 Like to thank you on behalf of the Edward for our utility district for you coming out this evening for our second informational meeting on the proposal for housing at 51 South Main Street We're going to be responding to questions that we heard at the last meeting other questions that have been posted on the internet and things and We'll be presenting that to you tonight, and this is a draft I mean the agenda will be following like to introduce Theresa Wood probably most of you know her, but she's going to be the moderator for the evening and go over the ground rules with us so Mike here and get started Probably Okay, thank you skip appreciate it first off I just like to welcome everyone here this evening, and we do have a few ground rules Just to make sure we're all operating from the same point of point of view and hopefully everybody can agree to them So the first one is to be respectful of each other and you might not agree with what somebody says but if we can respect that that's that person's opinion and Move on in a respectful way It will be very helpful. This meeting is being recorded by Orca And to only have one person speaking at a time If you could state your name and location, you don't have to give your address But if you live in the district, that's helpful or if you don't live in the district, that's helpful to know To please mute your cell phones put them on vibrate if you need to take a call or you have an emergency or something If you wouldn't mind stepping just outside, that would be wonderful if you need to take a call Ask for clarification. So after each presenter gets done with their information. There'll be an opportunity for Questions after each presenter or asking for clarification so if you don't understand something that the presenter has just said or You would like a bit more information to make sure you have a clear understanding please please feel free to ask for clarification and I should check it are people able to hear me in the back. You're okay. Okay? and then Disagreeing is fine, but let's not be disagreeable So if we can be polite to one another and have Civil meeting, I think everybody will be well well served by that and then please don't interrupt when people are speaking Let them have the floor and then I will recognize people when they have their hand up to be able to speak after that so appreciate everybody being here tonight and I Am going to be timing folks. So don't be alarmed if you're a speaker When I give you like a two-minute warning just to let you know Because we there's a lot of folks going to speak speaking tonight And we want to make sure that there's time for questions and answers as well So without further ado, I'm gonna turn this back over to skip to review the agenda And be the first presenter Thank you As you can see up on the screen the agenda for the evening It's pretty much like we did it the first one with a couple of additions We're gonna talk about the update on the parking study that we did in 2016 and at the back we have the utility district clerk and Loose legal of the board of civil authority are going to be speaking about the voter registration and the voting and get We'll go on on Monday. So With that Gonna do a brief history of What the former village trustees and now commissioners have done with regard to trying to find a use for The lot at 51 South Main Street ever since Irene Came through Waterbury there. So well, that's coming up There is a signing sheet. I'm gonna pass around here This isn't officially warned meeting of the district So it'd be helpful if you could sign in and if you wouldn't mind just passing that around that be great. Thank you Thank you. Is that oh It went away. Okay. Like I said, this is a brief history of the lot the village purchased it in 1983 from the rusty parker of state For 74,000 and modified it into the vault and the police station And then when Irene came through it was not only damaged by the flood water but the biggest damage that occurred to it was from the oil tank tipping over and Contaminated all the floor beams and everything And then when we looked at it the building as it was we had sort of outlived its use as a municipal office due to space and things so it wasn't in contention to be renovated and returned to use as a municipal office and When we got the estimate to put the building back into Use as it was it was a 435 thousand dollars To restore the building so that gave us cause for Thinking about what we would do with a lot and things so This is the engineers Estimate to restore the building to four hundred and thirty five thousand eight hundred and forty four dollars there And we did that in 2012 We've gone through a number of RFPs as we were deciding what to do with a lot This is one of the first ones in 2013 Did an RFP that could have included? Subdividing the lot that we wanted the back part could be used for private or municipal parking with a right-of-way and a proposal for You know the front part to possibly reuse the building We got two responses to that RFP The first was for ninety thousand dollars To take down the building and use it as a pay for parking lot Another proposal was going to offer us ten dollars for the property and he proposed to take the building down and build a parking garage with Office space and things over the top of it and he was hoping that we would Least the property back and put the municipal office in the fire station in there It would have ten six to twelve residential units in that building a third proposal that Working with the economic development director Darren Winem. He was seeking letters of interest of people and Dan Johnson was one of the people and We worked with him through Darren and He offered us thirty thousand dollars for the lot at the time We were looking to increase the village grand list because it had been depressed due to the damage from Irene so He offered the 30 and was proposing to build the housing unit that had 31 bin room units things on it That proposal was presented to the village voters and voted down at the time then With the estimate to repair the building of the four hundred thirty five thousand dollars the insurance company offers the village a percentage of that Cost to repair it if you want to take the cash instead of repairing the building The trustees devoted to accept three hundred and forty eight thousand dollars For the building and not repair it So we took that money. It's been invested in things. We then Asked for RFPs for the lot again in 2017 we got three proposals We were in discussion with each of them, but none of them turned out to be acceptable there and in all the terms in 2018 we agreed to With these construction works to take the building down they specialize in restoring Reusing recycling all the metals and wood from the building so They took the building down and we built the parking lot that you see there today for seventy three thousand nine hundred and eighty two dollars for Taking the building down in the parking lot and we used a part of the parking study We'll hear about later Was where we studied the parking in the downtown to determine What to do with a lot did we need the parking was it critical and there was a recommendation that we would use that lot During Main Street reconstruction to help offset the on Street parking spaces they're going to be lost during during construction The Main Street construction was completed in 2021 and that's when we Looked at expressing an interest of what to do with 51 South Main Street We knew of the town plan that said the critical priority need was housing Affordable housing we asked the manager to reach out to Down Street who? Has affordable apartments in the village? And in the town if they were interested in the lot They said they were This is the lot. It's about eight tenths of an acre and their praise value The grand list is a hundred and thirty five thousand dollars And it's approved the article that will be voting on them the Twenty-fourth they would be sold for a hundred and thirty eight thousand dollars I don't know where the difference between the one thirty five and the one thirty eight in there But somewhere it kept in there and The commissioners in making this decision to bring this to the voters and talk to Down Street Thought then given the history of this lot in municipal service to the community That we would look for a use that helped meet one of the priority needs in our town plan The commissioners are responsible for the care of the district property and bringing proposals to the voters of which we're doing Today and we were interested in Like I said an option for affordable housing market rate housing We hear about the story of how expensive it is in apartments being bought and the renovated and converted into Hi rents and things and Down Street is one of the few organizations that offers the Affordable housing where the rents are factor into the amount of income And if this project is going to potentially write Result in a financial gain to the utility district of three hundred and forty eight thousand we got from the insurance We spent seventy three thousand to destruct the building and build the parking lot and the sale of the property the hundred and eighty Thirty eight thousand so the net gain to the Utility district from doing this will be four hundred and twelve thousand dollars Some of it has been invested in if we sell it that would likely be invested in too So that's the history that brought us here today with this proposal That we've presented at the last informational meeting. You're going to be hearing more information about it In a few minutes. So thank you so much skip. Did I get under my time? You're good You still have two minutes and ten seconds Okay, that was awesome. So, um, is there anyone who has any questions or Questions of clarification or anything about skips presentation about sort of the history from 2011 to 2022 and where we are at right now Anybody have any questions? Just feel free to raise your hand Yes Either the trustee they were all the trustees because this is the first proposal as the Commissioner either weren't fair to the Village or we didn't like what was proposed or didn't believe they could do it We couldn't agree on a price one of them, so there were Multiple factors, but we didn't think it was anything we'd want to bring to the village Thank you, I'm ready to hand off We even have like 45 seconds for Mike handoff That's like you think you might have done this a time or two or anything. I'll probably talk for too long Yeah Not really because I've got the clock. That's good. That's really Thank you While she's getting that up my name is Katie Gallagher and I am the vice chair currently of the Planning Commission and I live in Waterbury Center So I'm not a voting member of the district But I live right next to the downstreet project our housing in in Waterbury Center But I'm going to talk today about How housing relates to and how this project specifically relates to our town plan And the Waterbury Planning Commission's work related to housing in the village area So also for those of you who are at the first meeting this might look pretty familiar because I stole a lot of it from Alyssa So thank you to Alyssa starting off just background Planning for Waterbury. I want to point out There's this definition of what planning allows a community to do but what I think is really important here Is the fact that we are thinking about as a planning commission Where it is that we would like to be headed as a community recognizing that change is coming change is inevitable And working together to figure out how we're actually going to get there So I think it's just remembered important to to remember and keep in mind that We all love Waterbury It's not always going to be exactly the way that it is today, but how can we best manage that change that's coming at us? So Waterbury's Planning Commission Has discussed this project and we support the sale of 51 South Main Street to Downstreet Primarily because of Waterbury's Town Plan. So that's the most recent town plan in 2018, but also previous plans that have included housing and mentioned specifically this type of work for the village our current zoning regulations and plans for the future Our our understanding of current housing needs and how that relates to land use and planning And the development process of this kind of work moving forward So I'm going to focus mostly on the relationship to the town plan But wanted to just highlight that these are the four kind of components that as a planning commission we felt like supported this decision So this is for those of you who are not familiar Waterbury Town Plan beautiful front page This link up here is where you can find it can just go to our site and find it here. This is the 2018 Town Plan And the two relevant sections here are chapter five and housing and chapter 11 and land use so starting With housing actually this I pulled it out from I think it might have been the 2013 Survey, so you know as a reminder town plans are created Co-created with community members through surveys and community input and feedback Um this survey asked what would be the most effective steps waterbury could take to manage future residential growth And these are the top two answers and I'm sure those of you in the back cannot read this But the top two answers were allowing high density housing at the state office complex property And the second was allowing multifamily housing in a larger portion of the village And in response to the question, where should waterbury encourage more residential development? The majority of respondents supported housing to be located within the village Um so chapter five housing these are just two of the goals But related to this discussion. The first is ensuring the availability Of safe decent and affordable housing for all current and future waterbury residents And the second is creating new housing in locations that maintain the integrity of neighborhoods while increasing density Respecting the natural environment and minimizing the need for infrastructure improvements. And of course, um the villages has Um municipal