 Okay, it is 6 p.m. On Monday December 11th, so I am going to call to order this meeting of the Winnowsky City Council Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance led by Deputy Mayor I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all Thank you Okay, first next is agenda review any concerns about the order this evening Okay Next up is public comment So if you're here for an item on the agenda If you can wait, please wait till we reach that I'll invite public comment for every agenda item But if you have something that you want to share not related to this evening's agenda now would be the time Anyone in here? Anyone on zoom you can use the chat or raise hand feature Okay, seeing none. We can move on to the consent agenda We have just the city council and liquor control board minutes from our last meeting December 4th and accounts payable December 7th Any questions concerns from council? No, no, do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Second motion by Bryn second by Charlie all those in favor, please say aye. I motion carries. Thank you Moving on to council reports. Would you like to start a row? Sure. All right, so I wanted to give a reminder that the safe healthy connected people commission will meet tomorrow at 6 30 This is a virtual only meeting over zoom the Wendyski Memorial Library Committee will be presenting So if you're interested in learning more about our city's small but mighty library, this is a great opportunity to tune in Also, this week is the inclusion and belonging Commission, which is also virtual. It will be on Thursday at 6 p.m The Commission will be reviewing the roles of the ambassadors to the different other Commissions to ensure that commissioners have the support they need to succeed in the goals for both the city and the Commission And I want to also wanted to know As you're getting closer to town meeting day I wanted to share with the council in the public that I am planning to seek re-election for another term on council Thank you Sure, so the infrastructure Commission will be meeting this month Last week when we met wasn't sure, but we will be meeting on Thursday the 21st We're actually going to change from our normal location at the pool and instead be here in city hall chambers council chambers And that will be to review the walk bike Plan that was presented this past week for council comment So the infrastructure Commission will have a chance next week to review and add any other feedback that they may have And then the next Bridge Wendyski bridge replacement meeting public hearing that will be that's scheduled for Tuesday, January 23rd The start time will be at 6 30 p.m. At the Wendyski School Performing Arts Center. That's 60 Norman Street Here in Wendyski that will be available in person or online for attendance Thank you I too would like to officially declare my intent to run for another term as mayor. I am up on the ballot this year other council reports I Have contacted a couple of our legislators About the local match funding for the bridge to keep that advocacy going trying to reduce that for us and The planning Commission will be meeting this Thursday at 6 30 p.m. via zoom to continue reviewing our land use regulations and the impacts of the home act As well as this will be their first time in that work since we provided direction about trying to Maximize those changes in support of priority housing In the theme of things I also will be running for re-election on town meeting day In terms of updates from downtown Wendyski We are meeting next week and haven't met since We last all gathered here, but There is an agenda item that downtown Wendyski will be talking about later today So we'll hear more from them at that point and just let everyone know There's going to be some winter caroling in the city on Thursday December 21st from 5 p.m. To 5 30 p.m On the McKee's patio. If you are interested in joining or watching it's open to all. Thank you The Wendyski Housing Commission will be meeting on December 19th at 6 p.m. There's both an in-person and online option for those that like to meet remotely Tonight we'll be discussing The ongoing work that the housing director has been doing for short-term rental regulations All right, thank you all city updates, Elaine Yeah, so fiscal year 2025 budget discussion started last week or at least the meat of it Tonight we'll continue with staff budget presentations. Please do stick around for the capital improvement Presentation Join us to discuss the cost and upkeep of the city's vehicles facilities and other important municipal assets Please ask questions and provide input on how you think our tax dollars should be spent For the full schedule of budget meetings and information, please visit Wendyski VT gov slash FY 25 that says in fiscal year 25 And you can always send your questions between meetings to budget at Wendyski VT gov The city Wendyski is again part of the 2023 Operation fire cuffs annual toy drive for the UVM Children's Hospital Every year this special tradition brings joy to children in need and we encourage residents to donate Donations can be made at the Wendyski fire department Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. To 5 p.m. And at Wendyski City Hall from Monday through Friday 8 a.m. To 4 p.m. That's until December 21st and Lastly the exit 16 double diamond interchange survey is out The Vermont Agency of Transportation has completed the first phase of construction at the Colchester exit 16 for 89 The first construction season required around the clock construction as crews restricted significant traffic impacts to tight nighttime hours The trans is seeking community feedback on phase one construction impacts and project outreach Please take five minutes to complete that survey at exit 16 Ddi dot V trans projects dot Vermont gov A link to that survey is also available on our website the survey will close on Friday December 15th If you have a question about the project that isn't on the survey, please email info at exit 16 Ddi dot V trans projects to Vermont dot Vermont gov Thanks. Thank you Okay, we'll move into our regular items first up for discussion approval inclusion and belonging Commission appointments Good evening. So we are pleased to present two alternate applicants for tonight To be part of the inclusion and belonging Commission. This is Harley Rodriguez Welcome Hello, everyone, my name is Harley Rodriguez, I'm originally from the Bronx, New York I moved here about three years ago and Was pleasantly surprised by how warm and welcoming when new ski's been I think I'm at you Thomas in one of our City events and I joined the inclusion and belonging Commission because I believe that Winooski has already created a strong reputation for welcoming people from other countries from other states and I think in order to keep their reputation and to make it stronger that I can Hopefully bring a lens that can help with different initiatives I Do believe that Winooski is known as one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse cities in Vermont But I think there is Something to look at under a micro microscope is how do we retain people that come here because Winooski is getting very expensive and And there's there aren't that much Opportunities for mixed income housing, especially like when you look at buildings like it when you ski falls way and stuff like that And it's seemingly similar to what's happening in the Bronx in my home Where gentrification is happening and I'm just gonna call it like it is And I think that there is a way that you can do it responsibly renovating different things but um and Bringing more innovation to the city, but at the same time keeping it on that cultural fabric of it And I think there needs to be a balance that that is hard to find at times But I think it's doable if you if you bring the community in more So I hopefully I can help with that if there's anything Thank you Thank you so much for for applying for the role and Bringing your expertise. I really appreciated too in your application. You mentioned like using education to reduce discrimination And what you just said about like bringing the community in More connection the more people understand each other the better I think so very happy to have you does anyone have any questions Thank you so much for coming in so we could also meet you in person tonight. Okay. Thank you. Thank you I just have a statement from Leo applicant as an alternate member and So he I'll just read this. My name is Leo BD. I'm a junior at Winooski High School I'm interested in participating on this committee because I would like to serve the community as a student I would be able to advise the committee on issues that are affecting Winooski's youth I am interested in city government and in maximizing the potential of the community to expand on and improve opportunities that student support belonging Also very exciting to have a youth perspective coming to the table Someone want to make a motion So yeah to approve the the appointments Second motion by Aurora second by Brynn all those in favor. Please say aye. Hi motion carries its official Thank you again. Thank you Okay, we are moving on to item B and feel free to exit as you wish This is on for discussion approval the loan request from downtown Winooski. Elaine. Are you going to start? Yes? Please join So Cal cell may recall that down how Winooski's new executive director most Corbin Let you know during your September 18th 2023 meeting about the $30,000 federal tax liability that she discovered when she took over She and her board have worked on many ideas to get caught up But have reached these this option of last resort. I would call it I did suggest that they asked the city for a loan I normally wouldn't suggest that a nonprofit do that sort of thing in this case the relationship We have with downtown Winooski is unique The city has a downtown designation that gives our community access to a long list of significant benefits To keep a downtown designation requires it designated downtown organization Downtown Winooski is that organization for us and there really isn't a true alternative Also downtown Winooski provides services that would otherwise not be provided or would be needed or would need to be provided by the city at Probably a higher clock cost So those include business support and community events They also raise money to pay for those efforts themselves in addition to the support that the city provides So the request is for $36,000 $30,000 is to pay off that IRS debt without incurring more fees and penalties and $6,000 is it for emergency operating reserve as I understand it as they rebuild and most incorrect me if I got that wrong And the city can't afford this loan without risking our projects in needs for fund balance Thanks Elaine Thanks for coming in Melissa. Thank you so much for having me appreciate having you back in You know as Elaine said you had shared that you found these fiscal challenges Previously as you came into the role and The organization is an important partner with the city Can you speak to so Elaine shared like what the money is going to be used for but like how you plan on Bringing this organization back to being sustainable That's a really big question but I think that the way that I feel right now is kind of Stuck in mud in not being able to do a really clear strategic plan because every direction I've gone in this tax debt has been a wall Against me trying to figure out exactly how and where we want to move the organization forward What I'd really like to do is get it get this behind us so that we can actually apply for grants Every grant that I've gone after this has been what's shot it down and I really would like to be able to do Philanthropic fundraising which is one of the reasons that I'm hired because that's something that I'm good at But whenever I present a balance sheet to a potential funder that liability that's sitting on there just makes it say you don't know how to run a business and so I really would like to get this debt behind us and focus on why I was actually hired which was to take a foundation and Grow the organization create organizational development and get strong funding partners in place Both at the state level Hopefully at the federal level with the USDA funding for the farmers market in the future Which was also rejected because of this hack step this year, but at least it's written so I can submit it again next May and I'd really like us to get a really solid base of sponsors and annual donors I spoke to a couple people who have donated in the past and Really why they stopped donating was because they just got really unclear about where where their money was going So this year I was able to put together every single community event that we did Money that came in money that went out and what the whole was so that we can say we need two more thousand dollars to put Juneteenth on the way that we wanted Also this year we put together sponsorship packages, which never existed before so we can go out and ask community partners to support so That's a long-winded way of me saying that I I really would like to just move forward with a strategic plan in February I wouldn't hold a retreat with my board and get really clear goals and objectives and and Understand and track on a quarterly basis how we're meeting those Right now without a lack of plan It's hard to give a really solid clear answer to that question and that's not me dodging it It's just I'd really like to have a strategic plan in front of me and say This is what we've developed as a board of directors and where we want to go and where we think our stretch goals And where are ones that we know that we can meet very easily But as I sit here right now in December, we're not there yet. That's fair I think the context you just shared was also very helpful about why this is important in that process Do other folks have questions So I did share a number of questions with Elaine beforehand that you're able to respond to so thank you My I think some of my main questions are just terms and conditions as it relates to Payment term payment repayment timeline potential risk of failure to repay But I I think that a lot of my concerns were alleviated from responses from the city manager and the team and I think I mean I Said it in September say it again. Just thank you for the work that you've done to unearth this challenge and the work that you've done today to help address and resolve it so I Do have a lot of confidence in the work that you're doing and Thank you, I appreciate that. Yeah, so thank you so much for that. I think I've already Addressed my points with city staff and I think they'll address it in any Of the terms of conditions with a long payment, so I don't think I Don't have a question, but as always just thank you for everything you do I know that you do not want to have to come to this table again asking for something or delivering somewhat bad news So I just want to stress and the only and kind of already touched on it But this was really your last resort was trying to take care of this And it's hard when you've put in such good work and have been like yeah You have this grand Except for this one thing so it's really just important for you all to be able to take care of that debt So thanks for laying it out so plainly for us and what you need. Yeah, I appreciate that We really did try everything, but you can't really go to a bank. We don't have any assets and ask for Opportunities we tried we got we got pretty far along in the process and really thought that that was going to be the answer But I understood I understood why they they said no So this is a bit of a leap of faith for you all But I feel I feel like as you said if we want the downtown designation to stay in place This really feels like the last resort. I do also want to say that even if we put Terms and conditions in that allow for a five-year loan if we are able to pay it before that We will of course and if we are able to stabilize our income Channels in a quicker time frame than what we've talked about. We will definitely make paying back the city commitment I think that I was being I'm being conservative and saying it might take us five years to get there I'm hopeful that it'll be sooner, but I wanted to be conservative in my estimate. I Appreciate that we we would be foregoing potential interest earnings to do this. I think the The decision is is that a risk worth the what we get out of a successful downtown organization For me, I think yes, it is Are there any questions from members of the public? Judy? Sorry, would you be willing to come up here and speak into the microphone? I Just wonder are you comfortable at your organization has a structure? Like a board structure in place you have a treasurer, so you're gonna be able to know where you are at all times now Yes, yes, we do have a very solid active board of directors in place Okay, okay, and will the council be City manager be requesting periodic updates on where they are during this period of time to make sure it's no surprises at the end Yeah, we get a financial report update at least annually already The great thing is it'll come out of quick books going forward So we'll be able to see and be able to capture and compare and contrast against things So it won't be won't be an Excel sheet and it's also we hired a forensic accountant to help us through this process And we are retaining them on a monthly basis so that somebody's watching me Okay, that CPA is watching me because sure that everything that I'm doing is is legitimate every time that I've Held this role in organizations in the past It's always a really good idea to bring an outside accounting firm in so especially when you're an employee of one or one and a half So that you have people that are looking over your shoulder and helping you reconcile the books every month They're signing off on it checks and balances. Yeah, okay Okay, I guess that's it. Thank you. Thank you for your caring and interest. You're welcome Anything else? Yeah, really the fact that you can't access grant money and other funds to me just speaks to But this this is hopefully I getting you back to that place Which you know, we're all excited to see yeah, thank you for your patience. It's been a long Okay, I am not hearing any great concerns So perhaps someone would like to make a motion to approve the loan request from downtown Manuski Second could you do you mind authorizing the The check to Authorizing you to sign