 So, I'm going to call this meeting to order. So, the Self-Front and City Council meeting, regular session of Monday, April 19th, 2021. Welcome everyone. And the first item is agenda review. Any additions, deletions, or changes in order of the agenda items? Being none, okay. I want to add one item to other business. What the heck was it? Just to plan a conversation. Shoot, I can't remember what it is, but I'll remember when we get to it, I think. Okay, so our next option or item rather is a possible executive session to discuss pending litigation to which the city is a party. Hold me for that. And receive confidential attorney-client communications regarding the same. I move that the council make a specific finding that premature general public knowledge of the council's consideration of confidential attorney-client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services to the council, and pending or probable civil litigation to which the city would be a party would clearly place the city at a substantial disadvantage. I will second it, but I just want to quickly say, I might have another item in other business to raise about the ferry that they're going to send to Lake Champlain if it's not too late. So I will second Kim's. No, that's fine, because we're not going to take action, Tom. Okay, so we have a motion and it's been seconded. All in favor, thumbs up for the executive session. Okay, seeing at least three, four thumbs up. All right. Do you have a second motion, Tim? Yeah, and so the city council having so found I now move that the council enter into executive session to consider confidential attorney-client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services to the city council, and pending or probable civil litigation to which the city would be a party. Did you mention who will be in this meeting? We would invite in Kevin, Dorn, Tom Hubbard, Paul Conner, Andrew Bullduck, and Amanda Lafferty. Okay. Is there a second? Okay. All in favor, thumbs up. All righty. So I would ask all those guests or members of the public and town meeting TV please leave. We should be back on at seven. So try coming on at seven and they'll let you know. Okay. So we are the self-proclaimed city council of Monday, April 19th, 2021 is out of executive session and back into our regular session. And we are on item three comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda. And I don't know if Sarah adopts Sarah. Good. We're going to fit your timeframe. Yes, just perfectly. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you council for hearing a few words from me this evening on the subject of climate change and stewardship of natural resources right here in South Burlington. We often think of the large environmental changes the planet is undergoing as occurring somewhere else in the world in exotic tropical rainforests or in hurricanes along the coasts of the United States or among over hunted large animal species in Africa or along crumbling glaciers. But every bit is important though perhaps less visible examples of degradation are taking place in every village, city and county in this country, including South Burlington. We may not be able to focus on the enormity of global climate change, but we can act locally to contribute our portion of the solution. You as a council can shape zoning regulations, approve policies around new building design, deploy transportation alternatives and protect open space for the future. If every community wakes up and acts in light of environmental imperatives, we can still save our amazing planetary home. But if very many local governments ignore the issue of climate change, then none of their other policies and regulations will matter at all. E. O. Wilson, a noted biologist writes, we are hardwired with an innate affinity for nature, but we have lost our connection to nature as we rush to cut down the forests, mine the mountains and frag everything else in between. We are destroying the habitats of wild creatures and making much of the world uninhabitable. We don't realize or even seem to care that we are damaging the web of life and ultimately ourselves. Oh, but some will say that is hyperbole, that isn't happening in South Burlington. Yet we saw a whole forest obliterated almost overnight to make way for new development. Now we learn that blasting will be required to alter the topography of another site rather than requiring the design of this new neighborhood to fit with the existing conditions on the ground. These are acts of violence. Our human affinity for nature, which Wilson writes about, has been on display during the pandemic as our able-bodied citizens flocked to the outdoors. Many enjoyed the path network and views of the lake and the mountains or walked in the woods at Wheeler or viewed the flower gardens on that property or planted their own vegetable gardens. Past councils have made the amenities of paths and open spaces possible. E.O. Wilson also writes, being in nature relieves stress and improves physical health, but as the damage to the planet grows, we see a rise in anxiety, depression, and attention deficit problems. On the other hand, children are happier, healthier, and more creative when they have a connection to nature. Children in South Burlington have also benefited from council decisions through wonderful educational and agricultural opportunities at common roots and at bread and butter farm on lands the city chose to help save. Please continue to make all your decisions based on the principle that the earth needs to be enabled to support human and natural kind for the long run. There are several items on tonight's agenda where that thinking must surely apply. To close, I would like to tell a brief anecdote which has become a metaphor for me of the battle between forces of destruction and preservation in the natural arena. Early in the pandemic, I was one of those beckoned out into the open spaces. I took an exhilarating ramble across the fields below the Wheelock Barn, and there I saw the wonderful stone cairns lovingly erected by a citizen who found spiritual solace in creating them. I, in turn, derived inspiration and courage just by viewing them in their natural setting, the fields which had yielded the stones he used. Now a year later, we learn that someone else has come along behind to topple the cairns, another act of gratuitous and unnecessary violence by a person unknown without peace in their heart. The act source may have been anger, anxiety, depression, illness, fear, I don't know. But the meaning of the incident is clear. We can protect the stuff of nature or we can destroy it. This is a choice we must make day after day. Thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Are there any other comments from the public on items not on the agenda tonight? Okay, seeing none, we'll move on to announcements and the city manager's report. So does anyone have any announcements? Tom and then Megan. This Saturday we'll be cleaning up the South Burlington Senator. If any city counselors want to join, please let me know and I'll ask Kevin to properly warn it, but it'll be Saturday morning from nine to noon unless the weather looks bad and we'll be rain-dating it. But the Sexton's will be cleaning up the South Burlington Cemetery this Saturday with about 15 volunteers so far. Great. Which one, Tom? The Shelburne Road one. Great. Thank you for the announcement and for doing that. Megan. Yeah, so segue to announce that May 1st is of course cleanup or green-up day. So that's something maybe that Kevin was going to say. I have a few things. One, I watched Jetline which was the documentary and I found it very informative and I encourage counselors as well as residents to watch it. I talked to a student by email, a student at South Burlington High School who gave a presentation on how policy and specifically federal policy has discouraged people of color from settling in certain areas and I have invited her to come to City Council meeting in May to make a presentation to this body. I thought that would be useful. And then the third announcement and this is following up I guess on what Sarah just said. I would like to come forward with a resolution whereby we view all new policy decisions through the lens of climate change. I think that it is imperative that the City Act. I know that we have done a lot but I would like to have it be actually a resolution where everything, every decision that we make, that we consider the impact that we might have on the various factors feeding into climate change. So I will be coming forward with that and just in addition to what Sarah said, we have a drought currently in Vermont and as we all know that will lead to crop failure. So we are not immune to this and I thank Sarah and other citizens who have come forward regularly to remind us because it is a silent, I believe, process that is going to have devastating effects. And I would also, yeah, just in that policy, I would really like to revisit that we ban pesticides in South Burlington. Our pollinators are dying. A third of our bees are dying per year in this country. They have to truck bees around this country in order for our crops to grow. And then they put pesticides and so those bees that are trucked in then are euthanized. We are sick and it's just, it's, it's, so there we go. Okay, thank you. Any other announcements? Just a short one. I'm sorry. Tim, yes. I'm sorry. Did somebody else want to go first? No, no, I was trying to. Okay. So I was just thinking the other day and after looking at some of the community watch Facebook pages, the fact that Burlington can't use their high school anymore, I don't know what they're going to do. And our school district wanted to tear down and rebuild our schools. So I was thinking, geez, you know, somebody should take a look at maybe combining those two districts together into a 2000 student, you know, 9 through 12 facility and find some place to build it. I mean, it's a possibility. You have two districts, they want to rebuild, one has to rebuild, the other one wanted to, they got voted down. I don't know where the funding would come from, but maybe this is an opportunity to make a super regional high school. So that's, that's all I wanted to say. Okay. Well, you certainly, we can include something, a discussion like that during our steering committee meeting, because it certainly is not our responsibility, but we certainly can make suggestions as the city council, because we represent the taxpayers as well. Any other announcements? I was away, so I didn't do much. Okay, Kevin, manager's report. Thanks, Helen, just a couple of things. We will, we've been talking with Holly and some of our parks staff about what appears to be a rising incidence of dog related issues in our parks, principally Red Rocks parks. Every year, as you know, we do have complaints from folks about dogs off leash, people not picking up waste and so on. But it seems pro Holly this year, the numbers are significantly higher, whatever the reason who can say, but we're going to put together a public information campaign designed to help people understand the impacts these actions are having on other people on other pets and on the parks. I may be tapping into some of you to do a PSA for us. Helen, I'd like to talk to you about that, maybe starting this off. We'll be putting this campaign up on our various social media to include city news, our website, pushing out on front porch forum and other things. We're going to try to find different types of media to try to get the campaign going. And we'd like this to be sustainable, not just not just one ad or one reminder, but something that continues to remind people their responsibility in public areas with their pets. And so you will start to see some things on this within the next couple of weeks in the next editions of city news. The public library and city hall construction schedule appears to be consistent with what we have been reporting all along. It continues to look like the library will move in the last week or the last 10 days in June. And the city hall and city clerk's office will be the very end of June spreading into the first week in July. And so we're pretty much on that target that had been talked about since last October or even before. Staff here and at the library and others are starting to talk about a grand opening celebration, which would likely be in mid to late July. We want to get moved in so that the celebration itself can include things like tours of the office spaces, tours, obviously the library, the senior center, the auditorium, clerk's office, and so on and city hall. So stay tuned to more on that and scheduling for that. Speaking of which, I'm going to be reaching out to you all to try to schedule you in for a tour of 180 Market Street in the next 10 days to two weeks. So I'm going to be sending you out of some kind of a survey to find out when you might be available. I know the school board is interested also in touring and I'd like to get our legislative delegation in there as well. So we'll be doing this pretty soon