water and sewer So getting more specific Into objectives that are listed in this section of the town plan the first Encouraging development of affordable housing Again near employment public transportation. This is an area that's served by infrastructure, but also provides residents with access to Education health services all the needs Most of the needs that you need to be fulfilled to live a high quality of life The second here Encouraging the creation of more diverse housing So housing that fits the needs of of all of us and particularly looking at accommodating smaller household size Sizes which we know is an increasing trend for people looking for housing For younger families younger workers older folks who are looking to downsize people who are looking for smaller units For the cost benefit so on so forth The sixth objective supporting housing that maximizes development potential Minimizes environmental impacts preserves open space and ensuring greater efficiency in infrastructure And we're going to come back to this but a lot of the points here Are are kind of what we think about when we talk about smart growth So making sure that we are incentivizing development in our existing downtown and village centers where we've already invested our municipal dollars And allowing that To have us protect our our farms our forests our our working landscape The seventh point is encouraging public private partnerships to develop housing options And so that is again what we're talking about today And then two actions related to this housing chapter One is exploring the expansion and infill of the village growth centers Allowing how higher density residential and mixed uses that include housing And encouraging partnerships with nonprofit agencies Such as downstreet and others to provide assistance with financing affordable housing projects Um, so going on to our land use goals Waterberry as a town for many years has had this goal that's also encouraged by vermont's Municipal and regional planning and development law and policies which is to guide future growth and development by reinforcing waterberries Traditional pattern of concentrated settlements surrounded by rural countryside So that's what I was referencing before related to this idea of smart growth Um But what that looks like here is is again higher density residential development in waterberry village And I just want to know also that Again, there are multiple benefits to this kind of land use pattern. It's not it's it is about providing housing for Everybody and the way that meets their needs, but it's also Provides a benefit to the town it provides benefits to our environment It provides benefits to our local economy so on and so forth So a goal that we have for our land use Specifically related to the growth center, which is we're talking here about the growth center in Waterberry village is to ensure that new development and redevelopment is compatible with existing uses Adheres to smart growth planning principles Respects the integrity of historic structures and enhances existing development And so I just want to note as well in relation to some of the concerns that we've had that that The fact that this is in our historic downtown Is still critically important when we're talking about new development and making sure that we don't want to have something That's that's totally out of place in our community and that is something that the planning commission Is also focused on So two objectives here again similar to the housing chapter is to promote a variety of mixed uses and higher density development and encouraging new development in This place that we're talking about Um just to mention also in the town plan conserving energy through density of land use So same kind of ideas just other benefits of this type of land use and leveraging public infrastructure investments So again, we've already put our public dollars into this space. So to take advantage of this is this is a important way to take advantage of of that existing investment Um, so Alyssa's going to talk about zoning a little bit more in a second. So i'm just going to touch on this But this is a map of Waterberry's designated downtown. The blue star is the location of 51 south main um Waterberry has this designated downtown. It is um a process that allows us to support community revitalization While preserving the historic character um of the town and enhancing Our the future of our center Uh, this is a map of our the future housing distribution maps that you can find Uh with the town plan related documents Um, I'm not going to go into all of this but that blue arrow. This is where we're talking about the housing project This is in In red this area is what we're talking about in terms of where we want Um future growth and as you can see you probably cannot see because it's way too small But on the right hand side This is noting the number of units that we are Planning for in this in the different districts in this in this area And I also just want to highlight this is not a whole map of Waterberry This is I didn't change the extent of this at all but We're talking about we need more housing in this growth center here And all of the rest of the town Is kind of you know where we're not trying to build more So just you know keeping in in mind that broader context of you know While we're having this very specific conversation about this very specific location Um the goal is that we are are protecting and preserving Our working in natural lands in the rest of the town Thank you almost done. Okay, so um again We have a specific downtown zoning district that allows for higher density housing in our mixed use core Um related to housing needs Again just going back to that question. I posed in the beginning of where we want to be headed and how we can get there We know that we need homes for Everyone in our community and this is how we get there. Um, so again, it's not just about It is again it is about providing housing for people But what housing gets us is teachers is the people who serve me pizza when I am too tired to make dinner You know, it's my my dentist and all of these people who need housing and we need to help support Um This is my final slide just want to know also this is going to talk about it more Um, but we as a town have several You know parts of the process Uh that encourage public comment and I would encourage you all to engage in that public comment process We already have our town plan so You you I'm sure all engaged in that process Uh, we're you know redoing our zoning and bylaws right now This project would still have to go through a drb review so here's our website and I will we'll leave it there and Thank you for your time Thank you, katie So katie just covered an immense amount of information in a really short time and I do want to encourage people to take a closer look at this at the website And we'll stop here for a second And I just want to allow just a minute or two If anybody has any specific questions that katie might be able to answer this evening about any clarification Any information that you didn't understand or Any any other information or questions about her presentation Don't be shy. Yeah, go ahead The downtown has a lot of flood plain So are you increasing the density in the areas of the flood plain as well? um Alyssa might be able to answer this question better than than I can but I believe that the area of density is outside of the the flood plain areas Alyssa Johnson, I'll introduce myself in a minute, but used to be chair of the planning commission I would say we do there's a conundrum Most of downtown water barrier where we have dense development is a flood plain I would note one section of our regulations that are in any of these presentations, but you have special flood hazard area regulations that are made to address The fact that what happens and make the community more resilient So that's been something the planning commission has tried to balance Having those regulations that support more resilient communities and allow density in a way that is more Resilient potential flooding recognizing that it happens Thank you, Alyssa. Thank you One more question if there is a fair and I just uh If there are mass available here if anybody Would like to use them you are welcome to get up and avail yourself of them if you would like to And there's also information on the table over here about the upcoming vote and some other information there about fees For the utility district for this property. So feel free to take one on your on your way out. Thanks so much, Katie I'm going to transition now to mark familio from revitalizing waterberry And uh, thanks for being here mark Uh, can everyone hear me? All right. Yes, as Teresa mentioned, I'm mark milio. I'm the economic development director with revitalizing waterberry I'm going to be talking a little bit about a housing study and then Going into designated downtown Reinvestment statistics which pertain to the designated downtown map that was showed in the previous presentation Okay A little background on the housing study revitalizing waterberry was reached out to by main street group. They're a Consulting firm out of new york and they're trying to build their present into vermont their Senior planning consultant that worked with us was currently staying in vermont and wanted to build his clients there and that's why we reached out for it um There was two components to the Two main components to this study. One was a retail market analysis study that went Into some other things that aren't too pertinent to this conversation And then the one i'll be focusing on which was a housing study you can see that they Conducted the majority of their analysis for the study in the fall and summer and fall of 2021 and then returned us a full report February of 2022 um You can see that in other aspects um, there was a survey that was done within the housing To find summer recommendations within the housing study. There is also analysis done on short term rentals at the current point and Yeah, excellent Okay, here's some just quick facts about waterbury When the study was done. So we got to remember this was All the information is almost what a year old now, but it's the most Relevant I have so we have about 5300 people here in the whole town of waterbury And I it is important to mention when i'm talking about the housing study that it was done for the full town of waterbury It was not specifically narrowed down to the designated downtown. You can see that we have around 2100 households Okay, and then you can see This was an analysis done here the amount of By which median sales increased from 2019 2021 was approximately 30 Percent which is Around 98 thousand dollars. So in two years Our average median house price here in waterbury increased almost a hundred thousand dollars um, and then also Something that was brought from the survey was That 87.5 of people felt that studio one bedroom and two bedroom housing best met Their current and future needs for housing in the town of waterbury Now based on all their analysis, um from I don't know. I'm not I'm not a planner But for what they did there was two recommendations that I took from the study that are Permanent to this conversation into this proposal The first one is waterbury should work for developers to construct housing for year-round residents Additionally restrictions can be implemented to ensure a percentage Of the new housing was used for full-time residents and and those who qualified for housing assistance And then also waterbury should prioritize the development of studio one and two bedroom housing And the town should not focus on larger developments um before I move on to the designated downtown reinvestment statistics um, I want to mention that You can find the full housing study on the revitalizing waterbury website On the top header you go to the business section It dropped down to business resources And you'll find the study there you can download as a pdf And you're happy to come into the office if you don't have access to the printer and we'll print you on um Now talking about the downtown reinvestment statistics So as mentioned earlier waterbury Downtown waterbury has a designated downtown. There's 23 currently in the state of Vermont and Providing waterbury is responsible for The designated downtown organization. So we are the ones responsible for Within relation with the state and their organization to help make sure that What the state wants when the town wants are aligned in some ways one of those One of those priorities that our organization has to do every year is the lovely downtown reinvestment statistics So at the end of 2021 this is the Some of the main points from that document that was collected um Yeah, so we I took apart the difference between commercial and residential use within The designated downtown, which was that area that was highlighted in the previous amount, which is mainly Evolves around main street within the downtown, but there are some areas that go outside of it You can see the difference here commercial there were seven vacancies at the time with the total 8 total vacancy rate um Per unit and then residential. We had a We have a 199 total housing units within the designated downtown and only 12 were created within that last year And you can see that at the time there were not a single vacancy um I guess that's all I really have to talk about. I'd love to open it up to questions Is that um, I have failed to enforce one of our um ground rules So I am now going to enforce one of our ground rules So when I call on you, please just state your name and whether you live in the district or not that would be great Yes, Eric My name is Derek Pistic. I live on Union street Seven vacancies are those like second and third four office spaces We'd like to know where there is a vacancy on street level Yeah, there it's all different kinds of vacancies. There is large office spaces. There are uh, first floor retail spaces Where's that first I think at the time there um, there was at the end of 2021 there wasn't anybody in the old green mountain coin place But I can't