it, right? To afford to be issued. Yeah, okay Do I have a motion to approve the loan request from downtown Manuski and for a city manager to authorize the payment? I was looking at the line to see if it was good Okay, motion by Thomas second by Charlie all those in favor, please say aye motion carries. Thank you Okay, we are on to item C the fiscal year 2025 budget presentation on the capital improvement plan Wait, wait, am I out of order here? No, no, this is correct. Okay I think John yeah, we can do we can do go one or two ways John and you can join the zoom meeting right now cheer your screen Or I can just pull it up. No problem If possible, I would prefer to drive Standing by should be good to go John just one more thing make sure your laptop volume is all the way down So I'm here to present the general fund capital plan for FY 25 So this this is a switch in the schedule. I think safe healthy connected was originally scheduled tonight Personally our director there had some health issues. So I'm covering So the the general fund capital plan. This is actually new. So we haven't presented this as a separate Budget since I've been here and it's it's finally gotten to the point where I think it's worth Spending some extra time to go through it. It's upwards of million bucks now So and it it typically has gotten sort of pushed into the public works Presentation so it doesn't give you all a lot of time to review it and get into the details So the other thing with this budget too, it's probably where you sort of have the most flexibility It doesn't necessarily impact, you know salaries and current employees. It's it's our major capital assets, so There is some room here to sort of change what you want to do We will obviously we're providing recommendations and there's existing debt that we have to pay for but There is some room here to look at Alternatives so with that also it happens to be where your party was this year. Yeah. Yeah, correct So I've broken this down into three categories. So the first Bunch of slides is mainly getting into like intro. What is the capital plan and just providing some background info? And then the second group of slides is really the projects and getting into some of the details The third group is probably the most boring because that's more of the spreadsheets and like the budget numbers But obviously very important so So most of you have probably seen this before but just covering what what is a capital asset? What is a capital budget? So we are specifically talking about the general fund So those assets that are primarily paid for with property taxes This is a five-year sort of look ahead on how we Either replace those assets or we we've purchased new assets or indoor projects And then the definitions are listed there. What what is a capital asset? So, you know Typically as you can see in the photo something like you know a tower truck. That is one of our major capital assets It's it's gonna have long-standing debts typically not something we can pay for in one year. We've got it We've got a finance it So that is kind of it's what you would expect a capital asset to be as those major costs the city has to take on So just to give you a kind of a ballpark feel for How much stuff do we have in capital assets? We ran our we looked at our Our values from the last audit They're probably very conservative to be honest But so I've updated a couple of the general service items specifically the streets items and The Winooski bridge that number was like 12 million so for reference So I think this is very very very conservative But just to give you like a rough idea of like how much how much stuff do we own that's that's considered a capital asset So it's right around 110 million If we went through line by line to look at you know, okay What if this building for example City Hall, you know I don't remember what it was listed as but it was probably the purchase price or the construction price in 1970 is what's in there if we were to rebuild this building today like it would be obviously much higher, so So yeah, I would say 110 it could go You know double that potentially if we went if we did a really detailed look into it. So If I say we we have a lot of very expensive things The assets are actually owned by multiple funds Yeah, yeah, it's things like the the tower lights that are used for construction at night But are also used by the water and wastewater department. Thanks. Yeah, and I we did exclude the O'Brien Phoenix Center because that is not in the budget For FY 25, I think that was listed in the audit for around three or four million. So that that's not in this number So high-level overview of the FY 25 capital plan and I'm using this term like base capital plan because Back in FY 19 The the council the city We put aside some designated revenue sources for the Main Street Myers pool project. So there was a Small increase in the property tax rate local options tax and some set aside for the TIF funding to specifically pay for those two projects because We could not fit them into the current capital plan. So Luckily even like our projections in FY 19 are still good in FY 23 surprisingly so those funds Which you'll see in here do cover fully cover the Debt for the Main Street pool project. So this budget doesn't ask for any additional funds for those two projects So you'll see those sort of like as a separate revenue. So base is basically everything but Myers pool and Main Street revitalization project. So for the high-level overview of what's in here Typical stuff like our annual street resurfacing our fleet replacements We have some new debt starting like the fire truck the tower truck We've got Some new items that will discuss such as some infrastructure planning studies that we're proposing potentially some new snow and ice equipment and initiating some traffic calming Funding sources one thing we heard a few times from community members The other thing that that's in this plan currently That's for your review is potentially two bond votes. So one is reallocation of funds from the Hickok Street Projects that was completed. We came in under budget. We have roughly five 550,000 In funding that we can push to another similar project I know see manager talked about that kind of in the high-level Budget, so we'll get into those details and then the Winnieski Burlington Bridge Potentially bond vote this year for the cost share and then there's some potential add-ons there if you felt if you wanted to take those on And I will you know the the challenge and the challenge has always been this is Trying to just fit everything we need to fit into the capital fund with with the current revenue that we have so Again talking about the base capital Capital budget we have roughly six hundred twenty thousand that's Historically Allocated for the capital plan. We've already got three hundred eighty one thousand fifty five dollars in debt that we have to pay for so That only leaves us about two hundred thirty nine thousand to support, you know, all our capital needs So it's it's a pretty pretty large ask and then what we're showing tonight is That we probably need around a hundred ninety three thousand to to do all the stuff that we want to do in this capital budget So and obviously that is up for discussion. So we said this budget can kind of move up and down John the numbers you just gave the one hundred ninety three Yeah, that includes if the main street bond passed and we're adding that debt service into the toll The the bridge yeah bond so the the bridge bond actually doesn't that debt would come online until Potentially FY twenty six, so there's no debt right now Okay, so one ninety three for what's in here. There's gonna then another increase the following correct. Yeah, okay And then just to caveat what's not included because there are a lot of other needs that You know we hear from other department heads that that we do want to try to fit in in the future capital budget as You can see there's you know a lot of ball points here on the park side Specifically some of the parks and open space master plan projects Also want to call out you know we We have some pretty limited reserve capital reserve funding so a lot of times there's projects that You know we have a planning study for but we don't have any Reserve set aside to go after like a grant match for example So it would be nice to have you know start putting some money towards some of these future projects You know like the two bridge replacements that will we'll have to do at some point Main Street Weaver Street Just to help us when we're chasing some grant funding in the future The other piece who is now with the TIF expiration Those capital assets are now kind of gonna be in this capital funds now So like the Riverwalk Rotary Park those are now part of just the general fund capital plan and they're you know getting 20-ish years old So they're gonna they're also gonna need some Some probably some maintenance capital level maintenance the next few years I would say How come we ever street bridge is not included on this not included list Did not want to overwhelm me I guess no it's it could be this is a limited list I would say yeah, yeah Any questions on background info this point you just go back to that last slide again. Yeah Yes, there are items that I'm not included list that we've talked about We need to get into it now, but the renovations needed for the police department I Think I've brought up a couple different opportunities to work with Vermont gas and great mountain power and our utility partners for reducing costs for I Think maybe on the previous slide the DPEW Wailer furnace replacement lighting for Landry You know just thinking about different funding opportunities to help reduce out-of-pocket General fund expenses Just PD we do have some money still sitting in reserve and we have a An approach that's involving the police department staff on Determining what those are there were some basic testing they we thought would be make sense to get done first That's done now. So great or that that's why that's not listed because I'm anticipating we can probably do some improvements without Additional funding, but we still need to see what the plan is. Okay, great Yeah, and in one point to add on that too is a lot of times what we'll try to do is once once we know we're actually Okay, we've got some funding in place to do a project. I think like name Street We'll start chasing grants to because we know we've got okay. We've got funding to do it. It becomes a much more I Guess it's a project that we can we can easily or more easily get grants for and I didn't mention this in the beginning, but the capital plan money it does roll over year after year So, you know if there is a savings on like a facility project Because we get a grant that funding just stays in that facilities Capital grant reserve and then we can use it. It's what correct. Yep. Yeah Great. Thank you Okay, this this section is a little bit longer it Start getting into some of the details. I don't get too heavily into the numbers towards the end, but The third sort of group of slides is where I'll get into some of the numbers more So last meeting I heard, you know a little bit about and I hear from everyone community-wide neighbors Streets and sidewalks. That's probably number one issue. I hear about In my position So I thought it might be helpful just to give a kind of a high-level overview on how we think about street pavement Management and sidewalk pavement just just you know what what options and things we're looking at when we're putting this This kind of street pavement management together So the bottom sort of picture here diagram is actually Hickok Street. That's from the Hickok Street project We did so when we're thinking of a street or a roadway We're actually looking at like this, you know, 28 inch thick section of roadway And a lot of times when we're doing these annual street paving projects We're really just touching the first inch and a half layer of asphalt. That's typically what you see on the annual basis, but there's actually, you know that that road base is very thick and Honestly, our main goal is to try to stay out of that very thick road base We want to just be you know doing resurfacing at the top a section of the roadway. So that's what this That's sort of what this graph up here shows so Our goal when we're doing these paving projects is we want to stay here This is a sort of pavement degradation graph. So this is the condition 100 being this is brand new freshly paved Down here. This road's dead It's gotten a more life in it and then just time frame So we're trying to stay pretty much up here when we're doing paving projects and most times we're you know Unfortunately, we're probably more like in this area or even a little bit lower when we're doing resurfacing work And the reason why is because once you start getting down here You can kind of see some numbers on this graph. It gets you know exponentially more expensive You know on this graph. They're showing it like four times I've seen 10 20 times more because then at this point you're you're doing this whole road you're not just doing this top section and how you do that is is you do these Incremental resurfacing so, you know every 10 15 years you're doing a resurfacing project Trying to keep that PCI up to you know in a good condition So that's kind of our goal when we're trying to do these like annual paving projects because it's It's you know once you start getting into this level You know, it's it's just then it becomes a major finance capital project and that's not ideal And then just to show you kind of these are what treatments we have available to us So pavement preservation is sort of the the first one there. That's the least expensive crack ceiling You've probably seen us do that over the years That gives the basically it's like your driveway sealer if you have asphalt driveway at home Gives it a little bit more useful life But it's really just to kind of preserve that that roadway and keep it alive a little bit longer Pavement rehab. That's your typical You see us milling on the street and then resurfacing the top layer that gives us about another You know 10 or 20 years of useful life. That's typically what you see every year. That's what we're doing And then on the far right is the reconstruction That pictures from Hickok Street. That's again where we're taking up the whole roadway It's a major, you know long-term debt financial project. So Sometimes you have to do it. I mean sometimes it's utility driven. That's you know, that was the case for Hickok Street We probably could have you know, maybe milling filled that road But there was just too many utility issues in that street and that that was the driver for that particular street So getting back to when you see specific items We we maintain about 15.6 centerline miles of streets local streets The the gateway streets like Main Street and East Allen V-Trans comes back every 20 years and resurfaces those streets So we don't include them when we're looking at what's our, you know, network-wide pavement condition index So right now we We are forecasting that we have about us. We're at about a 68. So if you remember that degradation curve That's kind of in the fair target range But we'd like to be you know, our goal is to be around 72 So if we were you know to get to that level, you know, what would it cost and it's about a 750,000 Dollar investment to you know mill and fill enough streets that are candidates for that type of work To get the whole network up to 72 just for you know, all-part example Just so you have a rough idea But there are streets that we do have in the network right now that are below Pavement condition index 25 that are probably candidates for reconstruction But so that's you know, that would be a $3.2 million number that is very very ballpark. So we would have to look at each street You know review what utilities needed to be not the utilities are in this number, but See if we could do a lesser treatment. So just to give you some really really rough ballpark numbers on the amount of street work that's needed so a Recommendation is you know, if you wanted to have like a pavement program that was You know Getting the PCI back up to like a 72 value and we're we're doing You know our best effort on an increasing pavement conditions, I would say if we could get to a spot where we're doing one centerline mile of Neighborhood streets here that would get us to where we're coming back every 15 years to that street Which is about the useful life of the streets that That we have in our network And we would also recommend, you know, bi-annually doing the pavement preservation work. So Fox ceiling crack ceiling ideally we're doing that after Once you resurface come back in five five years and crack seal or fog seal just to you know, try to keep the life in that That is an ideal scenario So That would be about three hundred and twenty five dollars right now based on Current asphalt prices just to give you an idea, you know, what that would take to have like a very sustainable Paving program John what are we currently spending a year so it varies, but we're you know, we're usually in the $200,000 range last year was actually pretty close So we had a budget of I think it was 280 to 90 But we did have some concrete work curbing concrete work that we had to address but The FY 24 was like point seven five miles. So it's and I will say like When you see he's getting much better We I think previously there the budgets were like they were very they were very so it'd be like a hundred thousand dollars one year and like 80,000 like it has gotten You know much more consistent over the last few years and much higher So I mean kudos you all because it has improved quite a bit even the last few years Yeah, so here's the I think this is the last slide on streets, but this is the overall GIS map of our payment Condition the colors reference the the PCI Numbers green is good darker is bad red is really bad So this outlines, you know our five-year sort of outlook on where we want to be resurfacing for the next few years For FY 25 we're proposing to tackle These streets up in the north So this is what we're proposing for FY 25 for resurfacing these are pretty Neighborhood local streets. So even though this one's kind of In the red meaning it has a low PCI We've reviewed it and it appears that a mill and fill is going to be adequate given the amount of traffic that that's really gets It a