because the progress has just been absolutely remarkable. Let's see. Chief Burke has been meeting with the committee on the fair and impartial policing policy and has adopted the proposals that the committee made that you saw at your meeting back I think in March. There is one item of contention still that remains as it relates to a new issue which involves public record act requirements but I understand the chief is meeting with the committee to try to iron that out and to better understand both perspectives. So that is all being implemented or has already been implemented save that one issue. Um is going to talk a little bit tonight in his um in his report is financial report about the recovery funds that we're expecting to receive roughly $5.4 million for municipal government. Very little is known at the detail level about how that money can be invested but rest assured that this is a this this will be a council decision in the end based upon recommendations that that staff will be making and accommodating anything else that council wants to do in that regard. The first half of the funds was supposed to come in within 90 days of the bill's passage that's coming up fairly soon and so we would hope that the federal government would be putting out the rules on how these funds can be spent before we get that first tranche of money that the second component is to arrive before uh within one year of passage. So anyway Tom's got some uh Tom wants to talk to you some about our finances and the recovery funds in his report later on uh and he's also oh Tom uh if you want right now uh to talk about the uh resolution of some dog park committee issues and moving forward I know you heard um had input on your last meeting about that and uh Tom's been doing some work on the dog park committee so Tom. Thanks Kevin just update uh the council the dog park committee has met uh I talked with Justin and Holly as I said I would Justin is going to continue to be the staff liaison to the committee and continue to meet with them I've talked with Betty Militia who's the new chair of the dog park committee my understanding is that the last meeting went well Justin provided them with an update on the dog park and what the potential schedule is for things moving ahead and he'll continue to meet with them I think they have their next meeting on May 11th if I'm correct but I told Betty to stay in touch with me and my understanding is that things are are moving along there and we will we have uh also advertised the opening for Larry Keperman's position on the dog park committee and the other paper along with some of the other openings that we still have with committees okay Megan you have another comment yeah our quest I have a few questions uh Kevin the question has come up why are the lights on at 180 market street at night um mostly for uh safety reasons for vandalism reasons and others we don't want to darken building there um we realize that the lights are burning in there but we need to keep it lit so that when our officers go by they can see in the building make sure a nothing's getting analyzed and be contractors tools are being stolen second question is is when will the assessments be issued out to residents the new home value assessments Tommy have an update on that it looks like it's probably going to be um early to mid-may Megan we're a couple weeks behind but Tyler Technologies is going to add some staff on to assist with the grievance process process that should catch us up so that we can still finish in time for the information that we need for the grand list to get to the state in June so Martha's still feeling confident that that's going to happen but the notices are going to be delayed about two weeks and the appeals deadline will be when it'll be 14 days from the day the letters go out or the days the day that the data goes live on the website also right Tom I believe so that's what Todd had said before the letters will go out and I guess it goes live on the but the problem is you got to count on the mail so we're telling people go online and look at the day it comes out so we just need really good notification when it goes live we'll be doing a posting as well Tim through all okay social media other paper to let people know that they're coming and front porch forum perhaps yes and the other yeah there was a suggestion made by a community member because people of course are very nervous that increased values of their home is going to lead to you know an exponential increase in in their property taxes that they have to pay annually and so the residents suggested that in what goes out in that mid the early to mid-may letter include here is where your property value sits overall in the city's property values so the percentage that you're at right so you are in the top 10 percent you are in the top 20 percent or etc etc right and then here you are with the new assess value I thought it was an interesting idea just to let people see that perhaps your house is not necessarily much different in comparison you know to the the remainder of homes in the city just the what do you think happy to share that with Martha I think it's an interesting idea I think as much information as we can provide people with to help them feel more comfortable I know there was a story on the Burlington reappraisal the other night on the news and I was glad to see that they covered the fact that just because your your assessment goes up doesn't mean your taxes are going to go up that it's all balanced out it's still the same amount of money that needs to be raised for the budget that's already been approved so the tax rate would actually come down as the assessment goes up and the grand list goes up so I was glad to see that they did a little bit of a focus on that point to up alleviate the concern for people that just because their assessment increases significantly doesn't mean that their taxes are going to increase significantly so we'll continue to make sure that's message that as well thanks man yeah and just since everybody's listening we have a great crowd here tonight we go on the city we look under departments and finances and that's where those new home assess values will be published correct I think it's going to be a link from the main page as well so then as soon as people sign on it will be one of the graphics that will come that will come across but will will provide the individual direct address as well thank you thank you I just have one thing that I forgot to mention and I keep forgetting and I I'm on the distribution list of the weekly reports from the self-growington food shelf and recently peter carmoli the director I guess announced that if you if you shop in healthy living and they ask you at the register do you want to round up to the next dollar I always do I mean it's like 37 cents or something like that well they just got a check for over 18 000 dollars from healthy living as a result of that program so that is equal to a full year's rent so just a thank you a shout out to healthy living a thank you to all the people not just self-growington residents but everyone anyone who shops there it really can make a difference and I think they're going to try to engage some other supermarkets to do the the same thing if if the customers are able but that makes an enormous difference for a small nonprofit and I just was thrilled so I want to share that a little bit too pardon me I add to that a little bit too absolutely at that 18 000 dollars pays the rent for the facility for a year so it's huge what what they were doing and I also always want to keep in mind as well the great support we get from Trader Joe's and the the food donations that they make on a weekly basis but it's great what healthy living is doing yeah and there's something like 30 different volunteers so it's very heartwarming to me that that many people in our community think specifically about those who are food insecure let's get rid of pennies and dimes and nickels exactly well it's easy to do it that way you round up all righty so we're moving on if there's no more announcements on the consent agenda we have two parts a consider and sign disbursements and be approved the minutes from April 6 21 the planning commission so do I have a motion I'll move to approve yeah I'll move to approve and I'll wait for a second before I ask a question okay is there a second second okay thank you Tim seconded you is there any discussion yes Tom need a question there was a permit for 17,000 and odd dollars is that for stormwater perhaps and I'm sorry I didn't email you earlier these are very full days I'll check the feet Megan and get back to you on with what that was for that's good it was first state of Vermont permit and I have a similar question there was a kevin smith fencing charge for 1500 dollars do you have any idea with what that is sorry for the late notice I believe it was something up with the dugouts at that memorial but I'll double check no that's fine that that makes sense thank you I'm satisfied okay are you ready for the vote okay all in favor of approving the consent agenda as presented I'll do a roll Matt Coda hi Tom Shinden hi Megan Emery hi Tim Barrett hi and the chair votes aye so we passed that five zero moving on to item six reports from counselors on committee assignments are there any well I have a little quickie from the airport commission we met and it's been in the news I just think it's really exciting that there are two new flights and actually one is a new carrier making daily flights to Boston so I think that's a plus and then I believe it's what is it remember think of the name of that I don't fly them but anyway there's a non-stop now from Burlington to Dallas Fort Worth and I'm not sure why they picked that community it works for me because that's how I got to see one of my daughters but anyway I think that shows that the airlines at least see the Burlington International airport as as a viable place and a place to build their business and then the other exciting piece I think for the airport is one of their tenants beta just had an order for 10 of their electric helicopters made by UPS and so that's a very viable business that's growing and they've identified Burlington as or South Burlington Airport as their corporate headquarters so I think that bodes well for our community all right if there's no other reports we'll go let's see oh we're three minutes over but that's pretty pretty good for us to to go on to item seven the interim zoning application public hearing worn for 730 so I would open the public hearing by reading the warning so this is continued public hearing interim zoning application IZ 21-01 of Allen K Long for development of two existing lots totaling 39.21 acres developed with a single family home the development can consist of removal of the two existing homes and construction of up to 49 dwelling units in a combination of single family two family and small multi-family buildings in a development area of approximately 17 acres and a conservation area of approximately 22 acres at 1720 and 1730 Spear Street so I would invite a motion to enter the public hearing so moved second why the second okay it's moved and seconded all in favor I think if I would thumbs up and we are in the public hearing so I want to start with an overview of conflicts of interest and ex parte commission of communications have there are there any conflict of interest on the council or ex parte communications seeing none who is planning to speak I need to swear in the applicants and anyone wishing to testify Helen before you start yeah I'm sorry yeah I'd like to move to continue this to the next city council meeting because the DRB did not have a chance to fully complete their sketch review this this plan all right as I said in the last time that the long application came before us I wanted the DRB to have a chance to see it first and they haven't had a chance to give complete feedback on that so okay please get that confirmation from Marla can we Marla's better hand up Marla is there is that accurate oh I'm sorry I didn't see you Marla there's so many things to look at Marla okay um the DRB has continued hearing is May 4th which will be after the next meeting you're next meeting okay so can you continue it after that then I would agree with that would that be mace let me just get the right date let me see um so that would be mace 17 so we have a motion on the floor to continue this IZ hearing um until let's say let's do 730 again um on mace 17 I would I second that motion all right all in favor signify by saying aye aye all right so um I apologize all the people who joined in but maybe you learned a few new things about the city and we will see you all again on um mace 17 thank you I guess we need to come out so we have two more we have two more we have a zoning application um of IZ number IZ 2103 of the south village communities LLC uh do I have to read this whole thing to amend it previously multi-phase 334 unit planned unit development application consists of the following components one amend the