remember the exact timeline. This was done in january of 2021 but Yeah, I mean we just Just this week. We have a new commercial vacancy In the designated downtown. So it's happening now. It's happening in 2021 Um, it was then there was two parts. I think was there was another part Derek to your question Yeah, I just want to know how many Uh, street level retail spaces were open in in the historic district downtown And except for what you say there's one now. That's that's the first type So anything I know of I mean most of it is second and third floor commercial level, you know of our vats, uh Of uh, water very sports. I understand those spaces are different, but that's different. So we need to make sure we just clarify that that there's not this glut of commercial downstairs retail space available in downtown retail versus office is kind of what you're referencing. Okay. Thank you I can try to go back to my report that was done, you know this year and see if I noted exactly what's going on. I'm sure I did Okay, yes, go ahead. Got you Um I'd say over the past six or so months. There's been very little interest in Retail spaces the only commercial space that I've really had the most Like hits for our single person office spaces or ones wanting to work in a co-working space, which Uh, we don't have available what we do very recently, but it's more for artists And yeah, I've had one the one I can remember the most was one that somebody was Somebody's building was being purchased and they had Um, you know, their clients were in this area. So they were looking for In a place here in waterbury, but they weren't specific to the downtown For the survey component of the housing study, there was uh, just over a hundred Yeah, but um That wasn't the only thing they used to get the results of the study. That was just one aspect of the analysis Yeah, christianne's waterbury center. Um, you're eight percent total vacancy rating How does that rate from a from a good to bad scenario usually uh commercial In a in a downtown you went around two to three percent Uh, Cheryl floor. I am a customer So one thing I'd kind of like to come out. Thank you for sharing the survey But we have to keep in mind too that the survey was done kind of right on the covid cusp Where everybody in their brother was playing the city to come to vermont kind of like his own movies so it's kind of you know Who did they talk to and how long had they lived here? Where they knew the area not in the area So I kind of like to just have us keep that in mind when we're talking about the survey because 100 people responding out of five thousand waterbury residents to me is a little suspect and You know, we all know surveys and analysis can be taken in many different ways Yeah, I think that's a great disclaimer to know that whenever a survey is done it's done From a single point of view and it's done from a certain contractor And a team they're working on and it's done at a specific point in time You know, we have studies that Five years later tell a different story because of Counting so that is a good disclaimer when you're thinking about studies or reports. Definitely I don't know what time I just have something to add. I'm from Mina's signer from The village and I can address some of the financial I've had Three buildings and one lot for sale against Those working. It was the party studio and 200 buildings And uh, those are now sold to what And um, we have three Offices in one building By the end of 2021 that we're not going to get but those are all rented So that's That's good And those are all within the designated downtown Okay, so those would have not been counted within this Mm-hmm Yeah, that is total housing units so based on what the building is classified so if it's classed as a single family You know home. It's one dwelling unit. It's apartment with three dwellings and there's three dwelling units Mm-hmm. Yes, it's total total residential unit within the downtown Said you can take a this is just really very brief excerpts from this study You can if you want more in-depth information and more information about the methodology Feel free to go to the rw website. I think this was on the town's website at one point in time I'm not sure if it still is but um, you can find it on the revitalizing waterbury website So thanks so much mark appreciate it. And if we could have a life exchange with alissa, that would be great Next up is going to be alissa johnson and she's going to talk a bit about the zoning requirements What are the parameters for? that That any kind of developers needs to stay within for 51 south main street Are we doing on sound with the orca guy good? Okay Hi everyone apologies for the improper introduction earlier that was kind of haphazard. My name is alissa johnson I live on south main street. I'm currently a member of the select board. I am not here today on behalf of the select board I'm here because I'm really excited to talk about zoning I hope you all are too and so they can usually rote me into talking about zoning or doing tech things So all of that said This presentation if you came to our first introduction meeting was given by neal lightner Who is our town's assistant planning and zoning administrator both neal and our planning and zoning directors? Steve lost feet are in main for a planning conference. So again, you got me This is going through the planning and zoning process So this is the process that any project located on the parcel that is 51 south main street would have to go to this process has not begun yet for This proposed down street project or any other project But this process here today is just the process that anything would have to go through if it was on the site Right now we talked about we have town plans. They are adopted for sometimes long spans of time So say five to eight years In the planning world the town plan is the overall vision The zoning regulations are where the rubber meets the road in terms of what we as a community Would actually regulate and require for someone building a project somewhere in the community I say that because we have a set of zoning regulations and sometimes they need to be updated So for this particular parcel What is governing it is actually a set of interim bylaws A previous select board adopted those. So that's what governs it. It's in a downtown zoning district So katie spoke a little bit about this so The parcel 51 south main street is located in the downtown zoning district and currently that's governed by the Who downtown interim bylaws adopted on march 26 all of that to say there's a big table That as we said where the rubber meets the road, what do we allow? What do we not allow in this district? Multifamily dwellings are permitted use in that table Apologies again for the design reading of this katie spoke about our designated downtown district again for folks I should also say I used to work for revitalizing waterbury at the same job as mark So I have it deeply entrenched in my brain if you're visualizing it It is the railroad bridge with the sculpture to where we are right now 114 south main street. That's our designated downtown district Basically immediately adjacent along main street north and south and also it does include pilgrim park All that to say one of the things where the rubber meets the road We have this place. We want to concentrate planning So then we have an overlay zoning district in the same way that the flood regulations are an overlay on the flood district This is an overlay for the downtown and it's specifically focused on design and making sure that the design for the area is consistent So again, this is the drb process. This would be true for any project Has to be reviewed by the drb or development review board. They'll get a shout out in a minute But I know we have multiple members in the room as we speak The development review board is a quasi judicial board appointed by the select board Their job is not to say if they like a project or don't like a project Their job is to say does this project meet specific criteria that is outlined in our regulations Two of the sections that they will have to review again because of this particular location for any project at this location Is the downtown design review standards and also site plan which just has to do with the type of project As has been said drb meetings are public Here's the shout out. Thanks to the seven folks who spend two wednesdays a month going through zoning and permitting Applications to alternates as well, but these are the folks on your development review board This water braid vt.com Also would be where any materials for any zoning and permitting application in the town you are curious about can be found This is all copy paste. So like I did in my old one I opened up the zoning regulations and copy and pasted. So this is section 1108 design review standards. These are the things that Any hypothetical project needs to meet that the development review board is reviewing. Let's see if I get a little laser guy Don't think I have it. Anyway building design reinforcing the streetscape Similar size height scale massing If you have a new addition it needs to be compatible with the historic structure We want a pedestrian streetscape where folks can walk on the sidewalk again We have as katie talked about the big vision of we want this downtown where people can walk and this is the way We're able to regulate it Um, the more specific site plan review Um, this is just again some of the things that that awesome group of folks has to consider in reviewing an application Again, this is a copy paste from our regulations section 301 pages four to six If anyone's interested, um, they will take into consideration the following objectives traffic access traffic flow location of driveways pedestrian safety circulation and parking Shout out to another section 414. So we do in our zoning regulations have a whole table with How much parking is needed for what type of use for what type of unit? So again Any hypothetical project needs to have okay. Do you have enough parking? They're reviewing. Do you have it there? Do you need trees and shrubs? Are you buffering it from the street? Landscaping and that's the last one i'm almost done But again, this is part of what a development review board is reviewing through site plan approval And that's really it again. I am not the expert on this. I am not our planning or zoning administrator But we have professionals who do it. This is the criteria. They're looking at And on the ground that is run by again your local development review board and that is a public process I will say a budding neighbors in development review board processes have to get certified mail notifications That's the first thing they say if you've been to the hearing they say hi. Can I have your? Mail receipts and if you don't have them that's the end of that You can go home for the night because they can't have the hearing if all of their neighbors haven't gotten their certified mail That's all right That's that same one, I think it's actually a really long title the designated downtown Technically has two sub one is the historic commercial district and one is like the commercial industrial district Which is pilgrim park. They have very slightly different regulations, but both are in that designated downtown You're correct, and it does have historic in that title too Please crack me they do this all the time We didn't go over on zoning Teresa. I can't believe it I can't believe it. Okay, awesome. Thank you so much. Yeah, and last plug I will say Kate didn't say because she's on the planning commission So I'm going to say it for her the planning commission is Working on updating our zoning regulations So if you think that how much parking we think you should require is wrong Or you think that a certain type of use shouldn't or shouldn't be allowed a certain area That's what zoning regulations are for and just to say I go to the planning commission meetings I'm usually the only member of the public if you want to join on a Monday night At least for a public comment. That is a thing that offers public input. Um, and they always love it. It's fine. It's a slow process That's why I said the downtown has interim bylaws and those actually happened because that process was taking so long So I absolutely acknowledge I got on the planning commission because I said let's get this bylaw done We just approved a grant as the select board for them saying let's get this done as soon as possible Um, it's hard and complicated to come up with regulations that then get put up in the front of the room At a meeting like this to say is this the right thing that we all agreed on and that our lay people can administer And so Certainly, I think it is really time intensive and I totally acknowledge that that it's hard to come in with a challenge We had I think there was another property owner at the same meeting who same thing came in with a really specific issue They hoped would be addressed with that rewrite. So Absolutely, it's a slow and laborious public process and I'm not going to sugarcoat that in any way But i'm going to say that working towards improving that when folks know that they're issues There are other ways to remedy it. So we for example now i'm putting the select board hat on the select board can approve interim zoning for imminent issues that come up like imminent issues like our zoning regulations Didn't define a brewery and we had a situation with a brewery And now we have interim zoning regulations that define a brewery So there are ways that that input even though the long game getting that full rewrite done might take a while Can be used more short term, but I do hear you. It's a long process It used to be a duplex, but now the town won't let us make it a duplex anymore I've had multiple people who drug come to me about this. I'm like, there's nothing I can do about it I'm like, why can't that be? Yeah, I mean, I think that you certainly got a relevant issue in question about that, but I'm going to Bring it back to 51 south main street and But I appreciate very much what the question is and Hopefully members of the