equities going one equity is going to and it dropped it down twice so you know the fact that we're also it's going through an a da upgrade makes it available to more people yet again as I always say you know it's accessibility it's not the word that you know some architect use occasion um it's not just if you're disabled sometimes you know John will play ice hockey and maybe doesn't walk as well as he used to it's useful for that people with young kids so many reasons um for it to be uh accessible so that's being done they're now doing it in two phases which will mean they won't trust trust touch the platform until the track is raised for the connector road until a month ago they thought they were doing it all at once now they agreed not to but I think you know we need to keep our finger on these things sometimes you know there's so many things happening there's so many balls in the earth it's it's hard to catch them all all the time but these things go through and all of a sudden well it was agreed to I will say that the the TAC the Transmission Advisory Commission committee commission um they voted just to send the original table to the ccrpc board so the tables with the equity scoring were not sent to the board I don't know whether that matters or not but it seems to me the equity is going miss the mark by mile because if you're low income you need transportation to get to where you need to go and when you're in a close to facility that provides bus train sidewalk taxi that's as good as it gets these days housing all that stuff all that stuff you know affordable house all that stuff that's as good as it gets so we'll see where it goes and as I often say I don't just don't want to hear the answer you can ask the same question 10 different ways and get 10 different answers I want to hear the question and elicit it the answer so maybe I'll understand better how the scoring came out so I've asked that we haven't received it yet but I did communicate this with I did send an email to the ccrpc and as usual they're they're wonderful people um I shared that email with Andrew Braun Dan Kiran because he's the the village rep on the ccrpc board and Evan so I've done my bit I will say Dennis Lutz from the time is in agreement with what I said so hopefully we'll work through it and you know it'll all come out fine in the end any planning commission members have any thoughts comments keep pushing we're right behind you or with you yes just you know just having you know being Irish growing up the way I did I've experienced a lot you know of um discrimination when my parents took me to London when my dad got a job there when I was nine I'm being pulled around the streets by my mother and father and everywhere we go to trying to make an apartment it says no blocks no Irish so I experienced some of that stuff maybe not in the same way that uh african-americans do in America but we couldn't get a job in Balthas so we couldn't even get a job in some country so we had to go to London and he couldn't get anywhere to live we had a job so I haven't been for public transit we couldn't have got there so um yeah no I think the public transit angle is is big it's still underutilized uh you know the bus system is still struggling the train station even though I think I heard that we were the busiest train station in Vermont that's still pretty limited uh you know pressure and and not quite enough to really gain a lot of attention so unfortunately we're just way ahead of the curve um and uh you know maybe when the train starts to become more used and and as 19th come to the station july 19th the the Amtrak station is not going to have its first trip july 19th I will say and I've been I'm digressing Arishmond you know a lot of money was put in to get from Burlington to New York by train was eight and a half nine hours with the replacement of 20 I think it's 22 miles of track in New Hampshire which the right of way is owned by the state of New Hampshire you get on a train in Essex Junction and get to Boston under four hours and that's competitive of public transport with we had people in here earlier talking about energy that's very competitive and I think if we're thinking holistically about transportation in New England if I can go to Burlington and be in New York in 45 minutes I'm not sure I'm going to take a nine-hour train if I go to Essex Junction and be in Boston four hours why would I drive I'm getting out of the train right in the center of Boston I'm on the east coast mainline I could probably get a train from from Boston in New York three and a half hours even fast you go trains so so Robin what what's I heard uh something about the train coming to Burlington so is it to bypass Essex Junction or is it going to be a separate are we part of the network well that's a big that's a big discussion um okay sorry maybe nine years ago the track from Springfield Massachusetts up to Innesburg was upgraded to Weldet Rail for like 52 million dollars or something neither the village or any other municipality along that track or the state have piggybacked on that massive investment to see what we get from it you know when we connect to Montreal Canadians can come down on the train get off um the train get a bus or a taxi right up to Stowe and ski if they get off at Essex Junction which you know which Amtrak calls Burlington Essex Junction if they get off Essex Junction it's a Nuber a rental car a bus and the Burlington 25 minutes we're at the fulcrum of the eastern and western rail line and there's you know there's a term called key settlement policies we haven't really been recognized as a key settlement for trains or public transit and if we were we'd probably get the investment we need uh to get something back um we're having a train here for like 180 years and somehow or other I mean I think it's Montpelier I think it's elected officials um we need somehow or other to get focus on that to make sure that you know this is an asset we have you know is in an eyesore at the moment yes but you know you kiss the frog it's a prince you know it could be an asset and um we really need to be you know pushing gentle but firm force and the parts that be to get that recognized because it's you know the track the station everything it's an asset that hasn't yet been realized thank you robin I'm I'm uh moving on to minutes and then I'll look for a motion to adjourn so can I get a motion to approve the minutes of May 6th 2021 so moved second second did I hear one yeah second oh thank you uh any discussion or corrections on the minutes uh hearing none I'll call the vote all in favor of the minutes as written say aye aye aye aye any opposed motion carries uh unanimously thank you and uh unless anybody has any last comments I will uh take a motion to adjourn I make a motion to adjourn and second I'll in favor of adjourning say aye aye thank you all and and thank you guests this is uh as many uh guest uh members of the audience as we've had in a long time so thank you all very much for your time enjoy your dinner John