reconstruction project here wouldn't be advisable Just because it really doesn't get too much traffic. So it's not going to see that vehicle load So this I believe it's about point six miles Which is you know, that's a pretty decent year of paving But we're also proposing which you'll see in later slide to is these streets were kind of Left off we had them proposed for FY 23 the issue was we realized afterwards that the To do it correctly We really need to replace the concrete all of the concrete curbing and that would also allow us to replace the concrete sidewalk You'll see a picture in a later slide where you can kind of see there's like there's zero curbing revealed there so what we're proposing to do is Utilize the bond funding from the Hickok Street project that is street sidewalks related to to replace this concrete curbing and the concrete sidewalks and This area and and actually and we'll be getting the sidewalks next these are probably some of the worst sidewalks in the city so And then what we'd end up doing is coming back in FY 26 to do the actual resurfacing So originally we were we were going to try to do the east side this year But given that We're looking to do the concrete work over here We we moved over to this section and on the west side so and then future years what we're currently we're targeting is FY 26 We'd be doing this FY 27 We'd be doing West Street here in a couple of these streets Hickok Street was recently reconstructed and then jumping back over to Some of these streets over here. There's there's probably two years of work in here So we've got to sort that out a little bit So this year the estimated cost is around 212,000 based on our cost estimating and Going back to that previous slide If you all wanted to increase the paving budget to say that one centerline mile, that's about a hundred thirty thousand dollars There's a couple options there we could we could add more paving we could also look at Trying to find some some grant-managed for some of the class two streets so class two streets are We call them more of like a connector street. So think of East Spring North Street to I'm sorry East Spring La Fountain Dion And then when you ski in abnacke way it's also connector street But particularly East Spring Street is is getting to be in pretty poor condition So that would be on our target list for resurfacing V-trans has a competitive class two grant that they come out with We we usually try to Save up a couple years of not applying so that we could hopefully get a bigger sum for that grant But that would likely be where we would utilize that funding as to sports most class two streets I'm curious why it looks like there's So like the northern section of Dion The eastern section of Bellevue northern section of Franklin like that looks Like it has more purple and red than some of the other sections and one And I don't know if the the recent walk audit that was done identified that as a priority for Since it's up near the school If that some of the Scoping that was done this past fall from CCRPC and other partners Identified that as a higher priority Yeah, they so we are thinking for those areas one the walk-by plan identified like a curb cut on an upper Dion to install where it kind of enters the campus there So that it that way I think that's something we can do regardless of a paving program, but that is one thing George Street upper Franklin are both high priority candidates, especially with the school project done George Street is also a candidate for traffic calming evaluations. So ideally we'd be doing that traffic calming review and then resurfacing after that if the traffic calming study showed like If it met the warrants for traffic calming and we could do something there speedhumps for example, I'm thinking of particularly so Yeah, I that is something that's sort of Also baked in when we're looking at these paving programs We do look at these very corridor specific So what you're not seeing on here is we'll overlay water main brakes That from walk-by plan if they've identified some improvements there You know we identify we like to look at you know, what is the general sidewalk condition and the curbing reveal So there is a little bit more baked into this, but Yeah, we do look at we'll look at what walk-by plan. Yeah, because it it just seems inconsistent to prioritize certain projects based off of the road Centerline conditions the PCI PC1 PCI, thank you small part the PCI conditions when that Like this if we just look at just this particular slide it would seem inconsistent to prioritize areas Without having knowledge of what those other overlays are walk-by plan Other infrastructure anticipated water main replacement needs stormwater issues So I don't know if that's provided in a later slide It isn't because it's it is hard to display You know, we're showing you that sort of like the end of the equation of like when we're bringing in like those different layers to see And we have to we so the other piece of this is in this in the summertime our DPW crew will go out ahead of a paving project and Adjust all of the the utility structures So they do an investigation of utility structures and see if it's feasible So it's you know, this is not just me saying like hey, these are the streets. We're doing it's It's reviewing it with our our public works crew to see what's feasible for structure replacement and you know talking with our water our utility manager to see All right Historically how many breaks have we had on here is if we pave this are we gonna have another water break and You know, we're turning up new asphalt. So We can show you we could probably show you a few like a few Different GIS maps to kind of show you how we get to that result that helps And then you mentioned So in the previous slides you've mentioned potential funding set aside for traffic calming studies Was the George Street? Did you intend for the George Street to be one of those two traffic calming studies? Yeah Yeah, and the reason is, you know, we're thinking about the Main Street project That's kind of kind of skew traffic patterns George Street is far enough away. It's not it wouldn't skew any traffic Yeah, sir. There's also I believe one on I think West Street is also identified like West Street that is not gonna skew a Traffic calming valuation Okay, so and then just to connect the dots. Yeah, the reason why we would prioritize those over say other streets that we've heard complaints about weaver LeClaire is because we know we are we are Imminently going to increase volume because of Main Street on those Yep. Cool. All right. Just making sure Close the loop there. Thanks Any other questions on pavement for your sidewalks sidewalks, so sidewalks don't have that sort of degradation curve that pavement does so that's why You know, we've heard in commission meetings things like I'll just move away a sidewalks Don't do a paving this year. And and so our pushback is like, you know It's better to do the the resurfacing work every year keep up on it Because the problem is like once the pavement gets into that lower degradation curve then then you're not going to do anything because you're reconstructing all streets, so sidewalks Predominantly, you're you're just replacing there isn't really a maintenance You don't have the tools of like different maintenance activities for sidewalk. Usually you're You're replacing it associated with a paving project for the most part So that's why I would not recommend taking money from paid, you know, street pavement and moving it to sidewalks So just to give you some quick numbers We have about 19.1 miles of sidewalks that we maintain we've got you know, roughly 10,000 linear feet of sidewalk in our GIS that is in poor condition If we were to replace all that in one shot, that's about a you know, 1.1 million dollar project We also have in our transportation master plan about 3640 linear feet of proposed sidewalk expansion so sidewalks where we don't currently have any sidewalks on the streets so think of like North Street or Die on Street some of those locations Those are a little bit harder to estimate because that that will require some typically some additional work So you might need a retaining wall or you might need to relocate utilities. So it's very case-by-case So it's hard to put a value on that What we would recommend for you know Just annual sidewalk work is at a minimum update the 88 ramps that curb ramps when we're doing the surface resurfacing for streets That is currently in this budget for the FY 25 paving so for the FY 25 paving there are 4 88 ramps that are Non-compliant, so we would just recommend replacing those get them into compliance and then as we're going through the annual Paving program just replacing sidewalks that are in poor condition For FY 25 those streets that development that area of the city is Relatively newish I guess you could say as far as the city goes so our GIS will have to do a closer look but those sidewalks Pretty good condition based on our GIS inventory John So 325,000 Would be ideal for the paving program Do you have an annual estimate That would include the site like sidewalk work alongside paving. Yeah, it vary it'll vary I mean, so it'll what we're recommending is look at it with with your paving program and You know for example FY 23 paving that we wanted to do That's you know, 300,000 dollars worth of sidewalk work this year zero, you know So it is we would have to look at it case-by-case We had that discussion in advance and part of the issue is that you don't want to lock up that money If you can spend it on a street because everything don't John said about the sidewalk Yeah, it doesn't make more sense to flex that part of it And it's not because we don't want to prioritize sidewalks because it is very and you might as well use that money for something else And lock it up in there Can I ask follow-up so the ADA ramps are the four that you're talking about? All of them that need to be No, no, no, so The picture I have up here we have CCRPC Performed an evaluation city-wide on all our ADA ramps I Remember, I think we have like 380 total city-wide. I think like 75% of them were non-compliant. So this is a picture of one on except Bernard and for Yeah, oops, sorry Sorry, oh That is an actual ADA ramp that we have that will Would be replaced as part of that Hickok Street funding that's shifting over So this is what I was saying like that concrete curb is gone Their you know sidewalk is kind of in shambles. There is no ADA ramp there What we're proposing is That curving imagine it be, you know, it's six inches higher The the road surface elevation isn't changing but the the curb height is and so we got to kind of bring everything up with it I'll decide walk work. So that would look if as part of this FY 25 project That would be that would change to one of the newer ADA ramps with detectable warning Okay, yeah, and it might have been I was getting in my mind confused you about that Warning because I feel like I definitely see those some places There's not necessarily a crosswalk and then not in places where there is a crosswalk and just kind of the concern Especially with the former There's no crosswalk, but we're telling someone that there's a crosswalk there of just yeah that concern And I don't know if those are cheaper to Know probably not but yeah, so all all cross all ADA curb ramps have to have detectable warning. That is that is the The regulation now, so it's we we do a steel like It's like a map with the the bump time. So any any ADA ramps that we Replace now have to have that detectable warning in it. Okay and has I guess Maybe my question is did The ADA ramp or the ADA review also include those technical warnings or is that something that we don't have data on? I'm not sorry the the detectable warning. Yeah. Yeah. So that is one of the criteria. So, okay We met with RPC and so what we did is we used the ADA Criteria for what is what makes an adequate ADA ramp. So there's a few pieces One is detectable warning and it has to be in a certain location and like a certain distance from the end of the curb Slopes are our big one and just the width and it has to have a five-foot pathway It's pretty involved like I've seen a project where they actually like I did a 3d survey of an ADA ramp But they thought might not be in compliance. If you looked at it, you'd be like, oh, that's a typical one So there they had to go out there with a slope measurement tool and make sure it's you know within range So there is a pretty strict Design around ADA programs. Yeah Yeah, I guess my question is around private so My understanding with the tactical is they are primarily for blind folks to know where there's a crosswalk So I guess I have some like additional concerns of like, how are we tracking that because that doesn't mess like How much does that cost again, there are places that don't have it that should and places that do have it that maybe shouldn't I'm specifically thinking about on Main Street by the school There is one there So if someone who wouldn't be able to otherwise see would assume there's a crosswalk There so just like those concerns. So either maybe there should be a crosswalk there. That's a different conversation, but Thinking about those as well. Yeah that I know the ramp you're talking about that is the only one that I know of that's in a place that We've been told there shouldn't be a crossing there however with the Main Street project there will be a like Median protected RFB crossing that will be compliant. So Yeah, to answer your question. So yes, all when we are What the proposal is for when we do street resurfacing is At least look at the ADA ramps and get them up to code So they're ADA compliant and they have the correct slope detect the correct detectable warning and so at least annually we're we're doing some work on those Because ultimately we have to like we we we as part of our ADA transition plan We have to update all of our ADA ramps to meet those requirements, so That's that's what I'm proposing now is just Put it in with the annual resurfacing actually in New York State requires that so Vermont doesn't require it, but that's what we've technically done When I worked in New York is when we're doing your surfacing we have to update those curb ramps at least Okay Rapid flash begins the when you push the button the lights go Thank you for that context The other thing now to sidewalks They have a much higher useful life than a roadway. Obviously. I don't see the same loading as a roadway but that is one thing to consider like You know 40 years. I've seen 56 years to used for reference So usually it's tree up lifts things like that the slabs But they have a much higher useful life than a roadway and it will say so the city is Doing we'll be doing quite a bit of sidewalk replacement work the next two years potentially So if if the proposed bond bond though goes through to reallocate funds that's about 2740 linear fee is sidewalk replacement Main Street, which is a massive sidewalk project to that's 5,280 feet so about a mile and a half of sidewalk work currently programmed so Pretty good chunk at least in the next few years That's it for so no, I there's the GIS map for sidewalk so As mentioned, this is the location we're proposing to do That sidewalk curbing work for FY 25 I Also just wanted to call us out not necessarily an FY 25 thing, but there is one gap of sidewalk here on West canal that actually a neighbor who has visual impairment So I see them all said hey is there any way you can get a sidewalk in here and Turned out that the the property owner of that that That compound they were repaving their their The front entrance and we worked with them and were piggybacking on their contractor to fill in like a section of sidewalk gap So and it had detectable warning on each end We we sent the specs over to the the neighbor lives on that street and He was happy he's like yes this this will work for me So kind of a success story of like working with some of our neighbors like Find a need working with property owner piggybacking on some contracting work that they're already doing so They're looking to do that work this spring And then of course Main Street Which again pretty large sidewalk project as well The other piece that we're we're trying to find some grant money for is This section here on East spring so Hoods crossing to Russell Street currently has no sidewalk This is a section of pretty wide Street that we think we can kind of squeeze some sidewalk in So we are looking at trying to apply for a v-trans tap grant Potentially or what actually what we're pursuing most likely is pursuing a tap grant for this work Which is up to I think 50% and then if if we do get that then we would push it over to do this Sidewalk expansion. So that's one thing. We're we're viewing right now You kind of see that in the photos tap as transferational Yep, yep, and we've been successful with that that grant in the past Can confirm that This is not fun to walk there You know though the one question that I brought up and mentioned Answered John, but I thought might be still useful to bring up Is thinking about especially around sidewalks how we wait Equity and it sounds like you have thought about some of the with the bike head plan how they Kind of weighted things So Yeah, I just want to kind of put that out there. Yeah, how can we kind of use some some stuff that we're seeing to? Make sure that we are prioritizing where these are most needed Yeah, yeah, and we would that's where we rely on those plans like the walk-bike plan or transportation master plan and Why would we be holding off on the West Island section? Which is that need bottoming replacement? Excuse me the West It's red the lower you're talking about the missing piece, but just above it shows that a poor condition. Oh You're talking about I can see from the streets. It looks like it's the PCI is Is in good condition this Yes here. Yes Yeah, I mean that is funding. I mean so that is That would be a priority replacement given the condition, but it's you know, that's I suspect that's probably around over a couple thousand feet of replacement work Are you saying in lieu of the Hickok Street? or the Not Bernard Gale not Hickok, but it's red. Yeah. Yeah So looking at the again the priorities of the condition You know, I it's just I think the maybe the The legend is a little confusing because you see like the condition blue green red and Then you see the priority sections Don't And so this is where that overlap Is there a water main project or there are other considerations that just aren't The whole full story isn't captured on this map, right? So priority sections are no sidewalks. So there's currently no sidewalks in those area. Yeah All right, that's helpful. Yeah Well, I do want to say this is enlightening To a comment I made at the last meeting like I Can see that there is a lot of paving payment maintenance and sidewalk built into this budget It's just primarily through like special funded projects and not like the annual So I feel like there's a discussion for next year any Questions on sidewalk before I go to the bond stuff Okay, so I know you are all familiar with this project So just to recap the when you see the Burlington Winooski Bridge I always want to call it the Winooski bridge but the Burlington Winooski bridge is Currently in concept design kind of see the rough schedule that's outlined Proposed construction 2027, but there is work going on design-wise right now. So the the The Excel table I have in there that is from VTrans So that is their spending profile for the next few years that they've provided Our match currently is a 5% so that's what it would look like for the city as far as Payments to VTrans over the next few fiscal years So that's why we are proposing a bond vote this year is You know, so at least we can we can cover that 5% we're not pulling it from capital plan or you know Another revenue source So that is what we're looking at right now I'm not sure if there's too much more to say on this project. There's gonna be a lot of outreach Obviously in next couple months. So how much that's how much money you would need, you know, over three million over three million Contribution towards our 5% How much would it cost for us to borrow that? 3 million So that I'll show you I can show you the debt slides. I mean typically Well, we are making payments to VTrans I think typically Angel, what is it if you're still there? 