master plan by increasing the maximum allowable coverage from 13.9 percent to 20 percent removing the educational facility adding mixed use removing the requirement to construct additional dedicated southbound turn lanes on spear street and reducing the total unit count from 334 to 321 two uh subdivide four existing undeveloped lots totaling 23.2 acres into eight lots ranging from 0.3 acres to excuse me 14.1 acres construct 22 homes and 11 buildings unlock 11.1 and 11.2 and construct a permanent farm access road and pavilion unlock 11c three subdivide an existing 1.92 acre lot into five lots ranging from 0.14 acres to 0.67 acres a 10.18 acres to an existing 12.68 acre agricultural lot for the purpose of developing a two-family home on each of lots 92 to 95 and establishing the fifth lot as a permanent open space number four construct a mixed use building an associated parking on newly created lot 11a and five construct a soccer field with associated amenities and parking on a newly created lot 11b to be transferred to the city all happening at 1840 spear street so are there those wishing oh i guess first are there any disclosures of conflicts of interest and ex parte communication okay seeing none um i need to swear in those who um wish to testify both the applicants um and anyone else so if you would turn your photo on and raise your right hand and is everyone's up there we got patrick o' brian robin jeffers um dave marshal do i have everyone is that all you do okay um so do you um promised oh and gen randy rand okay are you raising your hand or you just okay i didn't see your hand um did you promise tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help with that i do yes okay thank you very much so you were sworn in um so that we first want to hear from the applicant and that is dave marshal who's robin who is speaking for the applicant i turned it on quickly and i turned it off i'll begin telling if that's all right okay that's fine it's your story um um marla can we ask for a visual to be brought up we actually don't drive i don't know who's driving okay there's someone who can bring up a visual kevin i think kevin's driving kevin yeah he's joined us yeah could we look at page well it's page seven of our application or page 31 of tonight's presentation uh what what is the question can we look at the visual can you put it up uh let me uh kevin would you like me to drive would you like me to present i can do that can you can you put it up marla i it's not coming up on my um i'm trying i'm having a hard time connecting in here no problem you do have to make me an organizer because i'm signed into the account right now okay hold on thanks for your patience hold on marla i gotta find you here you may come that's okay i got it kevin i got it yay thank you um so this is south village it's 226 acres it's primarily concentrated with development over on the left hand side where you see all the little mini squares and down at the bottom of the page there's a bunch more little mini squares and then in the middle you'll notice primarily is a large big green area the large green area is over 130 acres which is held in conservation and perpetuity in the most commonly referred to as the great swamp and then kind of in the middle of it underneath where there's kind of a label about acres is actually a piece of highland that sits in the middle of the great swamp um so there's wetlands on the left of it and wetlands on the right i'm down at the bottom um just to help people get familiar is midland avenue which goes over to dorset farms and over on the left hand border is spear street and then the main entrance to the development is at allen road and allen road becomes allen road east when you enter the development and so circled on this plan are the areas that we want to address tonight they're circled in red and these are lots they're the only lots that have yet to be developed in south village so this is our balance to complete and the largest yellow the funny shape um down and sort of in the bottom of the big red circle we had originally the original developer not even us um was hoping that a school might want to be attracted to south village but that turned out to be never viable so that lot has been sitting there for quite a long time and then the we call that lot 11 to the left of that it's a light blue lot we call that lot 11 a and that's where we're looking to put a mixed use uh limited neighborhood commercial building and then above it is a white empty lot and that's where the soccer field and it's related parking would go and then in the separate circle in the a little bit more and up to the right we are planning for four duplexes which would be eight units 50 of which would be affordable housing um back to the large odd yellow shaped lot we're planning on cutting that pretty much in half bisecting it and developing half of it and then the other half we're actually um giving a half of that half to the farm and another piece putting just into recreational space open space for the neighborhood and the same thing in that upper circle with the light blue and the bright green um that air that's the area that'll be broken into five lots and one of those lots the fifth lot also will be dedicated open space so um overall we feel real good about this we are creating more open space from the land that we had left to develop and we are concentrating develop in a very positive way in a concentrated way 50 of the units where the bringing forward will be affordable homes the other 50 will be market rate but they'll be market rate at the same dimension as the affordable so slightly smaller and more affordable than some of the other homes that are in existence in today at south village and the soccer field has been very long awaited by all the residents of south village and i believe the parks and rec department as well um that is something that was conceived of way back in the early 2000s that the recreation fees that are charged for each zoning permit as south village would be accrued in a escrow account with the city and that would those fees would one day pay for this amenity to be built at south village um it will be a city amenity as was noted in the staff notes and then the smallest lot the little light blue one in the lower left hand corner um we have been working with the city through the planning commission and then the city council to have a limited neighborhood commercial use there uh we're looking to have a one and a half story building which would be limited to the labor limited neighborhood commercial uses which are restaurant um dine in or take out personal instruction child care i think that's it it's a very limited use and that is uh a use that we began with working with the planning commission back in 2015 um they charged us with doing a lot of homework and a lot of research and a lot of community engagement which we did and we're pretty very very happy with the outcome um all of the quite a bit of participation with the neighbors and the villagers within south village and coming up with a plan that everyone could agree upon and when we presented that to the planning commission the planning commission liked it they uh invented the limited neighborhood use which has since been adopted and is now part of the ldr's so that's kind of our snapshot okay are there any questions from the council i have one i'll start off in terms of the the four duplexes half of which are affordable um and then you said at and then they're they're also the other half are affordable at market rate um are these perpetually affordable are you are they rentals how do they will be perpetually affordable they will um their deeds will they'll be deed restricted to always be affordable they could be an affordable rental or they could be affordable ownership at this point we're intending affordable ownership but either way in perpetuity okay so will you use a third party to manage that or will it be the hoa it will be the hoa and the city and the city um we've been working with um kevin's office and the planning commission and we've actually already have units which are deed restricted to be affordable and perpetuity and those forms have have been accepted by the city and we already have developed a process together where the forms are renewed every year so that there's assurance that they are indeed being used for affordable folks with affordable means and do you have a ballpark price of what is now deemed affordable i don't we had thought it was somewhere in the 250 to 280 range but things are changing so fast uh and building both in building expense and and the economic situation that it's it's it's hard to pin it down exactly okay thank you those are my questions megan and then matt yeah no beautiful i i wanted to know and i understand that wood is very expensive right now and is there any interest you know just to piggyback off of what you said but i did have another question to wait in order to purchase those building materials before moving ahead so that it could truly remain more affordable my question is what is um the calculation that news in order to determine what is affordable is it a median of uh you know the chitlin county salary range or south burlington salary range or it's based on south burlington median income and it's a it's a formula that we take directly out of the ldr's actually and wrote i see a question on my screen from rosa and greco asking is it 80 percent of the median income for south burlington and it is for a rental and it's up to 100 for purchase okay would you ever wait would you ever wait till the building materials the price comes down again or are you not expecting no it's looking at the rate we're going that um with their permitting through act 250 in the continued process that it will be fall before we could begin so we're hoping that in 2022 that the price is for lumber will be better let's hope we yes we hope for in all of our home building projects that that becomes the map photo thank you yeah i have a process question for marla maybe patrick or robin might follow up on this um four of the items have gone to final plat two of the items we have heard at sketch prior when i was on the developer review board um is this is this uh is this was a decision that the developer made to to go through a dream zoning in this way or is did we not do is this something that we just realized had to go through in term zoning i'm just curious i know you can go at any point in the process till before the city council make sure when we're on in term zoning but marla do you have any insight into why it's presented this way rather than many of the other ones which are before sketch or or concurrently with sketch this was just a choice um and they're fully welcome to make that choice yeah okay are there any other closure tim barrett yeah so uh has the d rb already reviewed all of these proposed amendments the d rb has we've had sketch plan review on everything and then we've actually had final plat and master plat on all of the duplexes in a lot 11 but we have not had final plat on the soccer field and the limited commercial yeah we we had a sketch plan on limited commercial and the soccer field but everything else is is nearly done and the other question was the left hand turn lanes can you explain more about that sure um the traffic counts that were done originally for south village were taken when root seven was under construction and so almost all root seven traffic had been diverted to spear street and so over the past three or four years we've had to have the traffic counts redone for all of our um submittals since then and consistently the numbers have dropped and we were actually conditioned by the d rb to from our first request to wait for another request until we were more established through build out and the numbers still um are far reduced from what they were so they're no longer warranted where are those left turn lanes i didn't understand oh there was one at preserve road which is the most northern entrance and one at south jepperson which is the most southern entrance both of them on spear street hope on spear street oh so you'd have to widen spear coming south didn't create a left hand turn lane to go into preserve and then this oh and then the same coming south at uh yeah okay yes so there's south turning lines okay but you do have one you do have one at the main entrance at allen yes we do it's controlled by a light it's light controlled and we find most people go to that light if they're going to be making a turn that isn't in favor of traffic right and and how will um drivers get to the soccer field well they have to cross that small blue commercial lot yes they would cross that small blue lot there's actually a road there currently which leads up to the solar array so that road would just be improved okay and the solar array is that square that has an h on it just north it's just north of the big red circle okay what the big red circle well the one I have circled in red ink oh okay oh yeah you're you're yeah you're you're lasso you're red lasso