 Good evening and welcome to another edition of Junction City News. I'm Ashley Snellenberger, the Communications and Strategic Initiatives Director for the City of Essex Junction and your horse for this evening. Tonight, I have Regina Mahoney, who is our city manager here with us this evening, and she is here to talk about the planning process and what that looks like and the different levels of the planning process. So, Regina, thanks for being here with us. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. So, let's jump right in here. Can you provide us some context as to why the city has done so many different planning processes and why these planning processes really matter? Yeah, so we have just become a city and there are, we were a village before that and so there are some plans that we had prior and part of the region and part of the larger community with the town of Essex and some of those are still relevant and setting us up for a good path forward and some of them just need to be refined and we are right now engaging in a strategic planning process to really do that refinement now that we're a city and to set ourselves up over the next few years on some prioritizations. Great. So, what does it look like at the different levels of planning? Can you describe that for us? Yeah, so there is a really great concept of how to think about planning from a variety of different scales and Jarrett Walker of Jarrett Walker and Associates has thought about this in the way of altitude, high altitude and low altitude and he is a really great planning professional who thinks a lot about transit and human transit in particular is his blog if anybody wants to check him out. But essentially the concept being there are a variety of different scales and heights and elevations that we have to think about planning and the context that we're in as we're thinking about a variety of different planning topics. So from a higher altitude place if you think about being in a plane and you're much higher up off of the earth you can kind of see more of the context in which your community is within. As an example when you kind of go higher up you can start to see how Essex Junction interacts with Lake Champlain which you wouldn't necessarily be able to tell if you were further down on the ground and that can just be really helpful way to think about some higher level or broader thinking. Then in the other hand getting much lower down to the ground, a lower altitude you can really start to see a level of detail that you don't see when you're up at that higher scale and you can think about something like housing. Housing needs to be thought about both at this higher level scale in terms of where folks should be, how much housing perhaps we would need to support our economy and everything that you kind of think about when you're thinking about a higher level scale. To the much closer scale at the municipal level you really want to think about how do you actually achieve that additional level of housing and how does it work within the community context. So that's just sort of an example of how to think about the variety of different planning that we do and why and there's different things that have to happen sort of at this whole spectrum through the scale if that makes sense. That's a great analogy for that kind of really broad look at big picture items versus what we're looking necessarily at the municipal level at the smaller scale details that we have to do on the day-to-day basis. So that's a great analogy there. So I'd like to bring us back to what the planning process really looks like at these different levels that we're talking about. So let's start at that really high level. What are the high level plans that the city participates in? So this is interesting because high, high level there are federal plans that guide us, there are state level plans that guide the work that we do but really we're trying to get a little closer to home here and starting at the regional scale. So here in Chittenden County the ECOS plan is the plan that really guides the growth and the visioning for the region and it includes both the comprehensive economic development strategy, the regional plan and the metropolitan transportation plan and collectively at this high level scale Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission is able to think about how can we sort of achieve a number of different goals collectively? How can we create a place that's a great place, a prosperous place for people living here? And the thinking is that one strategy that they've got in the regional plan is really thinking about a smart growth context. So the map here on the slide on the right has a concentrated area, those are called the Areas Plan for Growth. Essentially what that is depicting is all of the areas in the region for the most part that are served by water and sewer that have bus access, that have places that you can walk and bike infrastructure. And so for future development the concept is to really continue to try to concentrate it there in those areas so that the operation and maintenance of infrastructure can be dealt with in a much better way rather than continuing to sprawl out infrastructure. And the other things that you can sort of start to see come into play is we have additional folks on the bus systems that we already have in place and because bus systems are incredibly expensive and they're hard to improve and they're hard to increase service if you don't have additional people using them. So it's a little bit of a snowball effect to try to continue to do that. This also is a much less energy intensive land use pattern and really folks can live closer to where they have to go to the doctor and work and socialize with folks and so this is sort of a very high level thinking on how we should accommodate our growth going forward. And then just sort of thinking through a little bit more of the kind of regional context in a more topic specific area is the Building Homes Together campaign. And so this graph just shows that we are severely undersupplied in our housing in the region. So this is the rental vacancy rate. The actual rental vacancy rates are down there in that green line on the bottom and the target of a 5% vacancy rate is that golden line at the top and this data is through 2023 and we are not reaching that goal. So the concept of the Building Homes Together campaign through Chittin County Regional Planning Commission, Evernorth and Champlain Housing Trust is to really try to educate and figure out funding and policy to try to collectively at the regional scale build more housing and specifically their goals are 1,000 new homes per year in Chittin County and at least 25% of those homes being affordable. So 250 per year. This is breaking news just today that we have fallen short of these goals and it's pretty tricky for a variety of reasons right now to build housing and so it's just that much more important that we collectively continue to put a lot of effort behind this work. Okay. So that was a great overview of what we're doing regionally and how we're interacting regionally within our community. So what is the next step down in that altitude that we discussed? So getting much more local. So the community of Essex, the town and the city, is a heart and soul project and really this was