3% ish this point It's gonna be higher than three borrowing costs have gone up the last borrowing I had was at 3.79 from the Bombang 3.79% interest Yeah, I thought I don't know if I'm reading this right. I thought our match is three million We're paying no interest 3,400 in interest at the end Yeah, that's a good question. I mean so our that is our match from VTrans But that doesn't include the interest payment. We would pay for financing Total cost So is there Part is there some consideration to phase the amount That we're asking for in a bond so that will not So the recommendation would be to do a bond for just the pre-development Only okay to start and then until they have a really solid number on What the construction cost would be to take out that second bond? Okay, great. Yeah So for us, I guess visualizing would that be like this FY 24 25 26? Of how much around The bond would be Yeah, the first bond would be for that that yeah FY 24 to FY 26 amount Okay, let's say It's similar if you remember to the Main Street project. So Main Street we did You know bond for the engineering services, you know, we have the bond vote for the phone That gives that just says hey like we want to expend up to this amount. That's our ceiling But then as we move through the project will do The smaller like just for the engineering services just for this, you know construction inspection services Typically through the bond bank and then a construction bond and all of those combined have to be below the the voter approved bond vote value Angel I believe that includes interest too, right? Interest does not need to be below the bond voted amount Interest is always over and above the bond voted amount Just the base value of the debt the principle that we borrow Also, if you wanted These are these are adults that you could potentially tack on to a bond vote. So These are mainly things that we've heard from community members as issues and there is an opportunity to receive some match from V-trans because it's it is Supporting the bridge project. So for example The hood crossing Signalization which is shown on the right that comes from our East Island Gateway Enhancement study. So that was a selected alternative to clean up that that intersection. That's you know, it has a railroad through it's got odd geometry This this East Island is going to be a primary detour out for the bridge project So in my discussions with V-trans, you know, we said hey look You're gonna have to do something at this intersection to make it viable for more traffic And they would likely have to Do some sort of temporary signalization to make this intersection work for the additional traffic So they're they're amenable to providing a cost match for whatever that temporary Cost would be the signalization for this project We've also reached out to CCRPC to review If there's any opportunities for federal dollars to support doing this project so You probably saw on the slides for the bridge Burlington is redoing their intersection on the other side of the bridge 100% fairly funded. So, you know, obviously, we're asking the question. How do we get our intersection 100% federally funded? So they're reviewing that What are these numbers is one of these what V-trans would pay and one of what we would then need to pay? No So this is the total This is just floating tonight for you to think about So the in the East Island scoping study the estimate to do that works about 1.1 million 2023 it's probably 1.75 so that doesn't include anything that doesn't include a potential match It doesn't include how much do you think V-trans would contribute? I Do not know we have a call with them tomorrow. So we'll see so again just floating this tonight to think about And then as we move through more budgets budget presentations, we'll be getting more info on You know what the what those match numbers might be if you did want to consider it Okay, and I think the When we reviewed the walk bike had draft last meeting this section this area was flagged as high risk. Yeah the other item that's a little more straightforward is While they're doing the bridge it makes less sense to probably do Excuse me some resurfacing on these streets Given that these streets are about 20 years old at that point So You know, this is probably a more reasonable number. I think we estimate around 120,000 to just mill and fill these streets So that might be something potentially it could include in the bond vote Hotel would be done I mean and I think the scope will change a bit because the hotel in effect will be doing Repaving most of Abenaki way That little section to south of Abenaki on the very far right. That's private. That's not actually part of the scope but something worth thinking about and we may Propose if you want to Do a bond vote this year for the bridge. What was your estimate on that one? It was around 120 We I'll go back and look. I thought I included in here, but It's got missed. But yeah, right around there Okay Other items other projects. So the ones in red. I've got a couple slides. I've got two slides on because they're kind of new Fleet and facilities are just replacements of stuff that we already have they're fairly low the Capital asset planning items so The weaver weaver street bridge and the main streets bridge the two bridges that cross over the railroad they are in You know around a hundred years old as well. So we've done We have one structural analysis for each bridge They are probably coming due for some, you know capital maintenance So we're proposing to do an updated structural evaluation on both those bridges just so we have some a Better idea of how much we should be setting aside for some some work on those Riverwalk capital needs so in the picture you're all familiar with Riverwalk. That was a tiff Project that is the one capital asset in the downtown we we want to kind of get some better data on like You know when what's appropriate to be replacing some of those concrete structures and some The decking and like there's some structures along the bridge. So what we're proposing is to do a Capital needs assessment, which we have something similar for like a parking garage. That's really helpful It really like it really helps us plan out our capital our capital plan so it give us some some structural engineer Feedback on like how much we should be funding and what time we should be funding some of this stuff so that is also in the plan and then the Police Department interior renovation study work. So we we do have some funding that was set aside to do some renovation work on the first floor as part of the Regional planning study. So we're proposing just use those funds to look at what renovation work We should be thinking about in the future So that's not an ad then no, okay using existing funds. Yeah Yeah, so in here and all like I said, I'll get to the two red items. So the The fleet that is all adds Facilities is is a say added. It's an expense for FY 25. All those are expenses The bridge evaluations are expenses Or sorry, those are not expenses. Those are those are funds. We have Riverwalk is an expense So getting those two other items. So we do have in our capital budget Some undesignated capital reserves. It's about I think around 30 grand Most of our capital reserve funds is dedicated to specific categories or projects. So what I'm proposing is to kind of scoop up that money given all the the requests we've heard from the public Kind of seeding a traffic traffic calming Line item to help funds potentially those low-cost Intermediate solutions or just help seed the you know future long-term construction items So it's not I it's not an expense for FY 25 and For future what we're proposing is and you'll see this in other slides is The revenue dead designated for Main Street and Myers pool That forecast is showing that we are gonna have some funds available. They're gonna push back. They're gonna come back to this base Capital plan and what I'm proposing is use those funds to help fund this traffic calming initiative So the evaluations are in the budget proposal and then these undesignated reserves would be seed money for whatever initial Implementation correct. Yeah, and then I did want to call this out. So this is a new asset So I always want to call out anything that's new because now we got to maintain it and you know put in new ones so Our crew has been We've been looking at potentially implementing a what's called a brine system for snow mace control So Brian is just water it's typically a 22% salt solution so Where I came from When I when I worked in New York, we implemented this this is pretty standard in New York most miss Pellies were using this The benefit of using this system is it it does reduce the amount of Salt that you have to purchase annually And our current DPW crew is we've sent them to a few trainings now and they're They are they're kind of leading this at this point where they're like we want to do this We think it's probably gonna save some money and provide better results So we are proposing it for this year The the benefit of the system is You know it is an expense, but it has potentially like a Four-year plus or minus payback on it. So Hyde Park is That's where our DPW crew has gone over and done some training with them New York South Burlington also has Some pre-wet systems. They're seeing like a 47 to 35% savings on Purchase of salt so currently we use about 900 tons of road salt just about 80 grand a year so this system we would outfit two trucks with It's called a pre-wet system. So it sprays the brine solution on the salt it slows down the amount of salt you're putting on the road and Effectively what it's doing is you're putting less less pounds of salt on the road because it's seven balancing everywhere We're going into catch basins or you know just getting swept away. It's already activated. It's hitting the road You don't have to use as much so It's a pretty simple solution. So that's the actual tank system that we would potentially purchase. So it's it's a tank It's motor. It's some sensors. It's pretty robust. I would say Something like that would last You know 10 to 15 years and then you can that truck is set up with a little bit of a different system But it's it's a tank with a sprayer. It's It's a pretty simple system. So That is currently in the budget right now Yeah So there are no pros and cons listed on this slide. I think one of the factors For having a successful is temperature. Is that correct? Yeah, and that's with I mean salt in general You know Below, you know, 20 degrees or so like salt doesn't work. Anyways, you can add Magnesium or something like that to get it to work in those colder weather Situations, but it is effectively it's already pre-activated so that we so would the brine the pre wet option Allow us to apply Whereas like salt wouldn't be effective below 20 degrees does the brine allow effectiveness Down to like five negative five degrees like what's the temperature? It is the same as just regular salt. So it doesn't it doesn't Like refreeze or freeze out of the focus system. So the main reason we would Use a brine maker is the the key point is you have to get it to like a 22 23% solution More or less. That's when you get into some issues with like refreezing So there are some municipalities. I think that have like Put in giant tank and like kind of made their own and it's not they didn't get good results So the the truck would not so would there's no concern about freezing so it doesn't fall off Solution the brine maker would need to go inside Our crew has already identified a location inside that they can place this item They're gonna have cargo even come out with the main vendors and just check make sure that does work so there's some small electrical costs that we've included because they You know, there's a little bit of fit up to it, but it's pretty so you're not Is that going to take up a significant amount of space that would need Solutions for storage for other No, it's it's where we had an old wash like an old washer that we no longer use so it's it's not going to take up room And then other alternatives that I've seen you tell swear to small asses and What's the difference between the benefits of this over that? Yeah, I I haven't I'm not familiar with the molasses use so I know molasses I Have heard that that becomes an issue with vehicles because it's molasses with salt So there's more likelihood that that's gonna stick to the underside of the vehicle and then you get you know rusting complaints Where you know, you're you're not gonna have that sticking issue so much with with just the brine solution But yeah, I I'd have to look into that one a little bit more Not familiar with molasses. I've heard animals do like it though, but I don't think we have that issue Yeah, so we it just we don't really have a lot of information on that no Before I get numbers you any questions any breaks and just power through Let me ask first if there are any questions from members of the public you can use the chat or raise hand feature Judy, please come back up So for the brine Does the brine stay on the streets for as long a period as regular salt? Does it have to be applied more frequently or less frequently in general? No, so it will It is effectively the same thing we were putting down now, so The only difference would be we're using less salt The spinner will rotate slower. We're putting less pounds down So there you may have seen there's also Another tool that you use would lick it liquid snow and ice removal. It's called anti icing So that's where you have the tank and there's a spray bar in the bottom and then it just sprays the entire street That's not what we're proposing and for this that gets into like Issues of people complain about rusts and rustling the undercarriage of their car that leaves a residual so the the whole point of anti icing is You spray the roads pre-storm and you have a road that's like really white And so when it snows it almost acts like Teflon so that when they plow it it comes up a lot easier Different app different application of it I think I know my street you come down there typically with a small truck And I'm sure there are a lot of quite a few other streets of news. He's same way So will this be used with just the larger trucks or small trucks, too? So This proposal we would use it just for the large snow plow trucks But we also sometimes don't Like we won't raise put the plow down and then we'll go out with the salt truck and just salt so in that case We would I suspect we'd be going on rolling court and just running the salt truck I have one more question about sidewalk Particularly the sidewalk I think it'd be great to put sidewalk on that section of East Allen that one short section and the street There's a terrible condition to but on East Allen Street itself where this brick sidewalk especially down closer to downtown and I had occasion to walk on that street Specifically this spring. I don't usually go down that way To where I'm walking, but I'm telling you there's treachery there because there are sections where bricks are just completely missing and and heaved up from because there are street trees and I'm like this is a serious accident waiting to happen and it just so happened that a few days after I was walking there I was driving along East Allen and I saw a person with visual impairment Obviously because the person was walking with a white cane on that section of sidewalk, and I thought holy cow. This is really bad I think that needs to be fixed, and I don't know if that's in the tiff district I have no idea what it is, but you know, I really think that's a bad situation Yeah, there's there's probably like so I've gone out and I spray painted all those locations measured them out I'm currently trying to put together a bid to And it's all tree tree Uplifts so put together a bid for someone to come in Take out the pavers grind the roots in some locations We're gonna have to pull out the tree completely and then reset those pavers. So that is Probably an operational cost because it's we're just replacing but I'm actually I'm putting together a bid for that Okay Thank you I've got 740. Let's take a five-minute recess reconvening at 745 to dive into the numbers into it Give us the numbers few more slides So high-level talked a little bit about this beginning Existing base General fund debt is 381 thousand fifty one dollar fifty five dollars. That's so that's again minus Main Street in the pool With all this With all the things that we that I present earlier That's about an