around yeah my red lasso above the rest is the perfect square that is where the solar array is okay thank you that's it are there any other questions from counselors are there any questions from the public oh Megan you have another question what's it truly because the school just fell through is that the reason for the change yes so it's Dave Marshall okay that was really just a simple kind of what triggered this thing okay anyone else wish to make a comment or ask a question Ariel will you start again Ariel we can't hear you no we still can't okay sometimes you have to turn it off and then turn it on again okay yeah so my concern is about any fertilizer or pesticide runoff from the soccer field because right adjacent is an organic farm and a lot of the runoff from the rainwater is actually forming little wetlands along the pedestrian path so I'm just wondering how that's how we're going to keep those chemicals away from the agricultural part our bylaws my my voice sounds funny I'm sorry about that our bylaws forbid the use of pesticides and fertilizers that are not organic so I expect this will be the most novel soccer field in South Burlington and it'll be a great experiment and in a learning curve but um they're not allowed at South Village anywhere and I follow up on Ariel's question which is excellent because she also is that possible Helen yes go ahead yes she posted on Facebook and I I shared her post um where there were you know just along curbs there were wildflowers that had been planted along with tall grasses and we know that our pollinators need to have tall grasses um and so just something I'm sharing our conversation our online conversation I traveled to visit family in Scotland and what they had in Scotland is you got you know further away from the city but nevertheless and in town between lots of houses they had you know just those the skinny little lots that we have between our individual single family homes or perhaps townhouses they left that land just to grow that the grass is just to grow so they had manicured lawn in front of their home but in between their homes they left the grasses to grow long and I just thought that was brilliant because you can go out with your kids you don't have to worry so much about ticks and all these things but yet you're letting the the you know the the insects and the critters have have their land too and I just wanted to not gonna you know impose anything on you but since you're so forward looking I just wanted to share that with you that this is something that I I want to do at my house and I I know neighbors who do do it and it is something that I think is um is really environmentally responsible and sound sure common roots actually all of their organic honey supply is based at South Village at the farm at South Village and I know they have a very lucrative crop so so we're doing something right I think the acres and acres of meadow really helped with all that so I've got there's a question in the chat or a comment from Roseanne Greco during a recent council meeting someone mentioned that the soccer field is proposed to be built on prime ag soil and prime ag is the absolute best and most fertile soil and there's very little of this type of soil in South Burlington is that accurate for the spot where you have identified the soccer field and is it if that is so is it since you have an organic farm there is it possible to switch it over to um 11 I think it's 11 right the big yellow um squareish I don't have the soil types memorized but I'm guessing that Dave um from CEA May so I'm going to defer to him on that one this is Marshall here from CEA yes there are primary primary agricultural soils within the proposed soccer field with regard to the quality of those particular soils on a rating system of 0 to 8 where 8 is the worst of the primary agricultural soils these particular soils are rated as 6 there are some soils that are further south on the property that are as low as number three but otherwise these are the classic late bottom Covington soils as well as the Virgin's clays so very challenging the farm can be done good for a a type of product but otherwise it is lower on the list in regards to primary agricultural soils as recognized by the state okay and 11 parcel 11 or lot 11 is that better soil since you're giving it it's actually topographically challenged it starts to fall off and it's not flat for soccer field construction it also has a wetland that's next to it so in this particular case lot 11 does I'm sorry I'm thinking of lot 11 a lot 11 is more sloping and it would require a significant amount of additional rating work in order to achieve the placement of the soccer field okay all right Michael Mitag yes I had a follow-up question on Ariel and Robin's comments about pesticide this soccer field is transferred excuse me transferred to the city will the same restrictions which apply to the rest of South Burlington with reference to pesticides and and fertilizer will those restrictions apply to city-owned soccer field within South Village yes that's a word Kevin question I know from Tom that we do not use pesticide on the Veterans Park there the door sit athletic fields but there's Kevin he could maybe Michael can you repeat the question the question was whether the restrictions on the use of pesticide and and certain types of fertilizer which are in the South Village allows would then also apply to the cities to the city when it owns the soccer field when it's transferred to when the soccer field is transferred to the city my assumption is that it would be Michael because we're part we would be part of the overall South Village community whether or not that's legally enforceable I don't know Tom you have any any thoughts about it it's also in our city parks ordinance okay it's I guess it'd be double double covered in this instance okay I just have a little bit of a issue for you Helen we're in similar public hearing here and only interested parties could ask questions right comment or the comments should be folks have not been sworn in into the proceeding and so I don't know necessarily how you want to deal with that but just to make it official this is an interim zoning application and there are requirements for these hearings my apologies so the people who have asked questions are spoken I think they also that's way to tell the truth I swear to tell the truth and write the truth Marla do you have some guidance on this as it relates to how the correct this Marla or so you can swear people in individually if they didn't plan to speak originally also if someone is just interested in asking a question rather than having interest in person status it's all right if they're not sworn okay so are we okay with not swearing in Rosanne and Michael was there anyone else that asked a question I don't think so Ariel Jensen Vargas so that's right I think Ariel got sworn in but anyway so if you're okay with that those three made comments so is there anyone who has status or sworn in who wishes to make a statement or ask the question Jen Rand good evening I'd like to be sworn in I already was sworn in oh okay I apologize Norm Staunton representing Jen Rand the homeowner at 1751 Spear Street which for reference on your map is the plot directly across the street from where preserve road dumps back into Spear thank you for taking a couple of minutes just to hear some comments I have no real concerns about this particular set of of interim zoning variances that are being requested what I wanted to remind the council of is that the interim zoning application previously continued is directly adjacent to this same piece of property and so you're talking about an intense amount of development between Allen and north to south point as well as an increased amount of traffic coming through that area between new homes at at both PUDs and for the soccer field it's it's just a lot of potential development and a lot of potential traffic coming through that area that's already currently congested and frankly difficult to get in and out of private homes there so just some thoughts for consideration okay thank you yeah we end up with that iterative process with development you know these nine homes don't do anything then the next nine and then the next 30 and all of a sudden you do have a problem Ellen is it is that where we're going to be widening the road for the bike lanes I know I know that by Brits here somewhere right is he here yeah he was Bob if you can hear a serious yeah um is this a the place along um spear street that will be widened for the bike lane this is where I'm in because this would be considered testimony rather okay so if you wish to speak so raise your right hand you promise to tell the whole truth and nothing but I do okay thank you so can you answer that question yeah I mean I had asked that question with the long project or suggested that the road be widened along that stretch between south point and preserve and that a sidewalk be built but again that was personally not not for bike and pad and and so I still intend to talk to the drb on the uh what is it may uh 6th or may 3rd or whenever may 4th I guess the next long meeting is Bob there was also we we just got word of what is it a $300,000 grant in order to put bike lanes on spear street yeah that that's uh between the us for service building and and swift street so yeah that's way down north north of us Robin Robin did you have a clarifying comment yeah I just wanted to offer the information that in all of the development along south village there is a 20 foot easement all along spear street for eventual pedestrian improvements if the city were to move forward with those okay okay any other rosanne you at your hand up did you want to make another comment yes and I'm happy to swear in and swear to tell the truth if that okay you know I'm so done okay um I have a specific question then a general general comment and back to the soccer field so I thought it was Kevin Dorn that said this was when we were discussing the wheeler property that we had to mitigate the loss of prime egg soil or fertile soil arable soil I mean there's different categories but it's all fertile right but we had to mitigate the loss of this soil by putting the soccer field on and so we had a we were going to use wheeler area to mitigate so if the soil just heard somebody said it was it was not good soil I think if you look the sustainable agriculture report did map out where the soils are so we have that I would assume the well I don't know if the city looked at that of the developer looked at that but if it's prime egg soil it we shouldn't be building on it you know the south village built houses on the best soil and put the farm on the least fertile soil let's not do it again with a soccer field so that's my specific plea my my general comment is I this seems to be a huge enterprise it's not it is it's called an amendment but it's it's not just tweaking let's put this here rather than this here it's a it's a whole new development with commercial and and housing and all that um I I guess I don't know if you have a master plan approved and but then you can come in and pretty much change the whole thing uh I know you know Matt knows this process and Tim knows this process but this needs to be a whole new development and I think it shouldn't be I it should be given a whole lot of thought uh just like the gentleman said earlier you're connecting you know this house this house this house and all of a sudden you got you know you've wiped out more of the great swap which I think this will do thank you okay thank you Kevin there was a earlier question that Rosanne was alluding to and that is um finding I don't know how many acres the soccer field area is but finding other property to mitigate that somewhere in south brollington is that right yeah well actually Dave Marshall knows more about this than I do because we researched this matter and Dave was a resource for us but we can't use the wheeler property right for offsite mitigation of this this stirb dag soils so we'll have to do take other some other measure which could be um a contribution to the land trust whatever whatever is called for by act 250 but uh recent rule change has said that you if you're going to do offsite mitigation it has to be um on a contention a property that is contingent to the uh existing property so we can't use wheeler for that purpose it has to be contiguous I'm not contingent contiguous thanks okay okay and you can't use underwood either then right no so just to follow up on this I mean I'm seeing a lot of wetlands that's something that Dave Marshall has said looking at the other the other parcels 11 11 a um anyway I have to get there again I might have just said the wrong thing there I'm sorry let me just get there again um what I would say is have as common roots farm asked for for a specific parcel I mean I think that something that you know we need to keep in mind and and Dave went through the different classifications but if there is a farm that is stepping up to farm that land I think that's