a really fantastic effort. Lots of people participated in this project and the community was able to come together and define their values and so that effort came together around six core values, local economy, health and recreation, community connections, education, thoughtful growth and safety. And so this was a high level thinking around visioning really where the community wanted to go and what they found the most important and tried to sort of think about how they would sort of achieve these values. And so this is a great way to sort of segue back into our current project right now because also the vision and strategic action plan that the city is undertaking right now is also looking at that vision. Where do we want to go? How do we see ourselves? What do we want to improve? And the thinking is these six core values are probably still fairly on point but just want to sort of check back in and see if that works. Certainly when this heart and soul effort was done, the thinking was that there was potentially a merger going to happen of the two communities. We now are a city on our own, separated and so just want to think through what those visions are for us going forward. If that makes sense. That does totally make sense. So what about SNCCS at the city level? Yeah. So the next kind of level in our altitude thinking is really what we call in Essex Junction the comprehensive plan. It's important to just describe some nomenclature here. So the state statute talks about this plan as the municipal plan. So not everybody but most municipalities in Vermont have a municipal plan. They just happen to be called different things. So Essex Junction is called the comprehensive plan. The town of Essex right now is updating their municipal plan and it's called the town plan. This is really a very broad perspective plan. You can think about it almost in the way of the regional ECOS plan but it's just specific to Essex Junction and it really is in place to think about all of these different elements that are on the screen. So it thinks about natural resources. It thinks about education, economic development, land use, transportation and it also sort of thinks about how compatible you are with your adjacent communities and the region. So it sort of ties those two plans together and just sort of brings it down a little bit more to the local level. The comprehensive plan in Essex Junction was done in 2019. It is an eight year long plan and it is very comprehensive in the way that there are goals associated with all of these items and a number of objectives associated with all those items. It's also a bit more of a long range plan. It does last for eight years in the sense that you really need to be returning back to your plan and thinking about whether it's going in the right direction every eight years but it has a bit more like a 20 year long time frame associated with it. It would not be possible to do everything that the comprehensive plan calls for within a eight year time frame and certainly not a five year time frame which is what we are thinking about right now on the strategic planning side of things. So the 2019 plan goes to 2027. We will probably start an effort to sort of rethink about this plan again in 2025, 2026. And what will come out of the strategic plan certainly will probably inform this update but the distinction between the two is this is much more truly as its name suggests comprehensive. The plan that we are working on now going forward is much more strategic, intentional, prioritized. And there is a difference between who is doing that as well. So who does the comprehensive plan? Great question. So the comprehensive plan is a product of the planning commission and they recommend that plan to the city council for adoption. The planning commission can certainly do as much engagement and collaboration with the other committees and the community to prepare the comprehensive plan. And the other key component of the comprehensive plan is it really defines the land use framework. And that is kind of a key component. The land use zoning regulations must conform to this comprehensive plan. So it is really in place very much to sort of set that groundwork. Alright. So tie that into the strategic plan though. So now we have the comprehensive plan. Now we are doing the strategic plan. How does that look as well within our, we talked a little bit about visioning, a little bit with the strategic plan. Now there is the action plan. So what does that look like? Yeah. So on the action plan side of things, if you were to look at the comprehensive plan, again there is probably, I didn't count them all up. A thousand would maybe be an exaggeration. But there are a significant number of action items and objectives within the comprehensive plan. So what we are working with the strategic plan is we just sort of drill down a little bit more. Again, check in with the community since it's been a while on the vision. Are we going in the right direction? Should we tweak it? Where should we go? And then how do we get there? Very specifically in five year time frame with prioritized actions, which will intentionally inform the council's work from a year to year basis. And their work plan will also be broken down to the committee committees and the departments as well. So the idea is very much to sort of get everybody sort of rowing in the same direction on the actions once we decide what those are. That's great. So that's a great overview of those different levels that we have within the city and the region. So let's look at how these planning decisions ultimately translate in rules and policies and regulations. What does that really look like? Yeah. So as I said, the comprehensive plan really sort of lays the groundwork for the land use decisions going forward. And so the planning commission drafts the comprehensive plan and recommends it to the council for approval. The planning commission also drafts the rules and the regulations that govern development. And so in Essex Junction that is called the land development code nomenclature again in a lot of places it is referred to as the zoning bylaws. Essentially the purpose of the land development code is to ensure that the development that is being proposed in the city meets both the state goals and the comprehensive plan goals. And the intention is to make sure that as we are approving proposed developments there is enough wastewater to manage it. There is safe vehicular and pedestrian circulation within that site plan and the surrounding context and ensure that we are protecting the natural resources. A big one for us in Essex Junction is properly managing storm water again so that by the time that water makes its way to Lake Champlain it is properly filtered and managed before it gets there so we don't have too much phosphorus. In the lake. Again that plan describes the variety of, lays out the vision for the city and then you'll see that translated in the land development code through what we call zoning districts. And the zoning districts really describe what is permitted in each area of the city and sets some different, as an example it sets different density thresholds for housing in each of the zoning districts. And one other thing I wanted to just sort of try to explain here quickly and this stole from the town of Georgia today