additional. We're showing about additional 432 thousand four hundred and two dollars for FY 25 most of that is the paving and sidewalks and Some of that planning and Equipment purchases which I'll show So that comes to a hundred thirteen thousand for the 457 for the base CIP costs and the current revenue that we've always sort of forecasted Which I'll show details of the six hundred twenty thousand so that's roughly a hundred ninety three thousand additional potentially needed to the CIP So here's just kind of that in table form So in the green those are the that's the typical revenue sources for the the general funds capital plan in the red is showing Future years out what additional funding would be needed so FY 26 that is when the you know potentially the bridge work comes in so that's where that bumps coming from we also have some Fleet replacement that we're looking at Some more expensive like sidewalk replace sidewalk plow replacements plow truck replacements that year and then down below Kind of see more the overview details of cost so again Then it breaks down into capital debt versus capital expenses, so that is you know What we're posing finance for FY 25 The twenty one thousand seven hundred is that small Dump truck typically those more expensive fleet vehicles We we finance because they just they take up too much room in the capital plan And then the four and ten is again mainly sidewalks payment and some equipment purchases Could you go backwards again? Yeah I've white 26 to 20. I mean those are significant increases huge. Yeah. Yeah, yeah That would be borne by tax increase Yeah, so that again is the bridge But I'm also including in here those those like adult items just so you can get a see like what that does and That may change your minds on adding those items Would it be possible to get? Estimated what it would cost tax increase to cover the that gap. Yes. Yeah, thank you And I'll go in detail on These lines I also wanted to show you this is the main three murders cool kind of roll-up fun, so Fy 25 those are the revenues that We've sort of already dedicated about million dollars in revenue For those two projects FY 25 for Myers-Pool is just the ongoing debt for that project Main Street, we're still sort of in you know paying design phase work You see the bump in FY 27 because we don't close on the loan until the project is completely done Even typically you're out. That's when we start paying on debt. So that's why it's It's so far out there Even though, you know, we're starting construction, you know this summer so as you can kind of see here, there's a little bit of funding left at Nets at the end of the day and FY 27 that we would send that over to the base capital plan But again, good news is FY 19 projections are still good even with all the turmoil that has happened since then so we're you know A lot of that is due to grants and we were able to allocate We're able to maintain that USDA funding with a low interest rate. So that was That was extremely helpful We don't have an answer on local options tax This is just a summary of the debt service and I'll go into a little more detail on the existing debt and the proposed debt so Most of it you can see is fleet and transportation transportation is mostly the Reconstruction projects, which you'll see and then that fleet is that that truck. So oh Another question. Yeah, the fire truck debt service must be in here. Yes, Elaine Any any forward motion on consideration of an impact fee for that cost When does that that debt come on? Is it FY 24? Or 25 25. It'll be FY 25 We will be applying for award in July The truck is scheduled to be delivered in late summer Chart it's the second Second one from the bottom on under fleet so FY 25 we're showing an interest only payment which is pretty typical for like a bond bank Loan and then FY 26 would be the full principal and interest payment 88,000 We are currently showing a Half a million dollars in fun balance use to to buy that debt down so I Can't remember when that resolution was brought to you all but we looked back at that and you're you were given two options like a buy-down option and like a You know pay the full for a 1.3 million I Don't believe one was selected over the other so I'm showing that that buy-down option Currently, so this is all the existing debt. We have currently just broken out by category as you can see most of it's about a fleet and Transportation are those the two reconstruction projects are paying debt on I Also have the maturity date of when some of that debt comes off Off the books There's not a lot coming off in the next couple years. Unfortunately, so You know, you can see West Canal Hickok Street Hickok Street's fairly new debt. So that's 2040 There's some smaller ones coming off like our plow trucks. We typically pay them off through a you know four or five year vehicle lease so those come on and come off quickly proposed debt so Fleet replacement and this this is a forecast. So typically what we do is you know with the fleet I Talked to our our garage mechanic. I'm like How is this piece of machine holding up? What do you think? A lot of times we are a little bit more conservative here And we end up taking stuff off that we're like this thing's got a couple more years in it We're not having issues like we don't need to replace it right now So I will say like FY 26 shown on here is probably a little conservative Sidewalk plow. We may be able to keep the backbone loader That's shown we might be able to keep that for another year or so, but just to show you like a full impact That's what we'd be looking at if if we replaced those pieces of equipment on our kind of target schedule like You know, I think our backbone loader is like a ten a Ten-year replacement schedule for those for those pieces and then I'm showing the Wyniewski birch replacement on here the three million That FY 27 is the that would be in with interest if if we had a If we financed it so that's the the cost principle and interest And then if you did want to include those adult projects, that's the total cost The numbers in red they they've changed a little bit since the first budget book That's why I love red just because we've gotten more Got a little more detailed with the numbers so the The second one the Wyniewski bridge Associated projects that's hood crossing and the paving work for reference so The bridge replacement line here That includes Yeah, and and you know as you're saying that so that is for the three million This probably needs to be revised to show a Bond for just that design work only and then a future bond for construction. So that number Will go down We'll do a design only Doesn't impact FY 25, but you want to see the you know, obviously you want to see the whole picture here Is it Maybe it's If it's on one of the slides coming up to somebody now, I thought this past year we approved council approved some of the Access building access There is building access, but I don't It seemed I thought it was like a special request outside of Yes Bob access for emergency services is a different system. Okay. All right. Yes That's what I so we did do you did do that, but it's separate from this. Okay regular access. Thanks for clarifying And then expenses are just the one time. These are the one time annual costs So something that typically we can fit in the capital budget. We don't have to finance don't have to pay interest on This is just a roll-up of that. So as you can see for FY 25, most of that is transportation related by paving the large numbers that's the The curbing and sidewalk work that we're reallocating funds to Existing funds that we already have so that's why it's such a large number in there I'll go through the details. So street resurfacing you saw the You know the mill and fill 212,000 is what we're estimating for that work Sidewalks and streetscape. So that's utilizing those funds. We already have From Hickok Street pushing it over to the FY 23 paving candidates doing all the sidewalks curbing the ADA ramps and this also includes the ADA ramps for the FY 25 Paving so those four ADA ramps is included in there I'm not including anything for the Burlington Manuski bridge if if we do the bond vote if we don't then we'll have to you know pay that match Somehow once we sign that finance and maintenance agreement. So We can pay it out of fine balance and if the bond passed We can basically pay ourselves back the bond Is written that way. So that is an option to So that's something I'll talk with Angela about more but if we're doing the bond vote, I don't see a need to Have any funding in there and then I have basically a breakdown each category stuff so public works the 30,200 that is the zero turn more mostly and then the retro the Outfitting the two plow trucks with the brine making systems And I have a question on the previous Sorry The hoods crossing you still on signal. I notice that you don't have anything on slide 30 For traffic signals So that is under the this one in the Yep, it's in there. Yeah, the last very last row there. Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that's 1.75 plus the The paving work roughly So yeah, going back to this. Oh the other thing I mentioned so the traffic calming. This is where we're proposing to use existing reserves 20,000 481 to just start seeding that That fund potentially and then I as you can kind of see in the know using the leftover revenue from mainstream iris pool to Help continue fund that talked about public works fleets PD. They have an annual cruiser replacement Usually all their vehicles. It's usually about $50,000. So they're replacing. They're one of their typical like SUV cruisers in facilities that at the 20 grand shown for PD is the using the existing reserves to do that architectural engineering renovation study and The public works garages replacing an existing boiler is Counselor Oakleaf mentioned though, I think there's some pretty good chance we can find a grant to help support that though Yeah, it's Definitely beneficial to ask early Design work to really get a sense for what What options are available? I know the timing depending on like the funding source and the funder you might engage later on where as with other funders like Some of the projects are beneficial to pull them in earlier for their options I Had a question is there are other policies established around the Condition of fleet vehicles when they're replaced like is it based on mileage is it based on condition? Is it just Years in operation. Yeah, so typically what we do is you know, we have the master spreadsheet of all our vehicles We have a useful life for each of those vehicles. So For example, like our plow trucks. We turn those over every 10 years. That's our target Our smaller vehicles like our pickup trucks we like to do like You know eight years if possible You know PD they the reason they do the annual is because they only keep their vehicles for like five or six years and then they push their oldest down to a Unmarked vehicle so they keep one in rotation. So we do have we do it by years Yeah, I guess I'm more familiar at the state government level where it's based on mileage, which I think usually their threshold was a hundred thousand miles So that's why I was curious like what our Parameters are around like and it might be department So I didn't know if it was like something like that where it's a usage or if there's something more Detailed about like the type of technology or the features it needs to have things like that Yeah, it is interesting because like mileage wise most our vehicles have really low mileage because it's yeah Such a small city. So like our our little EVs that we lease I think one of them has like three thousand miles on it. Yeah, we've had that since 2012. So Something like that we've been keeping it because it's still fine. Yeah, and we pay I think it's like a hundred bucks a month To have one of those that's how much we pay per Evie for those. Yeah, that's awesome. It's fine. Then really years has been a good indicator for us When a vehicle is going to start to see increasing repair costs It's one of the reasons why we do the PD cruiser every year if we don't we did one year where we we skipped And they saw a corresponding increase in their operating costs for vehicle maintenance So we try and offset Those operational costs And if we catch it before then there's a better resale value. Is that right? Absolutely and any resale value is put aside in reserves for use to replace that type of equipment in the future Last couple slides here so parks I calling this out Riverwalk, that's where we have the capital needs assessment in but this is you know, this is the challenge of trying to find some additional funds to Do some of the park's work. That's an open space master plan. So currently Given kind of where we are with the capital plan. We're not really showing much in Outyears this point. There are some reserves that could be used to do some probably planning efforts and some little projects, but You know this this area needs probably needs some funding Many of the reserves in this area are currently invested to try and build them Then that last table the 48,000 that is the brine maker. So that is that that tub and pump system $48,000 the other piece of that too is when when I was trying when we were implementing this in New York They didn't have like a smaller unit system available. So we didn't really pursue it here So now they do have these kind of smaller units because the previously the In order to get into a Brian system, you had to spend a hundred grand to get one of these units And it just there was no payback on it. So that is another reason. We're starting to look at it now And that is the end so Any questions from members of the public? Okay Thank you very much John. Thank you Let's move on to item D on for discussion approval assessors errors and omissions one question So does the budget book? Is there like another tab for? capital improvement options options like the ones that are new to you tonight or yeah so Not necessarily to the budget book. We can produce something I was thinking for now just to add it to the budget scenarios tool. Okay budget options tool That's kind of what I was Thinking about I wasn't sure if that was already in the scenario tool or if there would be a separate tab for the scenario tool for capital projects We've just been sending that separately because there's a you play with sort of aspect to it That doesn't want to solve very well to a hard copy. Okay Do we ever get you a hard copy? Not yet. Okay Who's introducing this item? Well, it's supposed to be Ted. Okay. Well, let's pause. He's not here Let's move on to item E. This is on for discussion introduction of unified land use and development regulations Good evening. Thank you very much. I am here tonight to introduce proposed amendments to primarily section 4.4 of the unified land use and development regulations related to Changes that will address local Historic cultural architectural and archaeological resources So this is an item that the the Planning Commission has been has has had included in their in their work plans Since FY 2020 So we're finally getting around to actually putting some language together for this project. This is on tonight for Discussion we can if necessary have a second meaning to get into more detailed discussion However, a lot of what's included in here while there's a lot of Changes proposed most of it is process related versus policy related. So I'm gonna go through and highlight some of what we're well We're actually changing here and then We can have some discussion and and go from there. So The current regulations that are drafted and included in section 4.4 are Related to design review as best I can tell this is a hybrid Hybrid language that's carried been carried over from a previous version of the of the land use regulations From the 80s where we actually had a design review district and then was replaced when the when the regulations were were unified in 2016 so it's The implementation of it hasn't really been effective one of the things that has been included is Involvement from the state and review of specifically historic properties from the state for their Authorization in essence to to make alterations to those properties The state has basically said over the several years that that's not something they do and shouldn't be doing and that really the best way to Protect local resources is to have local regulations. So that's really what we're seeking to do with with these amendments The amendments include both the the draft language in section 4.4 some cleanup of References in the other section specifically 4.9 6.2 and 6.6 There's some new language under article 8 on the administration really just to create this new local resources advisory commission And then also there is an amendment to article 10 which includes a map and list of the properties that would be included in in this regulation I Think it's on the on the map and list. It's important to point out that all of the properties that we have included For the purposes of this initial draft are already listed either in state or national register We have not included any properties that are not already currently listed someplace else so the the properties are already regulated in some form or fashion for the their Historic cultural architectural or archaeological significance What we're proposing is is really a In essence what these regulations do is identify specific covered actions And if one of those actions is being proposed then these regulations would apply if if one of the properties that are identified Are not proposing one of the covered actions. They won't apply at all the the property can can can Make alterations or changes or do whatever they need as long as it's not included as one of the covered actions if it is a covered action then it is forwarded on to this new Local resources advisory commission for their review including specific application requirements That information be reviewed by this New entity for their recommendation on a certificate of appropriateness So it would still be the zoning administrator or development review board that would be Would be issuing the permit based on the recommendation of this local resources advisory commission The rest of the the text is really related to Again kind of the administration of this section how properties are listed how they're removed from the local resources list and things of that nature so Again a lot of