drb or zoning people can You know, maybe catch you at a break or To have a conversation with you about that. So thank you for bringing it up Any other questions about um 51 south main and the kind of process it's going to need to go through in order to You know move any project along there at at that address Great. Thank you so much, Alyssa And I don't see mark Is mark here? Did you come in? Oh, okay mark, you're up Well, I think the order changed and the order changed. Is it is it mark? It's mark. I'm on yeah On the on the uh, yeah on the latest one. It's It's you mark Yeah That's that's okay. This is more for orca than it is anybody else. Thank you Hello Is it working? How can I tell if my mic's all right great? Oh, okay. Um, well, this is awesome. I'm really excited at least um the amount of people here I mean And this is the most I think I ever saw In a meeting like that. So, um You know, I I think I was asked to to speak here and I spoke at the last informational meeting about the needs of the business community I think personally I It frustrates me to see comments about specific to the restaurant industry I think for the folks in here that are employers. I think it's it's across the board It's uh, I happen to employ a significant number of people But there's plenty of other folk in town that are also employing people that are struggling With employment and finding employees and and a lot of it is a conversation around housing Give a little background on myself. I was on the select board for seven years chair for one I've been on groups from the what used to be the waterway tourism council Then the rw's Wadc, which is the waterway area community development group that tries to work For retaining business growing business and bringing business But so much more in those meetings we talk about housing because You can bring business here, but if they can't find employees It's a problem and I think I unfortunately it was a little late So I don't know if that was brought up In scenarios where there are businesses that I think want or could be in town that Might choose not to or have pulled out because their concerns surrounding the ability to find employees for their business I think we're going to continue to see that problem um You know I sometimes have to wear my like eye on a restaurant hat and then other times I try to Represent myself as much more broadly pro waterbury believe in this community Is doing the right things? Um, but I think we're getting it wrong with housing um I think did anyone see recently there was a picture of what burlington looked like I don't know what era it was probably 1940s. It was all like single story It was really low. Maybe it was much earlier than that I think that's the growth that we you know, we sat in those select board meetings and talked a lot about the concern on sprawl and if the demand for housing is needed, where do you put those Those that housing and the infrastructure of sewer and water is a big answer of where you put it Um, and also the conversation surrounding transportation. Um, so I think that's why you gotta really look at the downtown as the opportunity I totally understand concerns about size and scale and there are things within the zoning rules that Help address that But then in this specific case this property is owned by a former Village that is municipality that they've decided to put it out to vote So it's it's a little unique situation, but I'm glad we're here talking about it For me personally with the restaurant hat. I have employees that struggle to find housing and there's not a lot of new Faces coming to town and I think a lot of it has to do with housing I think if you were anywhere in the united states and you hear something great about vermont or maybe even specifically waterbury great Where are you going to find housing if they're going to go to craigslist probably is the the first thing they're going to look at and I don't know if anyone's been on craigslist, but Not much there and it's very expensive So you're going to move up and your life move to waterbury if you don't even know if you can afford to live there um, I think There's a lot of conversation around the the term vacancy Years ago, I really started to like look at vacancy as trying to understand how that creates affordability and and what it does is It's a supply demand if you have too much supply And demand isn't there then prices will flatten or maybe go down If we don't have enough supply and we have way too much demand, which is I think what's currently happening You see prices go up COVID didn't help. We were talking about affordability and housing supply And and tom stevens can can agree with me that I reached out to him years ago and said We're short like we need more housing and this was before COVID and then COVID happens and a bunch of people can now work from home And so now they're in cities going well, I can live anywhere I want vermont looks great waterbury looks great. We'll come to waterbury. Um, so I think we're fighting that short-term housing has also been a big um and I don't know if that's been talked about before but um, short-term housing is really hard to get the quantifiable numbers on what that's doing to our market, but I really think that um It's this quiet beast not saying that it's a kind of economy that shouldn't exist But it did take a lot of what used to be long-term rentals and tournament to short-term housing Or it took single-family houses and tournaments to short-term housing So I think it's a little bit of everything and it's impacting all of our real estate problems So You know sitting on the select board, you know, I see a lot of the front porch forum posts about affordability And this project and just bigger conversations around affordability The the years that we as a select board were able to Not raise your tax rate was when the grand list grew because Every year typically our budget is going to or waterbury's budget is going to go up. I'm no longer on the select board but typically the it's going to Wages are increasing. There's certain things that are just inflationary that that are going to bring that budget up And the way to offset that is to grow grand lists at the same rate We picked up 60 units on blush hill The hotels there. There's certain projects that kept Your affordability if anyone's in your homeowner, which I think quite a few are That's what really drove a lot of the reason we were able to keep the tax rate where it was so To me seeing projects like this, you know, as my restaurant had great. I think it will help with the Vacancy rate situation is it going to solve it? No, that's not even near I think I was in meetings years ago on the 60 units on blush hill and I remember somebody stood up and said We don't need 60 units on blush hill Those got rented immediately and we still have a housing problem So I think like 24 units or 30 units isn't going to fix it. Is it going to help? I think so I think it will help Start to move a needle. It's not enough. I think there needs to be continued projects And I think down street knows that too And I I hope I always hope that The changes and the work that was being done on the planning commission and through zoning would entice more development you know smart controlled but Where was appropriate for trying to grow a town that also has a bunch of folks who've been here a while and I understand and respect All of that but I think as it's always a challenge when you grow a community how you do it where And all the details surrounding it and it's not an easy thing. There's a lot of folks doing a lot of work on it But yeah, I think there's a lot of misinformation that's come out during this project So hopefully a lot of that's being cleared clarified tonight But i'm happy to answer any questions in any hat I ever have worn There've been multiple ones Thank you mark so much for uh, sort of talking about it from a business owner perspective I'm just going to check in. Are there any other business owners here who might want to say a thing or two? About the needs for housing as it relates to their business. Uh, yeah Both of them have had double finding Rather substandard place and really has been pretty good to stay there And if you don't own a car and you stay in the village there's also this problem You work within walking streets and you have to move down to this problem If we don't have employees Thank you for sharing Anybody else here to share? Um Yes Uh, typically I think that healthy is three to three and fives I think it's three percent vacancy and rental five in single family or it might be flip-flop So that I I can't remember but that's So you take the entire market and the problem is is that if if and I think um, if you google vacancy rate Healthy vacancy rate vermont you get an article and it talks about how there there's data Similar to I think the conversation and questions on marks Um, you got to look a little deeper sometimes on the data And I think the data doesn't know how to pick up short-term rentals It thinks that housing is available when it's really not so there's data saying that oh, that's not a homesteaded property So that must be available Um second homes and and single family are even a short-term rental Um, I think the short-term rental they don't know how to pick that data up So it might look like we're in a healthy vacancy situation But we're really not and I think the answer lies on craigslist or zillow I mean look go on zillow and look at single family houses for sale in the area under half a million You're not going to find many right so it's um I think that's the reality of the situation is it's three to five So you take the number of housing and say you just want to do waterberry 5500 people let's say I don't know what is a thousand houses or whatever it is So it's thousand times 0.03 and that's your your number and that should be sitting vacant at any one time To have a healthy market and there's there's a less than a handful available Not the hundreds or 50 or whatever the answer is there Yeah, I think communities that start to plan You know some some have figured it out. I think even if you look at Morrisville and the amount of construction that's happening in Morrisville Um, I think some of that is through Zoning and the rulebook and density Um, you know a lot of times even somebody mentioned that they can't turn their single family house back into a duplex Um stuff like that Uh ad use accessory accessory dwelling units are other things that cities are doing to try to create additional units Within the infrastructure that basically exists and also give folks opportunities to make Their homestead more viable. Um stuff like that. I think can can move the needle Yeah, I think you can I really do. Um, unfortunately you have the challenges of construction costs Contractors, you know, even just the ability of of all the trades. Um, I think we're we're in for a difficult lesson there And it's it's great if you got into the market before covid but the folks that don't own homes Or um are trying to get in this community and just rent Those are the folks that are left out and there there might not even be in this meeting tonight, but um I always had as a slack board and tried to think outside of my own personal world And I think that there's decisions that we can make to the community to make sure that It's available for everybody. Not just the folks that have been here. So Um, it's a challenge. I get it and and I and I understand the concerns, um, I actually parked on main street and walked by Downstreet's building right there and I was like, I've never actually walked by here at night And it's not this crazy apartment complex that like I don't know it feels very nice and I would I support it obviously but um Yeah, I I think it's going to take a lot of work to get there This project isn't Going to be the only solution, but it's part of it Thanks very much. Yep Are you asking me a question? I'll leave my mic on I don't think that's I don't think you can And I got into a conversation with someone asking like But I do want to say that um, I think instead of trying to think about that as a way to Control say this building It's more the market if there's people that can work from home that are now moving to vermont There's an extra pressure on demand and we have to come with with supply And and you don't have to then have those rules You just know that there's folks that want to come work here from home How do we how do we address that supply demand on top of people who are working locally and the other challenges It's just a fact. Thank you. Thank you very much mark. Um, okay Skip is up next to give us an update on the parking study that uh, that was done and There are I just want to do uh, there are restrooms right here out to the right If you need to take a break and Feel free to you know, just get up and move around and stretch your legs if you need to. Thank you skip Thank you, Teresa Parking um We heard at one of the earlier meetings concern about parking that if we put the building on 51 South main street will be a loss of parking and did we need that? um So we've looked into that They're uh In 2016 the trustees in trying to decide what to do with 51 We're hearing concerns, you know, there's no parking in downtown the potential TD bank was Going to be lost and things so we engaged uh stand tack to do a parking study of the downtown and With a very interesting and very valuable study, I think in helping us make decisions on what to do and uh Their standard is if there's an available parking space within 400 feet of where you want to go They count that space as uh being able to walk Especially in a rural area that you can walk you might not um Have that standard if you're in new york city, but uh up here in vermont so they counted all the spaces between 400 feet between the intersection of stow street and main street was the center of their study And they found that there were 300 and uh 14 spaces within 400 feet of that corner And at the time they did the study uh Later on we'll see the percentage but the available parking space at TD bank has since been uh doubled from about 