out of their zoning regulation but essentially just quickly to sort of explain for folks the process or how development gets approved. So if there is a development proposal that's brought forward to the zoning administrator and the zoning administrator guides which process that goes through. On the left hand side of the slide here are the permitted uses and the things that can be approved at that zoning administrative level. And essentially they review the zoning administrator reviews the development against the land development codes make sure it meets all the standards and issues a decision. That decision can be appealed and it would be appealed to the development review board. So that's sort of one pathway for developments that can get approved at the administrative level. On the right hand side of the screen talks about all the developments that are larger in scale and for the most part those are going to have to go through the development review board to actually get approval. And again the development review board essentially plays that same role as the zoning administrator. They ensure that the development itself meets the standards in the land development code and at the end of the process a written decision is issued. That can also be appealed. It has a 30 day appeal period and that gets appealed to the environmental court so it kind of leaves the city at that point. Right. So we've talked a lot about the different levels and the different like bylaws and codes that we have within the city. So what kind of upcoming planning process do we maybe have in the works or coming up in the near future and how do they kind of fit into the hierarchy? Great question. So you know through the strategic planning process we have been getting lots of different questions and thinking about development. And it makes total sense when we ask people how they think about the city going forward. It's hard to not think about the built environment. But the one thing I wanted to talk about related to that is we do have what's coming up is a transit oriented development study. And that will be in partnership with the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission. It's part of a federal raise grant that they have and they're going to be looking at 12 different communities. And really the intention is to look at the areas where we already have good bus service in place today. It's really pretty difficult to see on this slide but essentially the two bus that comes out to Essex Junction is one of the most frequently running buses that we have in the region. And so that is a really excellent resource that we have in the city and the intention of this study is to try to think about creating additional travel points along that corridor to really help you know again sort of that snowball effect of the more users we have on the bus line that use the bus the greater opportunity we may have in the future to increase and improve that bus service. Because again it's an incredibly costly system and it's important to have higher level densities in order to be able to support that system. And one example for folks of what that might look like these are slides from the Winooski visioning process that was done in Winooski prior to the development of its form based code. So you can sort of see on the upper left hand side what the main street in Winooski looks like and the bottom right hand side is showing visually what else could happen within that same right of way there. And you can sort of tell a little bit it's a little tough to see in this slide but the private realm that development is increased as well as much greater infrastructure for bikes and pedestrians within the right of way itself and including much improved stormwater management in those in those tree cavities. So this is kind of the concept that we'll be thinking about in the transit oriented development study it'll start in 2024. And so just want to let folks know that we'll have an opportunity to really dive much deeper in terms of how the private realm looks and what the regulations look around that. Then we will in this strategic planning effort because the strategic planning effort is a little higher altitude. Good tie in there. So let's talk briefly about the strategic planning process. We've mentioned it a little bit earlier on you and I discussed it at our last junction city news and really dove into the details. But let's talk really just about like what are some of the upcoming things that we have going on within the strategic plan. And how people can participate because that's one of our big things that we're trying to get is to everybody to participate in these upcoming strategic planning efforts. Excellent question. Okay. So right now we've got a survey. This is again we've been sort of talking about the various levels and scales here. This is sort of the visioning side of this project. And it's you can take a lot of time and put some detail in there if you would like or it's a pretty quick survey if you've just got want to answer some of the more quantitative questions. And so this survey is open until the 31st of October. And so we're really, really hoping to get a lot of input into the survey. Great. So go out and take the survey tonight. Yes. Then also we have the future think tank workshops on November 2nd and 4th. That's Thursday night, September 2nd from 5 to 8 p.m. and Saturday, November 4th from 9 to 12, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. And those will take place at CBE at the Blue Ribbon Pavilion. We really would love for people to RSVP to that. If you don't, we'll still let you in, but we're really, really looking forward to people RSVP just so we can properly plan for that event. So anything you want to add on those? I would just say that with the think tank or workshop or with the survey you can find all that information on our project portal. So the project portal Regina has the information about that coming up. You can definitely go there and check out the different activities that we have coming up, the survey. And then it will be our one stop shop for everything coming up about the strategic planning process. So there's some information on how you can reach that. You can also reach it on our city website at sextruction.org. All right. Yeah. So is there anything else that you would like to talk about before we end this evening? I don't think so. I really appreciate some of the questions that we've been getting around this. It can be really, you know, you and I were talking earlier in a perfect world. We would just be starting from a clean slate and all of these processes would work in a very linear fashion. The reality is just not that way. And they all end up sort of informing each other and we enter them at different times. And really what the hope and the goal is now for the strategic plan is to just as best we can figure out the priorities now that we are a city. And there's a lot of work, a lot of great work that a lot of people want to do and would like to see the city do. And we just can't do it all. So we're really looking forward to some feedback on how to help prioritize. Great. Well, that is all the time that we have for this evening. I want to thank Regina for being with us tonight. Please tune in to our next edition of Junction City News and have a wonderful evening.