something that you know we should know about if there is not a farm asking for that land looking at these these maps it seems that the wetlands are are pretty much in every other area which I think would be a you know an inhibitor to to having a soccer field um Dave also said that there was some slope and I think that something that was said earlier about respecting the natural land I completely agree with that I am opposed to to blasting ledge that if unless we have a farm saying we absolutely want that land and the city is is you know denying us that prime ag land I it seems to me that we're respecting the topography we're respecting by putting the soccer field there and and not you know regrading um another wetland area that we are in fact respecting the natural site and I am in favor of that um so I just wanted to put that out there hopefully I was clear okay Robin should we respite just wanted to add I think it got lost somewhere that um with the subdivision we actually are increasing the size of the farm we're adding approximately an acre to the farm land and another just about an acre to the community for recreational play space um and the farm is happy to be getting the additional land and the neighborhood's happy to get the play space and everyone that I've ever talked to a south village has their heart set on this soccer field Ellen I just want to affirm firm that that's what I that's what we heard in the development review process through the through the sketch plan that we've already heard from the neighbors that have come forward the soccer field is a great idea that parks and rec have signed off on that the neighbors have signed off on and that the developer has provided so I think it's a great project and am I understanding you Robin that is it um the current farm is interested in this additional is it an acre or whatever I don't know how big it is we're giving them part of land 11 part of 11 okay which is right along there there's a new farm a new road a new and permanent road is going into the farm and this will this lot is alongside there and it is not wet which is which is very important to them okay so common roots is interested in farming this common roots is interested in farming the land that we are offering to add on to the farm yes okay thank you Patrick the Brian thank you I'm just to add that yes common roots currently leases the farm but it's important to note that there already is room for them to grow I would estimate that probably 30 30 percent maybe even 35 percent of the farmland that has soils that are equal to the or better to the soccer field are currently not being actively used by the farm so there is still room to grow even if the soccer field is put into play thank you any other questions man and just to reiterate I do not see someone here from south village saying we don't want this to be a soccer field I think that's an important thing to note but also a soccer field is is not like digging a foundation I mean they're not using pesticides they're having children run on it and kicking a ball if someday someone wants to till that land and to grow something on it I don't see that a soccer field is going to be preventing that future use am I wrong I think you're correct if that's what the city wanted to do because it's intended to be seated to the city so we would have to change your mind after I just like to plan that maybe you're 100 correct failure with of those soils and preparing the application that soon will be submitted to but the point is that the specification for the soccer field include searches of top soil need to be put on top ironically if the city in the future wanted to till the field and have the farm take it over be better suited then and have better oils right there today okay and the and the parking lot that's adjacent to it is that going to be paved or is that you know crushed stone or whatever so it's at permeable but this juncture it's crushed stone but again that would be up to the city okay um let's see someone had their hand up but I don't aerial now I oh aerial excuse me thank you yes I happen to live in south village um and my dream would have it to not just be a soccer field um for example sometimes they have those outdoor stations where you could do sit-ups or pull-ups or something um that they have along the walkway in burlington so that people could kind of do like a little um circuit uh fitness circuit on the edges or some kind of walkway but that's just you know probably adding cost but since the question came up okay are there any other comments or questions concerns facts we need to hear okay seeing none with my little piece of paper um I want to motion to close the uh I think so so I moved okay go ahead I moved to close second is do we need a date and we just close it so 45 days from okay so it was the made by um Tim and seconded by Megan there's no further um discussion all in favor signify by saying I I okay so we have approved that I guess under under interim zoning no we're closed we closed it we'll deliberate in the next 45 days okay we have one more zoning application and this one is IZ 2102 um of Brendan Connolly to create a planned unit development of three lots by subdividing a 7.9 acre lot developed with an existing single family home into lot one 7.02 acres and lot 3.48 acres lot 4.48 acres for the purpose of developing a single family home on each of lots three and four and retaining the existing single family home lots three and four a period lots three and four would be accessed off Sadie Lane and the address is one Johnson way and I understand lot two is not lost that's already been subdivided and developed it's not like somewhere else okay so do we have um who is here to speak to this Brendan are you the only one Brian courier also okay and are there any um interested parties who wish to add comment and facts who would like to be sworn in it's uh Brendan Connolly here and my wife Alexandra she's off camera but uh currently uh feeding our newborn baby daughter oh congratulations thank you so why don't I swear you two in so raise have you sworn in yet no raise your hand and do you promise to tell the truth and nothing but yes I do thank okay so carry on I guess Brendan are you gonna lead off or is Brian I think I'm gonna give you a quick overview Helen okay go ahead so the uh the property is is probably better known as uh 1700 Dorset Street following a three lot subdivision from um the previous landowner uh the old driveway was deemed a new roadway that's now called Johnson way and the parent parcel is five Johnson way the parent parcel is just under eight acres and we're proposing a three lot subdivision um to create two new single family lots um to be accessed off Sadie Lane and they're both just under half an acre um it's a good uh infill development opportunity there's there's no construction of new uh public infrastructure and very little impact uh to the existing infrastructure uh we're proposing municipal connections um the wetlands on the property are being delineated by a split rail fence um we were in for the uh we submitted a sketch plan application to the development review board about a month ago and uh we had good feedback from the board most of the comments were uh about the orientation of the buildings they wanted to see them orientated uh oriented more towards the west uh we're kind of facing northwest right now and that was to uh create a line of homes along Sadie Lane um and keep that pattern with this uh small development um other comments were regarding screening to the north and uh very little public comment um again a small project but uh we're here asking to uh uh being able to move on to preliminary um through interim zoning and we're here to answer your answer any of your question okay can I ask a question the the square in front of the blue and the red one that are the with the yellow squares are there two houses on that now there is not no the uh the yellow square are proposed yep so what is in front of them along dorset street uh there's a wetland uh in between those houses oh so I think you're looking at the two that are drawn in just north of the house that's on dorset street right you didn't have an ortho photo that showed the houses because they were built fairly new uh fairly recently so those two are existing yes and towards the east the the yellow squares are the the new single family lots for this project okay and then the rest of that seven almost eight acre parcel is that mostly wetland so what will won't be developed in the future or can't be yeah it'd be pretty tough um when we were in for a sketch plan uh one of the things that that staff wanted us to look into was whether we could cross the wetlands in order to reach uh the southern part of the parcel that's uplands and I have done my homework and and have had a conversation with the wetlands program and to date they're not uh they don't believe that the development potential on the other side of the wetland would warrant a crossing um so they're they're in favor of the development as proposed okay so the original home is going to continue to own and pay taxes on those seven acres correct you know it could be developed maybe in in uh cooperation with one of the neighboring parcels maybe the one to the south but as far as axing it accessing it from the 1700 dorset or johnson way I would say is very unlikely due to the size of the wetland at that point okay do you have other information to share with us are you ready for questions we're ready for questions any questions from the council could you leave the picture back up please yeah my ceiling knows marlin do you concur with all the information given so far yes uh helen yes so I remember this original proposal when we had the two lots of division and there was a proposal to put a lot behind the wetland I'm trying to remember Marla you probably have this yes so I think I remember I think I know what happened what happened here that that we didn't we didn't approve that lot behind the wetland but now essentially we're getting there through Sadie Lane at that time Sadie Lane had not yet been accepted at the public road got it um so they they didn't have permission to build this driveway that they're now proposing so in fact rather than rather than do it and what is one project and one um flat approval um they can get to it this way now that Sadie Lane is a public road yep makes sense got it thank you any other I'm sorry go ahead do they need an easement for the driveway to connect to Sadie Lane who owns the land that's right adjacent to the rec path is that city land it is it's actually part of a right away that was uh a part way back part of the cider mill phase one parcel the the original right away was the dorset associates but it didn't end up getting used and Sadie Lane was constructed within that neighboring right away so there the the northern parcel directly abuts that existing right away and then there is a we're proposing a 30-foot right away to get to the southern parcel through the northern parcel so do you need an easement for that from the owner of that northern lot uh so we're we're proposing both of the new lots um the northern one um the the yellow square on the northern side we're proposing a 30 foot 30 foot driveway easement through that lot in order to get to the southern lot and those those lots our parcel directly abuts the right away from to Sadie Lane okay thank you is the positioning of those houses amenable to solar roof or they mean seems like it's the wrong tilt yeah one of the one of the comments we got at at the dear about b level right now they're oriented kind of northwest uh was the orient them towards the west to match the units on dorset street and to match the new units that are being constructed on Sadie Lane again our ortho is a little out of date as Sadie Lane's a new project but there's two single family lots to the north of us that are also oriented to towards the west so um yeah one of the comments they had was orient these to the west as well now that that doesn't mean we can't orient the roof line towards the south um but but uh the feedback was orient them towards the west so so i would just jump in here and say you know i i would like us to perhaps give feedback that if it can be oriented to the south maybe that's what we should convey as you know something that this this council this you know board i z board um considers to be a valuable feature well megan the you know it all depends upon where the the peak of the roof is right in which way that the pitch goes if the pitch travels southeast i mean southeast is i think it's probably preferable the two directly west i mean i live in the cider mill and there are a few homes in there that have put they've put panels on the east side a little bit on the south you know on the side of a dormer so it faces south i mean trying to grab every angle they can because the house isn't situated with one broad side perfectly south the the the development that has really great southern exposure and its orientation is link road which is the next development