20 I think it's 37 now and things so This update of this parking study is after the last meeting the commissioners authorized So an update to that 2016 study It's helpful You know in the determination that we were going to keep 51 south main street as parking until the main street reconstruction was done it didn't get utilized as Parking as much as we thought it would during the construction it might have been used more by construction equipment than people's cars And uh, so we've got the update to the study Here's the study area that they did update. It's uh There's a red line which me being colorblind don't see very well, but hopefully you folks can See it and uh, it's a supplemental to the 2016 report Um 51 south main street They lost if there's 27 spaces at 51 south main so they would go away So they assumed that those are lost The additional spaces at the TD bank that are paid for parking And uh, there's an additional Private parking lot at the freak float beer on stow street. That wasn't there before I think they didn't include we now have a parking agreement with the congregational church about some additional Spaces there plus when main street was constructed They didn't lose as many spaces as they originally anticipated in the design Here's a summary of They counted private and public spaces that are available for use Prior to the 2016 Um report there were 345 spaces. They needed 240 uh 204 So there was 141 actually it was a 59 percent utilization At the peak period of those spaces In 2022 there were 375 spaces Some of those are the ones that uh 51 south main street They needed 263 So it was a 70 occupancy of the parking If we take away 51 south main street The available spaces are 348. They still need 263 So it was a 70 occupancy rate of the parking with the loss of 51 Blow if you counted only the public spaces not the private spaces um the numbers have With the loss of 51 it's 179 spaces. They needed 156 So it was 87 occupancy for parking 90 is the standard. So it was below the Limit for the utilization there This is a graph that shows the blue as the available spaces and the Sort of the red color I assume Is the Spaces that are Utilized there and stuff. So the conclusion was that selling 51 And reducing the parking spaces by the 27 Is expected to result in a tolerable impact on the public parking spaces and it's Parking supply is expected to remain adequate to serve the public if we lose those spaces Is that the last slide Okay, um So anyway, that's where we looked into that at the last meeting that the loss of 51 There still be the standard Parking for the businesses in town so People ask questions. So um, so let me just clarify to make sure that if people were here at the previous meeting This has been updated since the previous meeting. Yes. Okay, so this is Maybe new information from new new information since the last meeting. Okay, great. Thank you. Uh, I think that's posted did I send you the updated? Um, if it's not it will be I think the full parking report There you go Just so everybody could hear the question was is this posted online? And if it's not it will be shorter both the original study and the update I'm wishing to check to make sure uh, if there's anybody who maybe hasn't spoken yet I want to make sure if people get a chance everybody gets a chance Ask the question if they want to before I Go ahead Lawrence That study did not include The parking that we get on the weekends on Randall street No Randall street is not in the parking the restaurant parking on Randall street, but that wasn't part of the study I think down elm street is but not up randall. Oh, okay. Thank you It's the businesses that are operating today, I believe they They The one that's been three years in the making I I don't think so but you'd have to What do you might know but I Did I did I see another question can go up that I missed? Um, yes, okay, go ahead Like that That'll be part of their permitting through the zoning and things They'll have to design it to comply with the zoning regs for the number of spaces they'll need per unit That would be independent of this Thank you, thank you so much appreciate it. Um mark, did you want to say something? Okay, yes, so um in case people couldn't hear um downstream will address parking Um and the design for parking during their part of the presentation coming up next Um any other questions? Here and I just wanted to take an opportunity not to embarrass Karen, but In case some of you haven't met our new town clerk, maybe if you just say hello Thank you for being here tonight here Okay, uh next we have um downstream. Um, that's going to review the proposal any And Or you can put it on the computer floor too the floor is all yours. Thank you I'm not fancy and you get an extra one and a half minutes from skip. Oh, thank you skip Compliments of the house. Awesome. Thank you So hi everyone. My name is Nikola Anderson. I'm the director of real estate development for downstreet housing and community development I'm joined today with Kazai Havelin who's our project manager And Angie Harbin who is our executive director Um, I really just want to start by thanking everyone who's been here and presented tonight And at the public hearing last week and also to thank all of you for being here tonight You know, it's really nice to have a healthy discussion about housing Um, and just especially those of you that have been out supporting housing understanding the need For housing in the community. Oh, no I took too long Is it this? Oh, we're good. Nope. Sorry I am not the I am not the technical one in the organization Oh, this is a power point here. I know. Oh device manager Oh, you're smart So, I mean, I'll I'll just get started as we're going. So we uh, we serve Washington orange and lamoille counties Um, we currently have four hundred and forty eight rental units in our portfolio We have 82 manufactured mobile home lots We have 160 shared equity units And then in the last two years our home ownership center have averaged serving 325 households per year with the different services that they provide So we do provide many different services in central verman I'm just going to go over my notes because the power point's not working. So bear with me. I'm so sorry This isn't my background either unfortunately, but hey um, so just um Based off of my notes, you know, we really we serve we have multiple at services For different vermonters, you know, we provide so we have our rental units. We have our home ownership center Currently in waterbury. Oh excellent. Thank you so much I'm just going to slide through Oh, there's notes on that one Slack sorry I don't think it's anything bad No, we're good. Don't worry. There we go Excellent. So we have multiple we provide multiple services. Um at down street We we serve Every but people that work and live in our communities many different services So in waterbury, we have three properties We currently have 62 adults and 29 children under 29 in our portfolios We have 32 one bedroom units 23 two bedroom units and two three bedroom units out of our three buildings We currently have zero vacancies out of all of our units so Providing housing opportunities is so important. It really affects all aspects of yes Sorry, thank you. Sorry So, um affordable housing and housing directly affects all aspects of a person's life Often extending beyond individuals Health and their how they are in the community. Sorry All right, again back to the note. So Unfortunately, I hope we're able to pull this up. We did have drawings from last time, you know, we had a solar study done So so once these come up, we'll go through we're getting to some of the information that was provided last time And then we're going to have new information So our solar study drawings, you know, we really heard we really tried to listen to the community in questions that have come to us We know that there's neighbors that have solar panels in their homes We want to make sure that this design does not impact the residents We're we're really trying to be considerate of that You know the design we've been considerate of it's a three story building that we're trying to develop not a four story We know that one of the proposals that came I think in 2015 Was four stories really tall and it towered over Some of the other buildings on that street We've engaged with the architect for a design to see a comparable what this building could look like You know, we've tried to be we've worked with the architect for a setback even on that third story To really so that that design won't negatively impact the community or the surrounding units And when that comes up, we'll definitely show those designs with you And the next slide is I'm going to talk about the floodplain So again, the part of this parcel is in the floodplain and with that we we really Worked through the design to try to keep the building out of the floodplain So the design and if you're looking at the parcel from the road, you'll see the design the entrance road goes Is to the right because there's a the floodplain swoops around to the right and around the back of the building So the way that we have designed the building at this time is that that entrance road and then ooh We could be it's not my background. Sorry. Oh awesome Could you I'm going to go back? Sorry Solar study. Sorry. I really want to show these designs. So the top two images Are from august so in the morning and the evening in august These and this will kind of show you so like 10 a.m. And 5 p.m. You know what that? Just the shadows the impacts down below and there was a there was an issue at the last meeting of the The design that we had shared then so we corrected that with the Software that we have so this is it on december 21st the shortest day of the year What that shadow what that impact will be? So we have here is 10 a.m. And here is 5 p.m. Just to show of that the shadow impact From this building longer building where those shadows how that will impact the neighboring buildings that are currently there 3 p.m. Yes Sorry. Yes, it's 3 p.m. That I may have said five. I really apologize 3 p.m And then to the floodplain like I was saying so this here Floodplain goes around and swoops this way So again, I want to be honest with you. These are preliminary sketches. This is not the final design It is not the final Design that will be for the site plan anything about this drawing This will and this can and may change We really want the community's input and involvement through this whole process. That is a priority of us That's why we're continuing We're listening we've changed things about the design already from the meeting in august We'll continue to reach out to the community the neighbors any type of feedback there But really important, you know, we do have flood insurance as part of our policies But again, this would be the entrance way out back the parking would end up being in the floodplain Part of this design as well as zoning regulations The building has to be within eight feet Of the main road. So that's part of the design as well You know, we can't set the building back and then have parking at the front Just with design elements So this this may change again Not a guaranteed layout of we're definitely going to have a two bedroom there or community space there But roughly this is what the building could look like Um, and so Definitely again heard that people really want to see and understand what this building could look like in the street view So we worked with our architect um to design building that will have so this is 24 to 26 units Um again, this is not the final design but You know with it so a nice panorama of our neighboring buildings Um, there are there's three-story buildings. This is the building here. So we really um have have Really wanted to have this entrance view street view, you know, it's a three-story building You can see there's a setback here. You can see that too So it's not just a towering three-story building that looks like a rectangle again. This could change We're not hoping for a rectangle building. That's a box You know, we really want to make sure that this design can fit in with the streetscape At this point even with a setback even with different design elements We can fit 24 to 26 units on the site, which is our goal Also something that we we heard loud and clear at this blast public hearing There is an interest of providing a commercial space at this lot It is something that we're Seriously going to look into and it's something that already with design. We have started those conversations We've also decided had those conversations Locally Figuring out what the rents are for commercial spaces so that we can start working within our budget to figure out We can financially make this possible We're with the design already you can see again sketch this could change But we have we've created this front space to look like a commercial space these commercial storefront windows this front entrance This great nice entrance way that's really welcoming for a good storefront retail option, you know with this We are the funding that we're able to access. We're not able to use that for a commercial retail space So that is something that you know, we're we're out here We're sharing this that we're looking into we get interest from a community member from a commercial space That's really interested in this We can start really investigating those numbers taking a look at what's financially viable to develop there Um, you know, we know that we've been looking into commercial rents at this time You know, it's 14 to 18 dollars or square feet. That's what it's taking to develop and to make this financially viable But um, we do need a separate funding option in order to make this financially move forward as well But we are we're looking into this if there is people that are really interested, please reach out to us We'd love to have those conversations So a little bit about what is affordable housing? So defined by the department of housing and urban development So housing is um, it paid means that individuals or families pay no more than 30 of their gross income towards the