administrative and process oriented changes, but that's a quick introduction happy to answer any questions right now or Look to have further discussion in the future meeting As a reminder to counsel, this is the result of You know initially our planning commission was looking at a design review district significantly larger involving a lot of properties Regardless of historic status Pivoted to this approach that addresses just Properties already identified as having historic cultural or archaeological significance Which seem more aligned with what I was hearing from all of you as a point of process I Kind of suspect Maybe not everyone felt like they could dig into these details fully in this packet given the other meeting content So I would I would suggest using this time for maybe general questions Then there's an opportunity to follow up with with staff of specifics We could set a public hearing for February and then also use that time to go more in detail into what's here Knowing that we have many public hearings want you can have the public hearing make more changes do another one But I think the February day is proposed if if it all works out we could implement something before the A new council is seated, but if we don't don't and the commission that would be part of the public hearing or is that separate I Believe that would be separate that can be done as a as a resolution the creation of the local resources advisory commission I think that can function like we've done with other commissions is that that's just a Resolution from council to create that I'm gonna be honest that's the commission itself is one of the Probably biggest sticking points for me with this It seems like they're I don't know It feels like there is a chance for a commission to have a lot of personal opinion And not necessarily think about what is best for all city residents and I have concerns around like Does it make sense for an inclusion and belonging ambassador to be on this commission? What does that then mean for the inclusion and belonging commission? I'm also worried about With all of this should it get an equity review Because Well, I can appreciate that but the the areas highlighted are Already on various lists. I don't know It feels so again kind of piecemeal and like there's a lot of room for Potential bias because of it being so piecemeal I'm also really concerned about how we're thinking about Engaging Abinac leadership in this so if we're talking about historical and archeological How is our land use? Proclamation and land rights proclamation being incorporated into this document and then how can we do our due diligence going forward in a way? That is works for city staff works for Abinac leadership, you know without being too much of a burden and Making it actually meaningful. So yeah, I think those are kind of my more general just concerns about different aspects of this I Regarding that ordinance language proposals. I did check in with some members of the Planning Commission to see if there's any reservations about what was proposed for Council to review And it seems like you know as you note in your memo that it was a unanimous vote to move this to council and I Mean that doesn't always tell the whole story, but It does sound like from a response I got that this that the planning Commission seems like this is a good option Compared to where the conversation began I think so yeah from the planning Commission's perspective and not to speak for them, but I believe this is This is probably the solution that gets us to the best place The quickest so that we have some level of local resource protection without having to do a a full property by property analysis and survey Independent of what's already been done and what already exists. I want to I was Thinking about what you would set a rule I think the goal of this is to ensure With these identified buildings or properties The Preservation of whatever is making a thing historic cultural whatever significant and that the guidelines should the guidelines should be written in a way that They're applied like basically if you want to demo redevelop rebuild that triggers this you can do anything else and then The guidelines would say like here's how you retain that Historic value or what have you? I'm trying to think about so theoretically the guidelines should be keeping whoever serving on that body within Consistent application similar to the DRB I'm curious like what Inequities You are thinking about because surface and this is where and I I mentioned to the mayor that And love for this to come up with more time to review without Sure, that's big priority items because I wasn't able to get as detailed in my own review We could table this For the next discussion. Yeah, and and again like thinking about I think one of the probably one of the biggest things with The commission is again, then and this might be a Bigger question to like how does inclusion belonging fit if we start making more commissions And also these two don't have to be taken in the same conversation based on that's correct Yeah, that's correct. Yes, they can be they can be separated. Yeah I included the the draft of the charter just for reference so that you could see that a new commission would be established or Should be established with this and some of that is based in statute statute is provides guidelines on for commissions of this sort The the membership as far as expertise to be able to evaluate Archaeological historic cultural and architectural resources so that it's there are some experts included They do provide for allowances that they those experts not necessarily be residents of the community so that we can pull Pull from resources that are available to make sure that decisions are being made that are going to fit within the standards that are being It's similar. Yeah, I would I would say that it is similar to our development review board in the sense that they kind of meet when they need to on specific topic matter and Otherwise they're not they're not informing on policy decisions for counsel They're really more reacting to applications that meet certain criteria that need to go before them In terms of the table that lists all the different properties You said it was from an existing Group of properties are already historic for one reason or another. That's correct. I wonder if there's a few of them that are either unnamed or The year of construction is missing architectural style is missing I just wonder if there could be some more explanation as to why those properties there for for historic like You know the Colonel Nathan Rice House. I can assume if I look up Colonel Nathan He was somebody of importance in the area and that deans the historic nature of it, but for unnamed at 12 West Canal with no date and no architectural style It's hard to understand why We would want to consider it as a historic Yeah, and I think so part of the reason why Those properties are included is because again, they're already listed Most of these the majority of them are in the state register So in order to have a level of consistency so that we are not trying to evaluate properties Without the expertise to really determine if they're if they meet these standards The the planning commission chose to include all the properties that are currently listed And then as necessary if the property owner Would like to have their property removed because it's no longer significant Then there's the process that's outlined in the draft to be able to To have that property evaluated for potential delisting So but as a baseline since we don't have the expertise To to determine what property should be included in what shouldn't We made the decision to include them all because they're already listed someplace else And I totally get that I just if there could be a way that we could understand why they're there Why the state is designated you know at least think that there would be sure Yeah, yeah So I'll I mean I can go back and look at the surveys for those properties to see if there's any additional information that can be provided For for those references. Well, I know that some towns, uh, for example Melton They similar to us have a lot of old buildings They the designation and they have like a little plaque that Melton gives out to different buildings depends on the people have kept that building up to a specific standard As you can have an old building But if it's crumbling apart The architectural value of it has has then been decreased then you rarely can Um renovate and you have to knock it down in order to continue stuff. So I don't know if the committee had thought about anything like that of An evaluation method or a classification method that we would use Or if they would just think purely just going off of what the state has said without any further review on their part or this new commission. So yeah, so I think that's a great question. I I think the There there wasn't a discussion about any type of honorarium for for the the current state of the building Or structure, but I think the the intent was that if an alteration of the If one of the covered actions was being proposed and it got into that review process with the local resources advisory commission That's where some of those questions will be answered if it still does actually meet Any if it still has any significant significant contributing factors that would Either prohibit the alteration or what was proposed or Should allow for the the work to move forward and then that could really kind of stand as Some of the reasoning for future alterations or changes. Okay, great. So this is a huge amount of work. I know It worked on this a lot. So thanks for bringing it to us Yeah, absolutely Are there any questions comments from folks on zoom? Would anyone like to make a motion to set a public hearing for february 5th? At which time we could dig more in Motion by thomas second by brin all those in favor. Please say aye. All right. Any opposed? nay Motion carries. Thank you Thank you very much Okay, let's we still don't have Ted. So we'll move on to item f Conceptual overview of short-term rental ordinance Do oh, okay. Yeah, okay, then let's let's let's do D Errors and omissions So when real or personal property a state is omitted from the grand list by the state the state Or an obvious error is found in the grand list the assessor The approval of council may supply such omissions or correct such errors and make a certificate They're on of that As you can predict That has to happen before December 31st, which is why we really need to take care of it today Even though the assessor isn't here So there were three errors and omissions identified for the 2023 grand list The net change to the grand list is a decrease of two million eight Two million eight hundred two Two hundred two hundred two hundred two hundred two hundred two hundred two hundred three dollars I went out bored not too many good grading The three changes aren't really debatable to have to do with transfer to a new order And the third was a pure error at entry, unfortunately The reduction in grand list from these errors and omissions would reduce tax revenue by $4,350 and 22 cents Would council be willing to approve these error omissions I I don't understand the two kgr realty Holdings ones that went down to zero Is like a duplicate like a changed owner and we had two listings Kgr is not the current owner of the property. That is the previous owner They sold the property in january of 2023. They should not have received a tax bill. I understand The answer to this. Yeah. Yeah I had a question that you may not be able to answer It looks like there was a clerical error on the third one An accidental zero Is there secondary review to somebody else Go over any of This content for like accuracy You know, like you review a document for grammar and spelling Is there any type of procedure process that goes through to do of some type of verification of data entry? We are working towards that. Okay All right Any other questions concerns Thankfully a small total impact Do I have a motion to approve the assessor's errors and omissions? So moved second motion by brin second by charlie all those in favor. Please say aye. Aye motion carries. Thanks, elaine Okay, now jasmine, please join us Short-term rental ordinance Good evening everyone Uh, as you all know, I am here tonight to present the draft of the short-term rental ordinance That myself and the housing commission have spent the past few months working on We are hoping for feedback and preliminary approval for the policy in theory before legal consultation commences So I will first start off with some background data Um in the past decade the short-term rental, I will use the abbreviation str Market in wunewski has modestly risen with the prevalence and popularity of platforms like airbnb and brbo It was not until january of 2022 that there was a sharp increase in the amount of strs available in the city While wunewski is not large in population The rate of increase of strs shows a concerning pattern for our renter heavy population In summer of 2022 there were only 37 active units listed on sites like airbnb and brbo In may of 2023 at the time discussions of a short-term rental ordinance began There were 83 listings and in november of the same year that number had risen to 97 While vermont's tourism fluctuates greatly depending on the season There has been a significant increase when comparing the same seasons in 2022 and 2023 The current rate of strs in wunewski makes up about 2.4 of the entire housing stock in the city Which in itself is not a major concern, but rather at the rate at which that number is rapidly increasing So some pros and cons of the str market Um positives brought by strs in wunewski include additional income generated for property owners Diversification of income streams for property owners tax revenue for the city and state through the meals and rooms and local options taxes An increased vacation room inventory in a city with no hotels currently Negatives include a loss of potential long-term housing units during a serious housing crisis Negative externalities like noise parking and trash which are borne by long-term residents And ongoing concerns of outside that being state and wunewski Investors purchasing the few homes for sale in the city for use as strs So going through the policy development process Many other communities in both vermont and chitlin county have taken or considering action by embracing new str registries and regulations As neighboring municipalities take action as burlington has wunewski will continue to be impacted And I think that that is a large part of why we're seeing such a sharp increase in the past year Through the policy development process. I have met with staff from burlington south burlington montpelier Chester ledlow morristown and montgomery Their struggles and successes surrounding the development implementation compliance enforcement and legality of the policy were all taken into consideration Although the potential policy options are expansive limitations caused by city staff Capacity concerns and budgetary restrictions have informed the policy presented to council today It was determined by staff and the housing commission that the best pass forward was by pursuing a policy as an expansion to the recently updated chapter 17 public building registry ordinance The majority of the staff hours associated with this ordinance change will be taken on by the code enforcement team The city clerk's office and the housing initiative director There have been multiple interdepartmental meetings to discuss the internal operational workflow that this proposed ordinance would follow And as policy represents the decisions made in those meetings So some of the specific policy elements that I will go through that are listed here So there will theoretically be an added question to the public building registry mailer, which goes out every june Which will have individuals identify if their public building is utilized as a short-term rental So all short-term rentals should already be encompassed in the public building registry theoretically It will then be the responsibility of the owner to submit a complete application to the city clerk's office to receive either an owner-occupied str license or a non owner-occupied str license So this proposed ordinance change would also Allow city council to put a cap on total Non owner occupied licenses within the city It is the goal that this cap can serve as a regulatory instrument to stop additional investment properties being converted to strs While still allowing existing non owner occupied strs to obtain a license It is a staff recommendation to avoid making existing strs Whether that be owner occupied or non owner occupied ineligible for city issued license Both due to limited enforcement capacity for staff and due to ongoing legal action being taken by str operators and municipalities that have taken that route Increased fees associated with the license process were recommended by the housing commission at $150 annual for owner occupied strs And $300 annually for Non owner occupied strs with an additional $50 for each bedroom over three So while there are only a few large bedroom count strs in the city currently The housing commission felt that this was just another tool to disincentivize the loss of large bedroom count rentals in the city And those numbers were We decided them as a group, but I had made a research document of other fees and fines and other municipalities so that we could kind of have an informed decision And that's what was chosen So I did put in the memo. It says conser if we conservatively estimate A 50 compliance in the first year with a 50 50 split of owner occupied and non owner occupied The license fees could bring in around like $11,000 So I did consult with vhfa today And while the data they have is flawed, there's the It's around 50 50 to 75 25 with the likelihood that it is more non owner occupied than owner occupied The data does have a gap in it vhfa is hopefully going to get back to me with more Recent data. I have data from July. So it's outdated because we have so many more already than we even did this summer But if we are looking at more of a 75 25 That could be closer to 25 500. So That money would go directly to the housing trust fund to support long-term rentals and home ownership in monewski Any funds that are collected through the enforcement and violation structure will be returned