north of the cider mill um so i urge the developer whatever you can do to maximize the solar collectivity if that's a word for your orientation that would be great yeah Ellen and one of the neighbors to the north i think two lots north has actually erected a solar ray in their yard it's not actually on their house it's in their yard and it faces directly you know like just a little bit southeast it's like south south south southeast yep okay is there someone who wanted to speak i heard a little oh tom your hand matches your back wall so i didn't see it i still need to take a drb class but i got one comment on this and i would just love it if when this goes forward there is some barbed wire back from when there was only cows that was part of town i'd love for all that really dangerous barbed wire to get ripped out all along that that line it's just a hazard with the amount of kids in public pedestrian traffic around there so i don't know what that's worth commenting here but it's an 80 year old barbed wire that's just begging to cause somebody problems agree 100 percent take it out tom duly noted that um that could be taken care of absolutely yeah but it keeps the riffraff off the land and all the animals if you're okay well we have lots of people who think solar panels should be faced south ours are southwest so i don't know but i think the installers probably know best are there any other questions or comments all righty so i go back to my cheat sheet here so um i would entertain i guess a motion to either close or continue you want to close to close okay megan moves and tim seconds all in favor to close this hearing say i all right okay well thank you very much yes thank you and have a good sleep brandon yeah absolutely i hope you can sleep thank you all all right nice to see nice to see you all right congratulations yeah already so moving on to item eight oh we have to go out of the public hearing or have we already we get i'll move can we exit the public hearing in the second all in favor i okay so we've exited so now we'll move on to item eight which is interviewing the applicants um i'm gonna have to bring that up on a i have the the sheet that was printed but i don't know the order that people were asked to um speak is john joey's wortzer was i don't know who's supposed to be up first who was scheduled at seven what are we at eight thirty i was joey's okay so maybe it's in order all right so joey's you're interested in serving on the development review board and there is let's see a four-year term and a three-year term there's just two so why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself i don't know if i can bring up your resume joey's we can only see the light and on your ceiling so maybe you can move your screen just a touch please good evening um i saw the ad in the local paper for the development review board and i thought this might be something that could make use of my commercial and residential real estate experience um i moved to south barlington um in 2016 from florida where i had worked for large and small lending institutions uh specializing in um project finance of all type um office buildings uh shopping centers um industrial and residential as well doing tracked housing projects apartment projects um and things of that nature so i thought this might be a good use of my experience uh to participate on the development review board okay have you um had the chance to sit in on one of the meetings no i have not okay do you um understand the the time commitment it's i mean i think matt can probably tell you how many hours you need to prepare for each meeting matt uh well uh of course it depends yeah it's in the meeting but um several hours okay before the meeting and you meet every other how long do you have to prepare matt marla is fantastic and she provides our packets with a week in advance okay yeah that's great good i have a question if i could certainly go ahead hi joys i'm megan hi and the question i have is you're the person on the street uh looking at uh you know your neighbor's homes or a neighborhood and you're looking at homes and what kind of features do you notice about not just the homes but the street about what things do you value in that in that particular development well being that i financed a lot of projects um and the approval process as far as getting a project approved was um extremely relevant to making decisions on financing uh i do have a lot of experience with that so you know i mean to me one you know one of the biggest things that um i'm always looking for is ingress and egress um orientation of what's proposed to be built i was listening to the prior discussion about uh those two lots and how they might want to swing them around to make the um neighborhood look a little more uniform and also of course with the the solar array um you know architectural features were something that we looked at such as such as such as um roofs you know how how are you doing your roofs um what was the the landscaping proposed um you know what what was the efficiency of the home that was going to be built likewise in looking at apartment projects um i would look at um uh not only this i planned but you know the layouts and make determinations on whether or not i felt that they were feasible um i did that for over 30 years and did a lot of large projects uh some smaller projects and you know from a from a dollar standpoint you know i i did everything from uh one to like 50 million dollars so a long track record um of being involved directly with real estate and you know um the features that are relevant just as what i heard discussed are things that were part of our uh requirements in order to be able to look at the feasibility of financing these projects when you look at a house what feature stands out just well you know does it blend in in the neighborhood um you know are you building uh uh a palace next to more moderate homes um you know what's the what's the architectural design of the homes um you notice windows do you notice doors garages of course thank you we need an eye joice that's why i'm asking you all these questions yeah hello maybe i can ask a leading question you may joice did you ever um in your real estate experience did you do one-on-one sales with with customers who were seeking houses or was it more finance related and large projects large project finance okay okay so so no i never did individual i never ever did individual mortgages i understand okay thank you so my question um i mean do you ask a lot of questions you like do you like to get into the nitty gritty the knit could could anyone ever describe you as a nit picker no i wouldn't say i'm a nit picker i would say i'm very detail oriented and that's the kind of work that i did required uh intense analysis um but no not nit picky okay but are you comfortable asking lots of questions of a yes yes i mean that that you know when you when you're making a loan on a five million dollar property you you ask every question under the sun you know and and a lot of experience of of dealing with developers um and no i'm not shy about asking questions but i don't ask um frivolous questions okay other questions all right so so she has attended some meetings no she had no i have not well okay okay thank you all ready so seeing is there anything we should know about you that we haven't haven't asked all that many questions but um or wasn't on this extensive application it wasn't very extensive but uh no no i was wondering why i wasn't asked to supply a resume you know a resume would have provided a lot of interesting information in terms of what i've done um you know i spent a lot of years uh belonging to um uh large real estate organizations and uh serving as secretary to uh neop which i know you don't have that here but it is a national organization and um i was on the board of directors of the uh south florida chapter which had typically over 300 members and um you know i spent a lot of time involved in that which exposed me to uh developers brokers attorneys architects engineers um you know lots of things like that there's um a big component is you really have to underwrite the project from top to bottom so you don't only look at how visually appealing it may be but um you know how much is it going to cost what's the financial feasibility of um doing a project of that nature and uh i i'm thinking that i might be um a valuable addition to the development review board but uh that'll be up to you one nice question can i just ask you um what brought you to self burlington that's my question children you to self burlington yeah no my my children um in uh lake 2015 my son had a baby and my first grandchild was born and i had a really really good job in florida i was a senior vice president at a bank and um i just gave it all up to come here and be with my family and my son and his wife and my five and a half year old granddaughter now five and a half uh live right down the block from me so and my daughter is also here so i moved here to be with family got it okay matt joice uh welcome to vermont we're glad to have you usually it goes the other way where vermont has moved to florida establish residents there so we're glad to have you here question to have is on the drb of course uh we're a quasi judicial body and we have to rule on projects so sometimes we have to um uh some times you have to recuse yourself if there's a conflict of interest are you doing any financing of real estate here in south burlington uh since you've moved up uh no i'm i'm retired now so um yeah thank you megan yep i'm looking at everything through a climate change lens so i'm curious to know joice if you would use the same lens as you're considering projects as a drb member oh i think we're all real concerned about climate change at this point so i would say yes thank you okay any other questions well i want to also welcome you and thank you for your interest and your application and we'll consider it carefully we um um this this process will take a couple meetings to me so and then we will um privately meet and make all our decisions on all the different um boards so we will let you know as soon as possible and um thank you very much for your interest and do you lastly do you have any questions thank you nice to meet you nice to see you okay thank you um i you know the suggestion yeah the suggestion of attending one of the development review board meetings is of interest to me so somebody wants to send me the information um i would be uh interested in attending i just thought when i saw it in the newspaper this is something that i can use 30 some odd years of experience and create value so that uh you know that preceded my thought of of sitting through a meeting great okay well i think you can go to our um i know you can go to our website the city website and all the meetings are posted there and um they're open to the public and they're all like this zoom and with the same kind of process to join and anyone may sit in and listen okay and what is the time frame in terms of decisions being made Tuesdays is it yeah no i wasn't yeah i was curious about the um process for assessing the applicants and at what point do you think you would be um notifying people you know i don't know how many we're doing um about 10 tonight and i think we have haven't helped me maybe 10 more at another meeting in two weeks uh hello uh i think i think you can anticipate both meetings in may you'll be interviewing people okay so won't be till june early june i think there's roughly 30 open okay okay all right sounds good you can always you know we have you made a decision yet we don't mind being bugged about that all right thank you very much joey's all right okay next up is ariel jensen barge varkas vurgus ariel you're interested in um affordable housing committee and development review although affordable housing is your top pick is that right yes okay so tell us why you're interested um affordable housing was the subject of my thesis when that for my master's in public administration which i finished in 2018 so i also am a landlord and i'm a tenant if the island is actually my landlord and i live in south village um and i'm also dedicated to um environmental uh sustainable and inclusive communities in vermont and i would just like to uh help basically do the great work that's been done already to create these communities and help move them forward okay have you i think you've attended some of the affordable housing committee meetings but i'm not officially a member that i've been attending since 2019 so i basically attend the city council meetings the affordable housing committee and sometimes the d r the development review review board because sometimes um something is covered in one meeting and then it's discussed in another so and i i feel like i'm i'm missing a piece of the puzzle if i'm missing one of the meetings so i just listen in okay show the kids are you experienced dealing with policy issues or can you describe your experience with policy issues developing them and yeah so um so my interest was