housing um So we down street believe there's not one perfect solution for affordable housing That's why we you know, we offer rental units. We offer home ownership opportunities. We offer these different We offer first time home buyer incentives We offer we have manufactured home community lots. Um, there's many different services that down street provides To provide affordable housing opportunities in central vermont So as um a non-profit developer, we develop to last We develop we the properties that we develop It's with the funding sources. It's perpetual affordability So perpetual affordability means that in 10 years these can't change the condominiums These can't change to airbnb lots. These will forever be rental units And they have to always they will forever have these income restrictions tied to them So really that means then that a non-profit is going to own these Due to the fact that we are going to own these long term and because of the funding that we have in place We build high quality buildings. We have we we have restrictions on accessibility On energy efficiency You know, we put solar and all of our new buildings. We're putting highly efficient heat and ac We're insulating our buildings really well. We're putting electric car charging stations that community members can use At our properties as well. These are all the restrictions that we're able to access But it's something that we're developing really high quality that's built to last Um, that's something that's really important to us as an organization but also To the funders that we get our funding from too So i'm actually going to invite angie harbin of our ceo. She's going to discuss a little bit more about um The people that we have live at our units. I can do that Oh, yeah, that's true Oh, and i've done it in a pocket somewhere. I could just stand next to you excellent because I have no pockets Let's see. Oh, that was me review of our entire I also realize I forgot to address parking so I will go back to that after angie stopped speaking. So sorry about that Thanks, nicola So i'm going to talk very briefly about low-income housing tax credits area median income and how we determine affordability and the projects that down street develops So low-income housing tax credits or lytec is a national program. It is the most common source of Funding to develop affordable housing and i'm using it kind of as a placeholder So low-income housing tax credits are used by every state in the nation. They've been around since the 80s It's considered one of the most effective sources of income for affordable housing And because of that a lot of other affordable housing funding sources pattern their affordability requirements after lytec. So it's a good Example to use when explaining affordability So the way lytec works we have the federal government. They have tax credits They're set aside specifically to develop affordable housing So they allocate those tax credits to states on a per capita basis vermont, of course gets the small state minimum And those go to the states housing finance agency in vermont. That's the vermont housing finance agency Who then allocate those tax credits to projects on a competitive basis? So those tax credits are available to both for-profit and non-profit developers So they will annually say to the community. Hey, we've got tax credits that we're going to allocate Developers like down street. We bring our projects forward. We say We've got a project for you. We really like to develop it using your tax credits. They review all of those projects they're generally looking at Does the developer have the capacity to develop with tax credits lytec is complicated and there's a lot of regulations And so not just anybody can use those as a housing source They're making sure that the project that is presented meets all of the lytec and state regulations And then they're also making sure those projects further state housing goals So when we present our projects to the state and then they they choose their their projects, they're going to Fund that year. It's not a hundred percent of the funding. It's part of what we call a funding stack And then as the developer we sell those tax credits To an investor we then use that cash as one of the sources where we build our housing So when we're presenting our project to the state We commit to as nicola mentioned permanent affordability We say we are going to develop housing affordable to households With these specific incomes and we lay it out in great detail So we say say we're building a 10 unit project and we've got five one bedrooms and five two bedrooms We tell the state exactly how many one bedrooms that we're going to build that are affordable to Household with 50 percent of area median income. So we're making that commitment right up front so area median income that is What lytec uses what the state uses what most of our funding sources use to define what affordable housing is So when you think of the median that's right in the middle So a hundred percent of area median income means half your population makes more money than that and half your population makes less than that So at down streets, we recognize that That half of the population on the bottom is really going to struggle to afford rents in any community especially now And so we build housing for generally less than a hundred percent of area median income Now the project that we're proposing Um in waterbury. So what you see right now is Area median incomes for washington county and therefore waterbury. So every year HUD. So housing and urban development Designates or calculates the area median incomes for counties and cities All across the country. So they come up with these numbers and we all use them as housing developers And so when we say for this project, we're proposing 50 60 and 80 percent area median incomes So these are the incomes that we anticipate serving Now like any landlord, we also have Minimum incomes that people are required to make we want to make sure that the people in our housing Are able to afford those rents and those are usually The way we look at that is a household can't make The rent can't be more than 40 percent of their income for them to qualify to move in so Where your market rate landlords are saying you have to make at least this much Downstreet says you have to make at least this much and you can't make more than this And so then HUD translates Their area median incomes into the affordable rents So these are the rents that we would based on 2022 numbers that we would anticipate for the proposed project in waterbury Um, and so some of these rents seem kind of high actually when I look at them And I think about hey my mom on a fixed income Definitely couldn't move into that project and that's because this project is designed for workforce housing So it's for people who are earning an income in the community of waterbury Now we don't discriminate based on source of income So if someone comes to us and they have a subsidy say they are retired and they're on a fixed income But they have another way to help pay that rent We don't turn them down because they don't have the incomes that we were looking at on the previous page And the other thing to note about area median income and these rents is that HUD sets these rents every year If area median income goes up we can raise our rents if area median income goes down We have to lower those rents And with that i'm going to turn it back to nicola to talk about People in the community of waterbury who might have incomes that make sense for these units Thank you Thank you Sorry this is So We do we have people that work in the communities do live in our apartments. So we have a couple of slides of like Just showing examples of jobs that are currently posted in waterbury with with their salaries of those type of employment opportunities of people Based on the area median income that could live in our cell in our buildings So and for example and these are even examples taken from some of our other properties So for a licensed practical nurse that average salary in 2021 is 54 000 So at this pre pay rate That that nurse could qualify for a two person apartment at 80 percent area median income So if that was a mom and a child You know, she could live in one of our she could live in this unit For the one of the 80 percent units area median incomes or if it was a three person Uh, a three person. So it was a mom and two children and she was the only income. She was a nurse She could qualify to live At our building another example is that evermont public school kindergarten teacher In 2021 that salary is average at 60 000 60 500. So this pay rate They could qualify for a two person apartment. So a father and child mom and child And live at one of our 80 units. So a little bit explaining like how That household income could fit into one of our units. So currently so in october 10th We went online and did some research at jobs that were posted with their salaries for waterbury So looking at like these types of payments how Jobs are currently posted people could be eligible to live in in our buildings. So for instance a one person household So we're proposing that this building will have 50 percent area median income 60 percent area median income and 80 percent area median income So someone that's at 50 percent is one person they live alone They could be working. There was a job posted for a full-time grocery clerk pays up to 16 dollars an hour That salary would qualify for them to live in one of our 50 unit The same as a personal shopper or a front desk service agent at a company So that was there that hourly rate was 14 to 18 dollars an hour Which means for a year salary is 27 000 For a two person household. So this would be we're looking at this as one income So this would be an uh or like one adult one child or one adult one no income adult So they could be um For for 50 percent a mi area median income. It could be uh health care access representative at 16 dollars an hour So that was listed for 16 to 21 dollars an hour So if they were at the top end range if they were getting paid the 21 dollars an hour They could be instead of one of the 50 percent they could be qualified for 80 percent unit So they don't have to be at the lowest pay rate. They could still be at the highest pay rate Again, and then a mental health technician So that pay rate was listed indeed for 16 92 to 26 66 This salary could fit in a 50 percent a mi or a two are up to a two person household 80 percent a mi Depending on where they're at in that income So if they were just we took like an average we took 17 50 of that 35 000 a year that could fit in the 50 percent they could go up to 80 percent And again over here, we've got one person household for 60 percent. So one person income of 60 percent There was three jobs that we could see could fit in one of these units So there is a restaurant shift leader manager, which is 18 dollars an hour that salary is 37 000 a year They could live They they live by themselves. They could live in one of our units a full-time beer seller associate 17 dollars an hour Again, they could live single and a 60 unit and then a full-time substitute teacher That average salary is 30 000 to 38 000 a year if they're by themselves. They could live in that unit Then one person household earning up to 80 percent. We saw two jobs posted There was a warehouse package handler 21 dollars an hour. So their salaries Almost 41 000 they could live in that unit and then a ski rental associate or a snowmaker or a lift operator Their their salaries 20 dollars an hour. So that's one person could live in that 80 percent unit So two household people a two household so one either combined income For these these jobs, it would be one person income household. So parent and child or Two adults one income. There was an auto body collision estimator for 58 000 a year They'd be qualified to live in the what that unit or a field engineer at 63 000 So we really are look like it this is workforce housing and that I know is a stated need that has been said in the community So people working and jobs that are needed in the community And people are eligible to live in one of these buildings I do want to go back to the parking at question. So i'm just going to go back slides Yes, this is the last slide this is it Um, thank you. Sorry. So for parking I just to be clear this I mean This design Has the the needed. I I don't know the exact parking spots. I could count it but for 26 units This is how many parking spots that we needed I believe it's one parking spot for a studio or one bedroom for two bedrooms. It's one and a half So we always make sure that we have the required zoning The required parking for zoning offered to all of our lots truthfully And I don't a hundred percent quote me on this but I don't know of serious issues Any of our any of our properties where we don't have enough parking except for one in bradford We have one in bradford. Um, that is a mix of senior and family housing And it's a tight lot that we it wasn't new construction. It's something that we acquired and there's not a lot of parking there So I know there that we there's sometimes a challenge that we don't have enough parking at that lot But any of our other buildings in mont pelier in berry in waterbury We do Always the way that it works out have enough parking spots for the residences needed not all of our tenants have cars And that is and we had a great discussion last week of the e-fund meeting that There are other units in waterbury that either provide no parking or just one pot One spot and people do figure it out But it's something that we would also work with our residents to help them with that But that's my slide so I could take questions if I have time Thank you We have we have just a couple of minutes for questions and uh, be great if you could leave this sort of Yeah, you up there for um for folks and South mainstream Where's the drive on those plans where the driveway is exiting? Our seven utility boxes and a huge cement pad that goes down at least six feet What are you going to do yourself? So this is we have not engaged with