to the code enforcement budget to offset any additional staff hours dedicated to this new program The fire chief and fire marshal have recommended that short-term rentals be inspected on a yearly basis rather than in the traditional four-year cycle Due to the high number of people staying in the units who are unfamiliar with local requirements So that was requested and It sounds like code enforcement is willing to do the additional work to make sure that those units are safe Um a proposed violation fine structure has been drafted by the housing commission as well Although legal consultation is needed to ensure the desired dollar amounts can be enforced using existing means So the tentative fine structure is listed in my memo again These are not 100 we need to talk to the attorney But we also wanted to make sure that there was support of the policy and theory before we go and incur legal fees um So that is the basis of it, but happy to answer any questions or concerns Can you define an owner occupied? Yeah, so we decided to do the homestead definition that the state uses so Doesn't mean someone has to file for the homestead declaration But so that they own the property and that they're on it for at least I think it's one day over 50 percent a year I would be interested in some discussion around the difference between Me short-term renting my cottage and me short-term renting my own house like my primary reasons I don't need to do that right now, but okay. Yeah And then I'll just share general support for all of this very pleased All of these fees and fines are far too low. I think um This this this $300 licensing fee means nothing when I'm making 30k a year Right. Um, we should be structuring the cost For an investor to have a short-term rental in monoski to make it less attractive And I don't think this does that um And then I also wanted to ask I understand the rationale for an annual inspection but I Have some concern with that pulling capacity from inspecting actual homes of people who live here Long-term rentals. Yeah, that was so Bruce and I don't know chief if you're on listening Um, this was this very specific request from the code enforcement team. Um, I had not considered that as Something that would need to be built into this because I Also know that short-term rentals generally because of the market regulate themselves So they are tend to be in better condition Because otherwise people won't want to stay in them theoretically Or it'll get really bad reviews. Um, but I do understand that there's high turnover and lots of new people That might not understand how to use a wood stove or might not understand the locking mechanism um, so Yeah, and are they then paying the same rental registry fee as everyone else by getting four times the service Yeah, because this is separate from the rental registry. So yeah, theoretically, then yes I would think about adjusting that Yeah, I mean, I think if the chief strongly encourages a year A yearly inspection that the cost would fall onto that str owner for the additional and We probably all wrote it down, but I definitely agree with christine that $300 or even $150 I just looked up february, which isn't A really big tourist time The airbnb's are going for like 150. So they just have to rip that out a few times and then they pay for that fee um I've mentioned this a couple of times. I don't know if the commission talked about it, but Have you explored taxing SCRs at a higher rate than regular dwellers Uh, yeah, so angela might be able to answer this better than me But I think theoretically we would need to pursue a charter change if we were going to try to do a tax like a gross recipient or a A gross tax like burlington has done I believe that the reason they're able to do it is because they collect their own But since we go through the state, we would need to follow something similar to what mom peeler is looking to do which is Doing an entire charter change to be able to collect the tax Which would Put that on your back burner. Yeah, I think it might be worth that discussion. We want to move this, but yeah That could be worth a future discussion. Mm-hmm. Could I respond to the? fines and fees being too low so That's I would say that's what the cap is for. You're not disincentivizing Creating strs through the fines and fees the cap would prohibit anymore the fines and fees would be To make sure they're complying without regulations otherwise The the license fee should be a disincentive for creating new ones Sure, we can cap them But we already have a ton that are here right now And this is a revenue stream into our housing trust fund that will help support priority housing and Folks outside of Winnieski making money off of our limited housing stock should be paying into that Yeah, and I think I hear What I hear from folks is there's a concern of what exists now So if we can make what they currently have not attractive through those fees If they're going to keep it then we're going to get more money But if the fees are too prohibitive, then we'll get a home back and neighbors won't have to deal with everything that they're dealing with I would like to see the fees be high enough that It helps offset. It's not just the fines But the registration fees are also offsetting the code enforcement inspections because Not every inspection is going to result in fines And so it shouldn't be borne by taxpayers to cover The cost for that fte or half fte You know Partial time position To do those inspections, especially if the recommendation is that they're annual I have this, you know similar concerns that have already been said wanting to make sure that the Registration fees I understand we have a cap Propose I have some curiosity of like how That cap moves around Like on an annual basis, you know since things aren't static. Yeah. Yeah. I think theoretically It could be adjusted whenever Like if we suddenly are not in a housing crisis, which would be a problem It doesn't have happened. We can I guess what I mean is like to change it. Yeah. Say there's a cap of 100 And because we're government we place that on an annual basis, but People don't live in static calendar years. So like How does that work? Yeah When there might be You know some partial use of short term rentals during one year You know, there may be not the next year. They may just like I don't know. I just think of like some of the competitive Markets in the area where like once you get in you try and hold that spot Even if you're like not able to do your best because if you lose that spot, then you don't get it back So I'm just thinking about the economy of like the cap and how folks come and come in and out of that whether you are within The register registry or not. So I just have some logistical questions over how that would work And it's okay. You don't have to answer that. Yeah. No, we I mean, we've had a few Operational meetings because obviously this touches many departments and it there are many many steps in between Operationally that needed to be determined So we've gone through and flesh out quite a lot of it to make sure it's one feasible with current staffing um, so You know at this point in time it's going to run on the public building registry, you know The fiscal year that we would be keeping it on that people who have a license Would they be able to renew them? Obviously, they would have the first opportunity to do that if they decide not to because short term renting is a little bit more of like a loose You know people decide to dip their toe into it then they do a long term rental It's it's a little bit more ambiguous sometimes Um, you know, if someone comes in partway through the year, there's an open license. They have to pay the same fee Uh, even if they only use it for two months if we had decided Um, you know people can return them to the city and then they can be used for other people who potentially want to utilize those um Yeah, the idea is that it caps it. So it's not just um Saying you know no more it's we don't want any more than what is here right now It's more kind of preventative if that makes sense. It's actually It's only setting the cap at like a percentage of available housing stock makes the most sense and then Yeah, we're able to revisit that like as housing stock changes. Yeah, and we can definitely do that as well. Um, annually Yeah, because the housing stock obviously will fluctuate as well, but so we we discussed offering that as the logical It would be more transparent like why is it this number? But it's not that straightforward to figure out and so our suggestion is it this enables you to set a cap And then we can determine procedurally how to do it every year or with you Yeah And I think that within the cap The discussion on you know the difference between Somebody who is living in their home and renting out one room versus somebody who's looking to come on And rent out a whole house as str that the cap has already been met I feel like I would like there to be some lenience for that person who's looking to just rent out a room while they live there I think that's a very different situation than Renting out the whole me get the unit. Yeah, so the cap is only for non owner-occupied Georgia rentals So owner, I know it's a lot of words owner-occupied Yeah, because we did have a few people come in and give kind of their experience of You know being able to age in place or you know for their mortgage payment By having someone live in their basement or you know Cottage in the back of their house So we did want to treat that differently than People who have investment properties because that is a very different situation than someone who Yeah, there's a different situation for the neighbors like if the owner is right there and you know the owner Yeah, there's less likelihood of difficulties occurring with the rented area Yeah, I I think Going back to Bren was saying like thinking about how do we set that cap I I Think one of the things we've we've seen Are people push right like we talk about like that de facto Raising rent which kicks people out de facto eviction. I feel like Trying to put the words together I don't want people right to like at the end of the year Not renew leases because there's now room under the cap and they can make a lot more money on short-term rentals than On their long-term renters Because people will do that and they'll lie to their renters and to us as to why that lease isn't being renewed So I think maybe Not on what we get those protections Um With just cause some of those protections under just cause eviction But that's something I also have in mind as we're talking specifically about this cap Yeah, well, I think that's why the tax is very appealing to me Because an opening may come up, but your property bill which is already high is going to go up even more You can do it if you do the city will benefit from the tax revenue Is there just thinking of like other unintended consequences to your point? Like I've seen some News Maybe federal About preventative trying to prevent Investments corporations from buying other properties And basically effectively doing STRs So it sounds like this is This proposed language is attempting to address that. Yeah Yeah Because you know, for example, burlington's Ordinance, we would not have the staffing capacity to not only enforce In the future of any new Short-term rentals popping up or people who are operating without licenses All of that and then also retroactively Go back and make sure that everyone who had an existing legal business is suddenly not operating a legal business within the city And I spoke with burlington City staff a few times and they've Struggled it's it's a lot and they have a very large department. So As much as that would be great to just put a kibosh on the investment properties It's just not realistic for us. Um, and so This was kind of our inventive way of how can we Stop the investment properties while not Making the existing ones essentially illegal and not having to do a pre-existing non conforming use Because we felt that this was better housed through the public building registry and code enforcement rather than through zoning well So we're setting a cat theoretically we put move this forward there's 60 Existing we set a cap at 60 And then once a year we revisit that Hoping that it's decreased potential and you can I mean, you know if we could probably visit any if it's structured where it's like a by resolution. Yeah, and The cap obviously won't be set until We have an actual registry of the short-term rentals because we don't have that at this point We have to use all secondary data through air dna And that was a big part of why you know the state level Was trying to pass the registry because a lot of municipalities are we don't really have perfect data And I mean I met with a couple of consultants Like technology firms that other municipalities have worked with which are very expensive And Yeah, there's a lot that goes into getting that registry. So I would say that the cap wouldn't probably come for Six months to a year probably after theoretically this was passed if it's passed And then from that point There would be a gauge of like, okay This is our our number that we think we have and you know the cap can go here If people fall off within that next year, then I think you would be you know more than able to Cut down that limit if you want Instead of letting it stay the same Is the can you just refresh my memory about the 30 days? Is that a It seems like it's pretty standard adoption and standard timeline Less than 30 days 30 consecutive days is that Oh, the definition Yeah, the definition. Yeah, that's so that's the state definite Oh, it's the state definition plus a little bit that Eric wanted to add in Yeah, um Yeah, so that's the state definition less than 30 consecutive days For more than 14 days Per year So if someone rented short term rented their house for 13 days, that does not count If someone, you know, short term rented for three months or it's not short term rented If someone rents for three months, for example a travel nurse That's not technically a short term rental because a lot of people have the concerns over Travel nurses and their ability to still find Accommodation so anything over 30 days does not meet the definition Something go ahead. I was just going to say that I think there's definitely a balance of what you said with with Burlington And you know, we don't have that capacity But then thinking back onto our fees like I still don't want Winooski like our our licensing be And then any penalties to still be less than say Or I don't know. I don't want to be attractive for folks leaving Burlington to come here So making sure that yeah, even with with our capacity are there ways then probably with the amount of Fines and licenses to still decentifies people from Yeah, deciding to invest in Winooski invest Winooski Instead of Burlington. Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely open. I'm sure the housing commission as well would be open to Considering higher fees. I did do research 150 and 300 are the highest That I saw statewide. It's chester Um everywhere else is lower than that. That doesn't mean that we can't be higher. Um, you were just denser, you know In our housing needs are I have to say maybe greater than chester. That's based on no information at all I have a question. Is it possible to limit the fees that Airbnb Listers can charge? Is it possible to make it? Somewhat less lucrative to charge by the night than by the month or the six months or the year Uh, I don't believe we would be able to kind of because that's private Business, you know and Airbnb is very you know, they have a huge like lobbying and policy team. So I'm sure that they have very Even if we put something in place I think we'd be a risk lawsuit and then enforcement would be really challenging anyway. Yeah, we can't limit regular Yeah Yeah, I had a question. Is there a risk thinking of other unintended consequences? Is there a risk of A property owner taking advantage of the housing trust fund updating their property and then good moving to str um Well theoretically Like if they were going to use hip they'd have to be owner occupied Um So I mean they could technically if they're lower median income They'd have to be income eligible Um, but Yeah, I mean that is something we could consider That would be on the housing trust fund side to make sure that that's a little bit more just thinking again in terms of like how we're setting registration fees how we're setting fines and fees um like if that money From the registration str registration is going into the housing trust fund and then they're essentially taking money that is intended for housing quality for property long-term use and ownership and long-term rentals but Like again, just the some of the unintended consequences of like is there a mechanism to either discourage it I don't say we want to discourage and increasing housing quality in general. But like so that There's a different I don't know category. I can't I'm just thinking on the spot. So yeah, I and I think I believe hip and core actually have Affordability requirements and I think that they probably do say long term rental So I think that that shouldn't be an issue But I can definitely go through and make sure that that is explicitly mentioned I'm pretty sure it is but for dpa And irb that might not be explicit but Again, it would have to be an owner occupied situation. So um It's a sort of related question. What is our current vacancy rate? Uh, I don't have the data for that. I don't have the data for that right? That's okay because I was just curious again looking at like yeah, technically 2.4% of our housing stock isn't Huge but given I believe like the last I heard was like 1% even under 1% the county is under half Which is likely our situation too. Yeah, and if healthy is five, that's a huge that's 50% of 5%. Yeah Yeah, I mean, I don't think I need to convince that Action is needed, but I think burlington and south burlington were closer to like 1.5 and 2 when they Decided to take action and this is quite similar to the south burlington proposal. There's Includes a rental registry program though because they didn't have that previously So they don't have any sort of like additional fees for short term rentals because They're getting a 110 on each unit now that they never got before um something thomas said earlier an owner occupied unit Owners there looking after the place in the people