really affordable housing when i was getting my master's but um what i was using as a way to talk about it was the gas piping um regulations and um that were being put into place for safety reasons and how actually by increasing the safety for these gas lines that were being installed updating old gas lines was creating too much of a um what is it a burden on lower and middle income homeowners who were then forced into foreclosure so um i actually was working with a licensed master plumber for nine years so i probably know a lot more than your average person about gas and plumbing you can sit next to Matt Kota at the next meeting so i've owned and managed properties for the last 20 years both in the city and in the adirondacks so i've dug the front strain i've installed roofing i've had frozen plates the whole the whole and everything in between no um and i feel like i see the issue from both sides both from the tenant and from the landlord side okay and you have the time and willingness to devote time outside of committee meetings to do little projects or uh yeah so i'm just you know i'm actually a multitasker so um you know but as i've been my first project actually and listening into these meetings was to construct for myself a glossary of terms that was the first thing because i and i would actually want to pass that on to any new members that would be some vocabulary um so it took me a while i just was like listening and to me it was like learning another language just to get all the afternoon together mm-hmm sometimes they do that in the legislature too i've had committees where i needed the glossary yeah okay um do you think you're patient this affordable housing is a long term gig yeah i know and you know what i have to hand it to you when i saw that this meeting started at 6 30 and ended at 10 30 i was like i didn't help you i hope you already have that pizza hut on speed dial so um i think that um not all of the meetings need to be 100 percent um what is it we're calling it zoom fatigue we're all staring at each other's faces and it's important to kind of take breaks on things that are not exactly relevant to you know a particular interest so yeah and it is a skill to build up so i mean these things can be kind of you know uh not exactly shiny you know and attractive but they're very important we're talking about 50 years that i don't yeah sorry okay other questions matt did i did i understand right arrow you said well first of all nice to meet you uh uh did you say that you wanted you were considering or would like to uh be considered for the affordable housing committee and the development review board and so um what is your preference all the affordable housing committee and the reason for the db board is because there is a need and so i feel like i can definitely um hop out there too and well last question what are your thoughts on our inclusionary housing ordinance and and inclusionary housing in general i think it should be city wide and um i think it's necessary going forward if we're going to have the kind of communities that we want to have in burlington and south burlington okay thank you very much i appreciate that comment okay megan so can you tell me how your environmental focus overlaps with your affordable housing focus how do you i'll tell you that i i moved to south edge and i actually was emailing with robin jeffers because i wanted to use the common grounds um compost power for my table scraps and then so two to three six months after that it became law in burlington to actually have that so um i actually think that um it to me it's a it's a wonderful dream to have all of that included um when you're having a high concentration of people and then you have sustainable um practices in place that lessens the impact on the environment and the surrounding wildlife and i'm talking specifically about breaking new ground versus redevelopment patterns of development mass transit access all these kinds of questions yeah um honestly i'm thinking that the transit will end up catching up with the developments so at this point if the focus is to say okay we need to build where there's currently mass transit um i'll see that south village for example and doris at farms are not at all serviced by mass transit whatsoever so if you're going to really build affordable housing then you need to be able to have that family not have to purchase two cars um so my daughter is a student at uvm that's actually how i arrived here in 2019 and there's no way for her to get to a bus i mean it's great that the buses have the bike rocks but the hills are prohibitive and anyway there's no sidewalk so i actually think that the transit infrastructure will catch up to where to go to where the housing is if only to have somebody driving a van back and forth in the nearest bus stop so i mean i think it's a work in progress thank you other questions tim or tom have you ever lived in affordable housing area is it aerial or aerial affordable housing i'm not sure i should ask robin jeffersman she was on that i think one of my the universe is currently uh marked for as affordable housing what do you what do you appreciate about it um well i face the woods and i actually walk in the south burlington woods which to me is just a pearl beyond price um and i have my strip so um what i appreciate about these buildings is that they're very snug in the winter they're very cool in the summer and um it's a nice community there's a walkway which actually has a very which is very pleasant to take and um i love the the literally organic farm in the middle and i have my plot there where i grow my own uh plants over years so i love it thank you okay and there's some questions so do you have any questions for us well yeah so i mean i don't want to put anybody on the spot right um but my thought going forward that i'd like to help the committee with is to really um find the way to do outreach to bring more to make the committee more diverse um this is actually brought upon by the young lady who gave the talk about uh racism in south burlington and after that presentation i started to look around um i mean it's nobody's um it's not news that vermont is highly white right um but as i'm looking around in vermont and i'm going to the post office i'm going to the supermarket um i'm seeing the actual and especially the schools the south burlington schools there's a lot of diversity coming in and growing up like little new shoots and i'm just thinking how wonderful it would be to include some of the parents for some of these other more diverse people into these and i feel like it's because they don't feel that they're specifically invited um i know that um these open forums are very unique to vermont and most people i think from other cultures would assume that they are not their opinions would not be valued and um that's so my question is kind of what are the plans for the committee going forward on that well i think you have hit or mentioned a challenging proposition because we go out to the public we advertise and say here are the openings and and wait for people like yourself to fill out an application and apply so i guess we could all do better at that and actually identify friends or acquaintances with diversity to encourage them to um apply for our committees because we certainly have a lot of committees and a lot of people yeah i don't know if that's a very good answer but i think i think some people just need a personal invitation some people just need to be approached person to person and say listen i think that you you know uh south berlington could really use you on a committee and would love to hear your feedback on some of the projects and i think sometimes that might be all that it would take to um have people start to participate but i'm gonna be wrong this is my theory great well i appreciate your interest in this community and your act activity already and um thank you for applying and you heard the process that'll probably be june when we have our final um meeting to make all the decisions but in the meantime um all the committee meetings are open to the public so you've already discovered that and i hope you'll continue great thank you so much have i hope you all have a good day okay you too okay now we are mark bear is mark here right i haven't been keeping track of who has arrived i don't see mark so let's move on to pop right there right you didn't turn your picture on fast enough for me okay so let me get you up on my screen you're like the hollywood squares i'm impressed at you you know where to point mark all right so mark you've been you've been on a development review um committee and would like to continue is that right mark are you speaking because we can't hear you you didn't have his ear budding so mark can you hear us we can't hear you mark sometimes if you turn the speaker off and then turn it back on now try it now speak we can't hear you one of you techie guys help them out i'm not the right person now we can hear you go ahead yep okay okay so tell us some why you would like to be on the d rb board or d rb pardon me howling please tell us um your interest in the d rb um well you know i've obviously been on the d rb now for 15 years so um i think at this point i finally started to get the hang of it taking me about this long um and you know i i think what i bring to the board is just that it's sort of time um working with all of the important members in every part of the approval process is important from city staff to the other board members to the applicants to the public and to all the various committees that contribute to the board um it's interesting how it's sort of changed over the years the committees have become a lot more important and a lot more involved and staff has always been really you know top-notch providing all the staff comments and feedback to the board and working with the applicants before it even gets to us um because you know at the end of the day we are a development review board um we take the land development regulations that you guys approve in the planning commission draft and we apply them to projects that come before us and by the time they come to us you know most of the issues have been sort of worked out with staff based on the regulations that are active at the time so i think it's it's something where i've kind of got the hang of that whether that's good or bad um you know recognizing that you know all projects have some inherent really good things and some inherent bad things and you kind of have to take the emotion out of the picture in reviewing them um that by the time you get to the point where a project gets to a motion or a vote you really have to review it based purely on the merits um you know it's something i've said for many many years when i was chair vice chair and just a board member is there's projects that are going to come before the board that you love but you're not going to be able to vote for and there's going to be projects you really don't like that you're going to have to approve and that's really what it comes down to we're quasi-judicial and our votes have to stand the test of an appeal and our votes are really to just protect the interests of the the city when it comes to the regulations that are before us okay as as an architect have you had to recuse yourself no i want to work locally what most of my work that you do locally it's just single family residential here and there most of my work is out of state okay that's good yeah um other questions people megan yeah market you give us yeah a story or two about where you've been able to nudge a project in a way that made it a project that you weren't so happy with but had to approve to a project that you were fairly happy with and and could approve you know with some heart behind it you know i don't i don't really recall specific projects but i can tell you that one of my guests i don't want to say rewarding because you know honestly it's not crazy rewarding as being a member of the dv because you really are just applying the regulations but i think if you wanted to use a rewarding experience i guess it's the po d process you know because it's really the area where as a board member you have the ability to nudge a project you have the ability to sort of ask for something that's not specifically in the regulations to give the developer some latitude and some flexibility um you know if they want to push the envelope a little bit while we want something as a city that's going to benefit the community as a whole that might give them a little more than they might not normally have gotten but we as a city are going to get something out of it and that's really what i see as i guess i'd say the experience as being the longevity on the dv to know when you can kind of push the envelope there you know one thing i've learned over the years is it never hurts to ask and you have to be able to say to when a developer says no okay that wasn't within our purview so i'm gonna have to accept that but normally they they really do want to work with the city and work with