engineers With the architects at this time that is a conversation and something that will be worked through again These are these are not final designs. This is preliminary, but those Yeah, so that is something that we will engage with we'll one of the first steps after we get site control is we engage with a mechanical electrical Structural engineer and that is a discussion to make sure that we can fit what we can do with this site And that's something we'll engage also with the the town of waterbury on to you know relocate if necessary And and the utility box and yes in the utility box on us. No, exactly. Yeah Yeah, thank you So currently I've been reading the minutes and this might be an e5 question versus you but You currently have a loan with e5 that subsidizing some of the housing you've already created Is there anticipation that those who now pay the water and sewer fees will have to subsidize another loan For this new project and by the way, I would like to say I'm not against the housing. It's more of a holiday for me on the size of the space of the usage of it, but I'm just curious if You will leave another loan to keep those projects going. So, um, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna it's I'm sure that the project will require a variety of different financing. Um, and the The financing aspects The financing aspects of this, um, it's sort of beyond the scope of tonight's meeting, but I yeah, I appreciate it Yeah, there's there's there's a There there is a fund That bill will speak a little bit more about in his presentation Yes, okay, we push that question to bill Great. Yeah, thank you Um, if it's if it's about, um, the I Yeah, if it's about the udag money, um, then that would be for bill. Yeah, okay Whitney I've lived in an apartment before that didn't have any green space Second floor apartment. I know how difficult it is especially living in a state where everybody's recreation has toys like bicycles and boats On sunny days, we want to barbecue, but we don't have a place to do that. Um, I guess my question to you is How do you expect 28 units to be? Fulfilled with that need for green space at this location Considering that that's the ruler of plan for staying is mostly parking Yeah So this again, this is not our final design, you know, so things will change that is you know That is something that within down streets goals to is we want to have green space Opportunity for that community outside at our buildings. This is a tighter lot is only 0.8 of an acre So there is There there could there can be opportunity for green space That is something that as we move further into design that will work with our architect on We also are really fortunate that there is a public park across the street and to the block away And that's something so we're knowledgeable that there is a public park close by as well for something like This is a tight spot to offer something like a playground But I think there's ways in the design for elements to have Some sort of community space outside for the residents to be able to use And that's something that we will and we know that's a priority for us and we'll move forward Can I just add to that? Yeah, you know, I know we are including storage to be sure that residents in the state that we live Those are important things for quality of life so storage is definitely a priority as well Yeah, that's um, no, thank you gizai because that's something especially like I always use an example of like I don't want to put my snow tires like in my Closet is in my bedroom So we do provide like additional storage inside the building for things like that for snow tires for bikes As well either within the units and additional storage unit or in the building So that will already be in the design and will be in the square footage But outside space is definitely something we'll continue to work on Thanks so much nicola for answering all the questions and um surviving through the technology Thank you to the tech team Very much next we're going to have bill shuttle talk a little bit about how this is going to impact waterbury in terms of Bees will be able to answer some udag questions for financing the two folks who had questions about financing and the use of udag funds there so It's all yours Thank you, Teresa I'm bill shuffle like the municipal manager I live up on Ripley road in waterbury center and I've been the manager here for 35 years Almost and I'll get to my Kind of Skip slide presentation from my memo here in a second, but I just want to back up for a second Some comments that have been made, you know, I've spent my career working in government and the thing that I'll say That governments do Is governments are typically reactive We try to be forward thinking proactive. We try to have zoning regulations to think about the future, but We kind of react and when I came to waterbury in 1988 Many people who lived in the village who grew up in the village Well who had moved into the village Uh got their kids into school and they ended up moving out into the countryside and As a reaction to that Well, we need to preserve open space. So we're going to make five and ten acre lots for housing And what we've found out over time is that while carving up All that open space into five and ten acre lots uses up a lot of land To house only a few people So then after that happens, it's like okay. Well now we need to We need to put in place Planned unit developments where you can take a big lot and say well You could get 50 houses on this lot On 10 acres each, but we want to preserve that open space. So we We crowd the 10 lots the 10 houses into a smaller portion of that 50 or 100 acre lot and then Try to leave the rest open. So we're continually Shifting priorities and the kids of the people like me who moved out into the hinterlands if you will Don't want to live out there anymore either because they don't want to live there They don't want to have to have a car as much They don't want to have to rely on that or they simply can't afford to pay a half a million dollars for for a house So now we're coming back into the Into the place where people are finding village life desirable On top of that we live in a community Where 60 percent of the land area in waterbury Is owned by the state of Vermont in the Putnam and mount mansfield state forests now some of that land isn't really Desirable for housing anyway. You're not going to you know Putting housing up around the waterbury reservoir Even if you could do it probably today isn't where you'd want to but we've got a lot of land That's already kind of taken out of our market as far as areas to develop And even though we have 60 percent of our land area Owned by state forest We still have groups organizing and forming in this community that are trying to buy up open space To preserve it from development. They don't want development so You know where the 60 units have been built on blush hill Right across the street from that across blush hill road from that there's a an open field that the the eFUD commissioners spent Considerable time and some money to try to figure out how to get water pressure up to serve that area So that they We could serve another maybe development like those 60 units. Maybe it wouldn't be 60. Maybe it would be 40 You know, you've got sewer available right at awkward estates. It runs downhill by gravity we we've Figured out the problem so we can get high pressure water up to that site But now the parcel is being sold to the to a land trust and it's Not going to be available for development. So we're kind of dealing with these pressures and It's pushing any kind of development where you can have High numbers of people Into the area that we're talking about. So that that's one issue that I think to helps frame where we are To this parcel specifically Uh, in addition to being the municipal manager for the town I'm the district utility manager for eFUD used to be the village manager for the village before it was eFUD And eFUD's sole Responsibility now by their charter is to operate a water and sewer utility and You know, there's probably 12 1400 water customers somewhere in that range I'm looking at Karen who's staring blankly back at me Um, I'm I'm not sure what I'm supposed to turn the page. So maybe skip can turn Okay, um Well, I haven't got to any of that yet. So I'm not gonna turn Not gonna turn the page yet Here skip you you you turn the page when the page needs to be turned um so, uh They're their sole their major responsibility is to operate the water and sewer utility Um Water customers we serve water customers in waterway outside the eFUD district Uh, we have in the charter the ability to sell water and sewer outside the Extra territorial sale of water and sewer services is permitted We sell water outside of the eFUD district in waterway and we wholesale water to the ducksbury more town fire district across the river But to have you need water if you're going to have Relatively dense development, but you need sewer to really have an impact in being able to to elevate density And all of you who live in the district You're almost a hundred percent of the people who live in the district pay watering sewer fees And one of the things that i'm charged to do is to try to build budgets to provide the services that we need to keep rates as low as possible for the the the users While also making sure that we have Adequate reserve capacity that we have staff to respond to emergencies and to run our treatment plant And that's getting more and more difficult. So there's pressures on the the the rates because when you You know somebody resigns takes a job somewhere else and you post a job that Prior to 2020 in the pandemic you would get 20 or 25 applications and now you're getting four It's it's tough and wages. There's a lot of pressure on wages and there's a lot of pressure on benefits so to to Balance that off. What do you need? You need more customers. You need to sell more of your product and residential properties sell Use more water and use more sewer services Then just about anything else that we have except for big industrial users like benning jerry's and When they were all working here the state of vermont and maybe the school but After all those kind of big users like that even big commercial office spaces that have 100 people It's 15 gallons a day. So it's 1500 gallons of capacity that gets allocated For an office as big as 100 people and we don't have that many offices These allocation fees Are they up there? Yeah, so 32,550 dollars of a water allocation fee just for these 24 to 26 apartments You know, that's that's 8600 gallons of water capacity that has to be sold to them They have to pay that fee to buy the capacity and then the sewer capacity is 36,845 The state tells us even though 8600 gallons goes into the building only 6,500 comes out. I don't know why but that's what they tell us um so Those are allocation fees that i've estimated at our current allocation fee rate that Downstreet would have to pay in order to have the number of units that they propose now This will be recalculated when they submit a final application and if If it's 24 units And there's more one bedroom than two bedroom than they're talking about now that would go down If it's more two bedrooms or more bedrooms all together it would go up But that's going to be pretty close As far as your quarterly bills you all get quarterly bills Lad Hall is a downstreet property How many units there anybody know I can't remember 25 27 So lad hall Currently pays about $8,100 a quarter in sewer in water Fees and about 10,680 in sewer Stimson graves building on stow street $3,100 almost $3,200 in water and $4,100 in sewer in the cemetery building in water bridge center They're not on the sewer system. They're paying about $4,300 of water and sewer rents to give you a You know a comparison Um If you look at a restaurant like mark fryer's Reservoir You know We have it on the books is 136 seat restaurant in an apartment. I don't know if that's accurate anymore, but The the quarter that ended before august 31st. I didn't do An update to this from august, but you know, that's a pretty big Restaurant with a lot of seats and a lot of activity But the water use there is $1,000 a quarter and the sewer use is about 13 or $1,400. So You know lad hall is using eight times more Generating eight times more water rent than A large restaurant like that if you have an office building You know the edward jones office building down the street which has a dentist's office in it which Has a fairly high allocation because if it's a dentist's office You know the water bill for that Building $267 and the sewer is 423 So a bank like northfield savings bank $82 a quarter in water and 115 in sewer So, you know to to say We should put commercial properties there I'm all for commercial properties and I think that they have their place but in terms of Helping eFUD and helping the people who are customers of eFUD keep their rates Reasonable over time which we've tried to do Residential property is far and away going to provide more more revenue There's been posts and questions on front porch form. Oh, they get tax subsidies. They don't pay taxes. They pay taxes They pay taxes on the full fair market value of the property As prescribed by state law so they're Most of us, you know the the listers make an estimate and say well You know the last time my house sold was when I bought it in 1996 And I bought it for 140,000 and I don't know what I could sell it for but It's much more than that. It's probably not in the tax rolls Yet to the point that I can sell it because we haven't reappraised for six or eight years But lad hall right down the street here In 22 this year and they haven't made their second payment yet I don't believe but their bill for that building For municipal tax, which is the town eFUD does not send a tax bill to anyone eFUD is not in the property tax business but lad hall combined municipal tax to the town of watterbury and school tax $26,200 Stimson graves building on stow street $12,468 in the seminary rebuilding in waterway center $12,496 So dan sweets not able to be here tonight. He's