theoretically um I would consider not having them inspected annually Feels like an unnecessary burden And I do want higher fees on everything and I think we can all agree like what brin said These fees need to cover all the code costs. Yeah All the costs of the the rental registry for these units for the non owner occupied I would consider keeping the owner occupied one on the lower side though Okay I also think of other costs police costs They're heard from folks that have to call police because people have been having pretty rowdy parties um The trash issue that the chief has spoken to us about Um, so those are two other departments that They're involved with yes. Yeah. Yeah, and this is a little bit more operational But there will be a whole master spreadsheet that is part of the licensing uh procedure in the clerk's office It kind of was decided it fits best there since they issue other licenses Um, but with other ordinance violations, whether that be trash parking noise, you know anything coming from pd Those would be tracked in that So licenses could be revoked if there are party houses, you know, you hear about those frequently um Or things, you know along those lines. So it gives the opportunity and the power to kind of take action and revoke licenses And then put them on a year's suspension and will there be fines for Complaints related to that noise claims Yeah, so those again, I need to talk to the attorney those would potentially be You know the The listed fine amounts for like a noise violation But we would need to check like if we could also do short term rental like first violation They're usually broken up by Issue or operating without a license because unfortunately just based off of how lucrative this business is It just brings a lot more opportunity for people to act in bad faith. Unfortunately Um, a lot more than in like your traditional zoning or Other kind of licenses or permits So it's pretty typical that that is a much higher Fine for people who are intentionally operating without a license And then other violations are you know, that's still fine, but it's it's lower. So that's more like trash parking noise I wonder going back to your question about what counts as owner occupied Thinking yeah, if we do have the lower fees for that making sure we're really really clear on what that is Maybe even putting up some more guidelines Right like if somebody spends their winters in florida And they run their place up here while they're down there what that classifies owner occupied If they live in it Yeah, if if it's their homestead then it would be owner occupied, but if not then And remember part of this is trying to be ease of administration. So we're tacking on to an existing mechanism to check that it's a lot less work Yeah, it's not as yeah, some of the bells and whistles get cut to make sure that it's feasible for the clerk's office to be able to administer the licenses And then obviously for code to enforce it Yeah, but we did go back and forth for a while We also did had to go decide between language because there's also hosted unhosted homestead non homestead So we decided owner occupied non owner occupied made the most sense. Yeah Does this include an exemption? Like you don't you don't count if you do less than 15 days a year. I think that's what breampton has in the That's how the tax thing works Blessed. Yeah. Yeah. So that's part of the definition. That's okay. Yeah, we're so into this Specific feedback that you could use that you didn't receive um, I don't think so For do you think I don't know if I'm supposed to ask them this or go back to the housing commission but for license fees what do you think like 200 for Owner occupied and then maybe like I was looking more than that. I'm fine with the owner occupied or 200 is fine. Like I would keep that low I would go way higher though for not like is it possible to Actually look at what the staffing costs are And then use that to say what what would the fees need to be so what we're like over 90 right now Yeah, so say out of 90 say we say capital 100 If we have 100 and we know that we need this many staff to do 100 inspections a year What would the cost coverage need to be? And can we like Break it out that way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I can talk to Chief odd he has been out and this was more of a recent addition The requirement for the yearly inspection. So I don't know if maybe we could do Every other year for owner occupied yearly for non owner occupied If we have a sense for it was like a third of this How many are like owner occupied and I know that's like again a moving target, but like 50 to 25 So I was going to say more conservative say like 20 percent is It's probably closer to the 25 because just knowing short-term rental market. Most of them are un you know unhosted But yeah, so just trying to use those estimates. It's like okay based off of this staffing and this percentage of owner occupied to Uh non owner occupied like what would that Need to look like for fees registration fees. Yeah. Yeah, we can definitely look at that at this point There hasn't been any express need for like additional staffing or anything like that, but I do understand that it's diverted hours so Yeah, and we'd be it would need to be padded right because there's other issues and we're still trying to get some revenue in the housing trust fund Yeah But I think we'd be comfortable with much higher. Yes Yeah Okay, should we move on to item g? Yes, so There was a lot of different ideas just now so To have it recorded so we know where direction we're going It's a little awkward because of open meeting if you're doing it by email after the fact But I at least if you I would say if you're okay with the mayor come like writing down what she just said earlier If you wanted to add more to that that's that's okay. Well, let me summarize Jasmine what we just agreed to We want to Have a clear definition for owner occupied We want To see a significantly higher fee for non owner occupied that covers the cost of code enforcement to do annual inspections and provides revenue for the housing trust fund We don't want annual inspections for owner occupied units Something about fees that I'm forgetting more frequent than four years is fine. Yeah. Yeah We're also interested in higher fees We would like to investigate taxation in the future, but that's not explicitly connected to this And I think there are questions about the cap. Yeah Some more clarity on that. Yeah, I could put together a document at that point that Explains timeline for cap a little bit more because there's a lot of theoretical situations Yeah, so I think all of those are definitely manageable. The only one Is the owner occupied definition because as Elaine said we did go through this quite a few times and the clerk's office is pretty Adament that we needed to follow like an existing definition that was easy I think what we need is that whenever this is drafted that it's very clear to the reader. Okay. Yeah, where they sit And lead us to say we're very excited Appreciate that your ability you're uh, uh that you were able to dig into it this late after that big capital It's because we love it. Yeah It's probably better than the other Okay Item g amendment. Oh, I'm so I'm so sorry there. I do see that a representative daisy. Oh gosh I forgot to invite public comment. That's okay. Please. Please. Thank you. Hi. Can you hear me? Yeah, welcome daisy Hi, thanks so much for this discussion. I may have missed it. Did you discuss? limiting the number of units rental units that One owner could have within the city We have not discussed that I'm not sure sort of did with asking about corporations buying up properties. So yeah, so I mean at this point capping new ones would be theoretically preventing that Because existing ones even if like mary's because I've seen you know, there I think there's one person that owns I think 10 But we just don't have the staffing to be able to tell that person that those are no longer legal businesses So Theoretically, I don't think capping it for one person Would make sense because we would be capping any new for non owner occupied And any existing are going to be allowed regardless of how many one person owns if that makes sense So I think that this also gets at that issue potentially Does that make sense daisy? I guess so I just wanted to raise the point and make sure that The council took that into account Because could that be another cap that kicks in later? Well, a different question is has anybody else done it and has it been legally challenged? I'm sure someone else has done it. There's many many versions of these kind of policies. Um, not in vermont Um But that doesn't mean we could I would think that it would be very rare So obviously there is like maybe the odd where someone stops having a short term rental and we have an additional non owner occupied license And that would be great if it didn't go to mary su who has 10 short term rentals But again, it would only really be like A couple but again, you know each one is important and I would rather spread the wealth to other non owner occupied STR operators rather than the few who have many many properties because there are a few of them Um So it could be someone to look at I'm not sure how much administrative burden that would be adding Um, but I can definitely like weigh that and see if it could fit in Yeah, it is an interesting question. So like there's a cap of 100 and underneath that cap No one can have more than five STRs. I don't To your point. I don't know If that's been done elsewhere, what the enforcement would look like I would support exploring it. Yeah. Yeah, because I have to be new Yeah, but for anybody new Yeah Think limiting that Having that type of cap. I think there's no more question. We're saying explore it obviously We'll see what the administration looks like. Yeah, it's a fair point. Yeah Thanks so much Okay, did anyone else have a Question comment before I move us along again Okay item g housing trust fund interest buy down pro interest rate buy down program so The housing commission over the past few months has been working on ways to make the programming Available through the housing trust fund more accessible and to increase utilization rates throughout the community Due to current interest rates at record highs Serving as a significant barrier to home ownership for first time low to medium house Low to medium income households Opportunities credit union had suggested that the city offer an interest rate buy down policy to ease the initial impact of these high interest rates In addition to utilizing the interest rate buy down program individually Eligible borrowers could pair it with the down payment assistance loan slash grant Currently offered by the city The interest rate buy down policy offers a maximum of $5,000 per borrower and remains a grant as long as the borrower stays in the home for at least five years If they choose to refinance move out or sell the home They would need to pay back a portion of the money as alone depending on how long they remained there as a primary resident It's important to note that the housing trust fund currently does not have a replenishing source at this point Um So that is any grants from the fund will permanently reduce the fund That is why staff recommends piloting this program for a year The city will have the option to continue change or end the interest rate buy down program After a year has passed Based on the performance of the program and state of the market because we could be in a very different Market than we are today So if approved by council this policy language will be incorporated into the housing trust fund policy guidelines Any questions? I don't have a lot of it. Yeah You have a missing parentheses That's useful it's very useful to have a writer Reading everything. Where is it? Uh, it's I think it's the no repayment Required it has a missing parentheses after that. So it's in the first sentence. Oh Of the policy of item c Sorry. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, there we go. Thank you Um, is there Any language, I don't apologize for not reading this as diligently as I should have to see if the answer is in here um Is there Language in here that allows for First-time home buyers that currently live without live outside The city limits to Access this fund to move into the city. Yeah. Yeah, it's not. Uh, it's not tied to Okay, current residency. Yeah, it's just if they're buying and okay. Yeah, right Because I've heard that's actually one of the number one things I've heard is like well if I could afford to live on the news Yeah, like I'd love to live there. I'd love to buy there Yeah, and So I just wanted to again refresh my memory that this is accessible To those. Yeah those interested folks. Yeah, and I wouldn't say I know there's concern because it's not a replenishing fund right now, but Just considering the current market It's rare that a low to medium income person is buying a home in Wenuski these days So I I don't imagine that it will be used to the extent where we would drain the fund But I think it is a valuable tool that is less common than the down payment assistance. We have the dpa There are a lot of dpa's available. The hfa has one opportunities has one There are a lot of ones that have A lot more money than the one that we have but for people who would be buying in Wenuski They could pair these which I think 10 000 is a much more of an impact than five Is there this is going to be a little bit of a tangent so Okay, be short um It doesn't seem like there are a lot of people that know about this opportunity. Yeah, is there messaging that would go out with potential, um Water sewer bills just to and and that I know that doesn't necessarily go to the intended audience per se, but yeah I'm just trying to think of different Channels to get them the message out there a little bit better. Yeah, so I think some of the hesitation right now Is that we're we working at so we don't want to market a program that is In flux right now We have been discussing so it had previously said any bona fide lending institution We have decided to change that to any city approved institutional lender because we have the mou with opportunities specifically and We would theoretically need to have that with any other lending institution and that's not really like a just You know, someone would not be able to wait for that That's additional time that someone just doesn't have to wait for the $5,000 um, so Angela Before the budget and we will pick it up after Has been talking to some of the other local banks To see if they're interested in us signing an mou with them so that they can because opportunities does market the programs verbally But if we are able to partner with some of these other banks who are local Then they would also be able to market but right now It's our program, but it's kind of an opportunities program in a way like because of the mou We just don't happen with anyone else right now. So we're hoping that We can expand that breadth so that you know because the by word of mouth is you know Very valuable, especially when people are going to get a mortgage at these banks um Yeah, and so I think we're also planning on trying to uh Uh access re-litters association groups to jessica our housing chair is very Engaged in those as well. So try to go through it at that angle as well Uh, thank you. I appreciate that and it totally makes a lot of sense to kind of Really working first. Yeah I think part of the challenge is uh, honestly the amounts that we're offering are not going to cause someone who's not in the market to Go get into the market. It's really so it makes sense to market through lending institutions where they're already thinking about it and starting And maybe i'm close. Yeah, and then this maybe can tip them over as opposed to like There's no way to afford this. Oh, this might help me get it get it. Yeah Yes, and no, I don't necessarily entirely agree with that. I think it helps but I I also think so like seven days does their Road show where they have like realtor a banker a lender, you know legal title search entity And I and so I think there's just different means like of getting the message out and I don't think we should put too much reliance on one. It's it's just I think the lending institutions aren't Absolutely invaluable and reliable source, but I also think a lot of people aren't even going to get to the point of like Can I get pre-approved because I think the assumption is like well Heck I can't afford a down payment like I'm not going to go talk to a lender. Yeah Yeah, I mean have we spoken to any of the local real real estate agents? So jessica Bridge she's our chair and she is a local realist she will she's She owns a real estate company that has several locations. So she's been a homeowner in muski She has been she's owned a short-term rental in winooski before it's now a long-term rental She owns one in colchester. So she has brought a lot of very valuable perspective in this she Before jasmine started she offered to talk it up with So yeah, she's yeah willing to present it at that group as well Because I feel like a lot of times people call start working with a real estate agent before they even dive into the finances Yeah, or people who work around here just know like actually If you're showing a house in winooski, you can you know people are income eligible then you can offer this as well Or mention it at least Yeah, there has also been discussion of more widespread like resource mailer or coordinated effort for like housing resources as well So again, we wanted to kind of get our ducks in order for this Um, I am still working on the hip program right now. Um, which I'm sure will come to you sooner than later. Um But yes All right any um public question comments on this this topic anything else from council Do I have a motion to approve this amendment to the housing trust fund? So moved motion by aurora second by charlie all those in favor, please say aye. Aye motion carries. Thank you I'll underline the fact that Jasmine's here is the only reason why we're able to do this Opportunities actually recommend this to me in the first few months of me being here and I just could not get here. So Your money at work Thank you Well, that is the end of tonight's agenda to have a motion to adjourn So second motion by brin second by charlie all those in favor, please say aye. Aye motion carries Last meeting of the year adjourned