the assessor He could tell you the intricacies of of how that Evaluation is done for residential properties. There's an estimate as to what a willing buyer will pay a willing seller There are other properties that are different large commercial properties that get Their assessment is based on an income approach to To valuation so hotels like the best western and the and the Fairfield Inn up in colbyville, you know, they come in and they talk about well, this happened The pandemic came Incomes have gone down Some of those properties had a reduction because of income Approach to investment so I mean to evaluation So I can't tell you exactly how the property is evaluated for tax purposes or assessed for tax purposes But there's no You know significant discount provided to these folks For down street. I point to these folks. They don't own the buildings They just work for the company that does But there's no there's no significant discount provided by the municipality To to offset their taxes that it's assessed as Vermont law says that it has to be assessed So I'll pause there Yeah, so the first question about udag over here Was and and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but what I heard was Will the Will the water and sewer users have to subsidize this by through a loan and the The eFUD does have a revolving loan fund it is not The revolving loan fund does not generate any revenue from the water and sewer users So water and sewer users are not funding the revolving loan fund the the revolving loan fund Which at the end of 2021 so January 1st of this year The total assets in that revolving loan fund were about 1.75 million dollars And of that 1.75 million dollars about a million dollars Million point two maybe was Lamped out to businesses and not for profits in the community and the other $600,000 or so was in cash and investments The revolving loan fund was established in 1984 The loan fund wasn't established in in 84 But the loan the the grant that the village received In 1984 was 630 thousand dollars That money was lent to ben and jerry's to Entice them to come here and build their factory and tourism center and There was a window of about five years. I think where Their interest in their interest and principal were deferred And around 1990 they started paying that back to the village and It was a low interest subsidized rate at the time of 9 percent when they started paying that back And if you remember the early 80s like I do You could buy cds for 14 and 15 percent and when I came to town You know, we think it's tough now. It's tough to find a house But it was tough to get a mortgage then because interest rates You know had to take a variable interest rate and got it at 8 percent And I knew it was going to go to 10 percent the next year just because that was the deal But ben and jerry's paid all of that 630 thousand dollars back to the village with interest And by the time they got finished paying it back it was Just shy of a million dollars. I believe that their amortization was And then we took that money We invested it and if you look in the villages or the e-files municipal report, it's You know investments were made in mutual funds and Bonds and and other Obscurities and then we used it to lend out to businesses So The ladhall project They came to the community They received I think it was about a 75 thousand dollar loan from the town of watterbury The town has a it's called the cd cdbg fund which was The genesis of that money were a community development block grants that help us develop pilgrim park Some of that was paid back to the community that cdbg Grant if you will Some of that had we had to send some of the returned money that we collected from the borrower Back to the state so that they could use it to continue to fund other cdbg projects, but the town lent Money into the ladhall project the town had lent money into the seminary building project which The folks at downstreet have paid that off. So that that one is is paid The ladhall in addition to the 70ish thousand dollars from the town Was it 70 or 140? I think it was 70. I don't have it here, but it's You know, you'll have to forgive me if you really want to know I can I can tell you But the village Had some cdbg money and lent that into the ladhall project That money is a very complicated formula for how they pay The cdbg loan back to the community in the end of the day 30 or 40 years down the road all of it plus interest will come back to the community But right now They pay All of their borrowers based on a very complicated Formula which tries to determine how much excess cash they have One year since we lent them that money in 2014, I think one year A payment was made on the cdbg loans because after their audit they found out that Well, this meets the formula. So we got a small payment Very small payment, but that cdbg money will come back in the end The village lent About 200 thousand dollars of you act money into the ladhall project And that was at two percent Now if you two percent sounds like a lot less than nine percent that we lent to ben and jerry's at But you could go to the bank in 2014 even and get a mortgage In the five or six percent range and over time until just recently You know, I refinanced my mortgage a couple years ago and i'm paying three percent. So Two percent it's a it's a lower rate than a commercial bank, but this money is Basically called but for money But for this loan at a small subsidized rate into the project the project won't be able to go forward. So It's not your water and sewer rates that are funding the loan Hey Have I run out of time yet? You have run out of time 12 minutes ago. Okay. No, sir The long answer to your question is that rate payers are not subsidizing the loan it was a separate loan. So Um, bob, I just want to see did that explanation cover your question. I'm hoping Maybe not The village of water very loan down the street in 1991 I may not be totally right on numbers by about a half a million dollars The interest on that loan was zero Thank you trustees zero It was paid back the principal was paid back in 2021 We are part of the affordable methods that they have developed to build these budget and the only thing I'd like to suggest Is that the trustees or whatever the committee is this is not these loans are not Reviewed by it by the members of The village We have a committee that is allowed And I do not know what their criteria is but they are allowed to make these loans And if we make a loan this time Please Let's let's make it somewhat near what the bank was trying Ben and Jerry's Received that federal money which we which we got back in the village. They got about uh, I think 600,000 dollars And we ended up with 1.2 million which actually started the udag fund And if we make decisions Like that one was made We're not going to have the money bikes longer and one of the reasons that is not elevated where it should be because it was a 30 year note To down street alone to down street for zero interest So that's not quite right bomb So there were there were there were two So so I'm just I'm just going to um touch base here because what what I'm hearing you say Is feedback to the people who are making the decisions about any future loans And we don't even know if down street will be applying for a loan but any feedback to the EFUD commissioners or the body that is making the decisions about a loan is to take into consideration your feedback I'm hearing that And um, and we're hearing that The exact details might not be exactly quite right and if if people are interested in knowing the specifics of that You can talk to these two gentlemen In just a few minutes because we're getting close to wrapping up believe it or not Um, thank you, bill. Thank you so much for every all of that information So now I'm going to call on list Are you still here? Liz the mic is right here. Thank you. You stay up here Karen. Come on All right, I am here. I'm liege lego stevens. I live in the udag district And I love my water and sewer. I love having it So, uh, and I work with Karen I am the chair of the water very board of civil authority and I help Karen our town clerk with elections And we'll be helping with this one And so skip invited me here to tell you all how it's going to go Um, what we went to mention earlier that Karen has been patiently here all night because in case anyone was confused On whether or not they lived in the udag district. She has the list Of who lives in that district and the street that are on that district So you can title back there and see her if you are not registered to vote Please do we have voter registration forms and you can register to vote tonight and in fact you can register to vote Through monday through november 8th. We have same day registration in vermont and we love when people vote So we're going to be voting at the fire station For this on monday. It is an in-person meeting Which means you need to be present to vote. You can't vote at the municipal office You can't vote the day before or the day after or the day of it's at that meeting Um, we are going we think our capacity the fire department says our capacity is 180 people Hoping we won't need it all Um, hoping that people will be able to come through and come out if we don't have a long meeting Really? This is the question on the table, right? So um, and everybody's turned out for this great informational meeting So it should be pretty simple People will be asked to check in to vote We're assuming that someone will call for a paper ballot, right? I just let me back up a little right? This is a question the question has been warned. It's just like town meeting Right, we have the question on the table Skip will describe the question Then there will be discussion and then the question will be called Right, so it's like a mini town meeting just for this one ballot item And then we again we are assuming that someone will call for a paper ballot We will be set up for that people will come check in just like you do on election day We'll mark your names off give you a ballot and put the ballot in the box right there Then when everybody who wants to has voted Right, I mean we're not going to say they're all night and running up people on the street But when everybody who wants to has voted we will close the poll And we will go and count them We won't go far probably the kitchen And then we'll come out and give skip the results to announce So that's the plan Right, and if anybody has questions, I'm happy to answer them now 6 30 right Can't say what time will be voting because we don't know it depends on how the discussion goes Any other questions about the problem? Yes People can go to the meeting, but you can't vote. That's why we'll be checking people in Right, and just like at any other public meeting like at town meeting If somebody wants to speak at the meeting and they're not a member of eFUD They need to request permission to speak and then the body decides if it's okay for somebody to talk Right, so if nicola was there they would have to give her permission to talk How the meeting yes If the polls are still open you can roll in and vote we won't have a big sign though, so there's no way to know except coming in If there is a paper ballot it's while the paper ballots going on Yeah, the the thing is that this is not a defined, uh, you know the polls closed at 7 p.m Like on november 8th That the the polls will close when the discussion and all of the questions and any of the debate And when somebody finally calls for a paper ballot, which I expect will After Everybody in the room at that time is voted and anybody who's coming in the meantime That's what that's when the vote will be closed So we can't tell you what time that will be Right, but it's to put it another way, right? Like if you got there at 7 conversations still happening you could vote Today's tuesday, okay, no, sorry Monday the 24th right at 6 30 Monday the 24th at 6 30 at the fire station the downtown fire station Do not park in the fire station parking lot. Do not They will joyfully tow you and there is an elevator might not have been in the fire station. There is an elevator in the building and so just To reiterate what Liz just said The the you cannot park in the back of the fire station. That's Or in front where the trucks come out, right? Don't park there either. Don't park really important Any other questions for lives and then we're going to turn it over to skip to wrap us up So skip's going to review for you what the language is On the ballot so that you will know. Um, what it is So while while they're pulling that up the purpose of tonight was so that you would be able to Here you go, boss I want to add is this is the article that we'll be Voting on to see if the voters of the edward furar utility district will authorize the district commissioners to sell The eight tenths of an acre lot including improvements there on Located at 51 south main street in waterbury to down street housing and community development for the sum of $138,000 On terms and conditions acceptable to the commissioners To allow for the development of affordable housing on the site So the vote will be yes, you agree with this or no, you don't those are what you will vote on your paper ballot Hopefully on Monday the 24th. We'll start at 6 30 The only presentation we'll probably have is from down street. That's the article you're voting on If there are people come who haven't been to the informational meetings To give them a briefing on what's going to be there Like theresa said We'll call somebody will call the question when they've asked all their questions and ready to vote um, and then we'll go into the Balloting with the checklist and you'll go through the checklist and make sure you're a voter and get a piece of paper and Go vote your yes or no and then we'll wait and they'll come out and tell us what the vote is and thing so That'll be monday night. Hopefully shorter than this and Just thank you all for coming. We would have been at the fire station tonight except its training night So we didn't want to get mixed up with the firemen. So thank you all for coming Thank you, theresa