the boards and normally our comments and our requests aren't exorbitant and it always is nudging the project in a in a direction that is beneficial to the city and the community and have you have you i'm i'm hoping included in your own designs uh you know climate thoughtfully designed with climate change in mind um features or or uh placement on on a lot or or other things yeah i mean that that certainly comes with the trade-off between purely designing for like the south facing roof lines which you know we as a drb don't have a lot of like you know requests we can try to nudge we can try to request um my own personal designs you know most of my design work that we always are trying to provide orientation or at least enough roof area that roof is prepped for future solar work um i'm not a net zero architect you know there's plenty of architects that sort of do focus on that and are very good at it um you know i'm kind of more of a renovation restoration you know single family um architect and you know the development's important for combating climate change yes yeah yeah and um you know i think one thing that's interesting especially when it comes like the sq design guidelines um you know and it's one thing that we as a drb has have learned over the years is there's a couple requirements and criteria in those you know we learn the hard way that the should and the shall you know where we actually had to have the city attorney weigh in and tell us that should is a would really would love to see it but when you can't require it and shall is a yes it has to happen whether it affects the design or not you shall do it um is like the issue of the 35 percent windows oriented to the south you know because we've gotten feedback and comment from developers that do specialize in like energy efficiency that 35 percent openings in the southern face facing envelope is detrimental to energy efficiency because windows are not as energy efficient as wall wall surfaces so it's like you know that's why it's a it's a should not a shall because while it is nice to have that you know happen just from a sort of a quality of life standpoint it's a contradiction in the energy efficiency standpoint so that's kind of a balance where you know we work with developers and they say like we're going to try to achieve it as best we can for the majority of it but certain areas it's not going to happen and we can't sort of require it of them okay tim we can't hear you tim now your microphone's not working can you hear me now yes good so uh mark and i run the drb together many years ago i remember one project we worked on called trader joe snow um so mark has a really great aesthetic sense and also uh design sense and then also a technical ability which is just it's it's indispensable for the drb i mean he picked up right away on the fact that the trader joe's pier one building didn't have a window where they said it should be and they claimed they couldn't do it he said of course you can architecturally we do it all the time so he picked up on that like that right and there are a lot of other instances and i can just i can vouch for his design talent because there's there are several homes in south brillianton and have his touches and those touches are um they're the types of things that that make the difference between something being uh you know just plain and something being really beautiful so megan where you think that we need and i agree that we need people with more aesthetic sense on the drb we get a double play here because mark's got that and all the technical ability too so i i'm glad he's applying again great well that was quite an endorsement are there any other it was the question in there tim um have you attended any drb meetings in the last uh right actually with the advent of this zoom technology i certainly even didn't that was i couldn't attend for quite a while and i kept telling paul like paul i'm ready to step down i can't because i was traveling so much but then the go-to meeting and i started attending all the meetings virtually before the pandemic started i would call in um and then once the zoom you know pandemic i was like hey i'm actually a regular board member again translator translator okay i just have one question is there a a set of skills that um is missing on the drb that not necessarily i mean you apparently have lots so we got aesthetics and some untechnical ability in the architectural view of the world covered with you it sounds like but is there something else that's missing that you think um would be enhance their ability to function you know the one thing i've always said about all the board members is well it's nice that you sort of can bring sort of an expertise to the board you never know when someone's going to pick up on something that no one else has thought of yet and that doesn't always come from a specific skill set it comes from i always want the light bulb you know or suddenly someone said something just because they're listening and everyone's oh why haven't we thought of it which as an architect they might bring up something design wise i'm like i should have caught that i will say that you know like the two new board members that have just joined recently obviously clearly bring you know drb specific expertise you know stephanie the civil engineer and um dan the land planner so you know and then you know alise and dawn and brian's a real estate you know uh or an attorney so i i think it's a pretty good broad mix for it right now um you know i know in the past we've always had sort of like specific people for specific things um you know but quite honestly we've actually had quite a bit of turnover in the past say three to five years on the d rb um it was a little scary when i think brian made a comment either during deliberations when he said you know i realized i'm the second longest ten year d rb board member and i'm only here for three years or something like that and i've been on it for 15 you know i'm like oh boy maybe it is time for fresh blood and i should take a pass you know but i i you know i was jokingly say i serve at the pleasure of the city council you know as long as you guys want me to help out i'm happy to help out okay well thank you well i appreciate your longevity that's a lot of work and a lot of time i'm glad that this uh the pandemic had a good impact on your ability to participate it's not the only good impact on it but yeah yeah well there's one in a row for the pandemic good enough all right well thank you very much yep thank you very much good night and it seems like you guys have a much longer meeting we're having a long meeting thank you mark thanks all right good night everyone good night bob britt you're up next gang we're not quite halfway through these so oh we're chatting maybe a little bit yeah see everybody why shouldn't we appoint you really point you i'd love to serve again so uh we can leave it at that they're okay with that that's good enough for me that is good enough for me i think you've served along how many years have you served did you tell us it's september of 2015 yeah yeah so that's good so you really know how things work so that's helpful yeah all right well i was appreciated your um view of the world so thank you for your service you're welcome thank you okay uh denise townsen and denise is interested in the public art committee here we go oops my camera my camera looks like it's turned around and i don't know why it's very arty though i'll record in the uh so you know looks like you have talent denise yes it's art yeah um i don't know can you tap your screen can you tap your screen and do you see the arrows like in a circle that would flip it i don't see anything that would be a laptop an ipad or a phone or what i'm on a laptop yes okay that's really strange i only have a camera facing one way on my laptop you have that's only two yeah well you have a fancy laptop i can try to turn but i don't know you could turn your laptop around you wouldn't be able to see us but we'd be able to see you this is going to be awkward and you see me you're you almost have a camera on the outside of your laptop and it's like a phone right it's probably an espionage um laptop we see you denise i'm sorry you can't see us anymore i'm sorry people see too much of us i think they'd rather see you all right well it looks like um you're you're certainly interested why don't you quickly tell us why you would like to you've participated in a number of things on theater and dance arts um at UVM so what pushes you to apply for this job no i i don't participate in any arts at UVM um the UVM part is more my full-time job and i've taken um some certificate work and also a couple of courses in the public administration uh master's program um and though so my arts background is in the dance field um when i arrived in vermont in 2014 i became part of the brace dance company but she relocated to new york city um so i've been part of the vermont dance alliance and also volunteered at art hop um i recently most recently lived in burlington um so i was um right in the heart of burlington so i was close to the art hop scene um so now living in south burlington i would like to be part of an art community here so it seemed like this would be be a great um committee to be part of i think it's a nice committee denise yes yeah like my husband's on it so okay i enjoyed it yeah building buildings so we use it do some projects yeah i'm i'm not from vermont but i always remember as a kid just seeing pieces of art around and i know that they stay with me are stuck with me and so i feel like um as i part on my application i think that art is an act of resilience and i think that we need more or pieces of art that represent that for the community so that and art that everyone can see themselves in um and to be more welcoming and inclusive great any other questions people have sounds like you're bringing a good um new vision of what you might have to address and why how important it is to the public this isn't just a painting to go on a wall in your living room uh yes i absolutely agree i personally have been working on the concept of dialectical thinking um being able to hold you know two opposing thoughts at once but still come to a wise decision or conclusion and so i feel like art can be a way to explore ideas and um thoughts and it gives people the opportunity to think about their thinking and then hopefully when they act it's based on a wise mind well it sounds like a good use for public art um any thoughts or questions i don't know how often the art committee meets i don't think it's or it's on demand or it's on demand it's i think it's more when there's something in the hopper um i'm not sure and uh he's he's somewhere else the the member that i live with um but it it can it can depend it can depend on what you know what funds are available where they are in the project you know getting getting a commission out you know the request uh and then collecting those and reviewing those and then there's just kind of a fallow period right because they've used their funds and and then it starts up again understood yeah i my background is in the restaurant and retail industry managing those environments and my work at uvm and higher ed is new to me um and the public administration masters was also new and it led me to thinking about bureaucracy which led me to thinking about being involved in the community um to make sure that voices are being elevated that are not being heard um i'm with you denise i'm a uvm employee i feel like i've recognized you yes okay well the process will take the next month and we'll let you know in um june one way or the other i appreciate your interest are there one last question you might want to ask us or no thank you i appreciate the opportunity to apply and sorry for the camera that's okay it's an interesting conundrum to have a camera looking out so be good on a bus maybe so um thank you very much and we appreciate your interest thank you have a good night um you too ray gonda he is an incumbent um where's ray on the natural resources committee there we go hi ray good evening this isn't a hearing so i don't have to no you don't have to swear in but you do need to tell the truth oh i don't know if i can do that dodge all righty so tell us um you know why you want to continue on natural resources and conservation that's great this gives me a chance to advertise myself that's a joke um when i joined this committee uh it's about two years ago i guess um for some reason it just seemed to be so slow that there there wasn't real direction to it and then after that we lost membership and we became a non-committee and then again later we began committee so it was kind of like a fresh new start and i was elected chair i had no intention of being chair but i got elected chair probably because i've been on the committee a little longer than most of the other people um so i was kind of put in a position of well what do you do with this committee what should this committee be doing one of our major goals was to assist the DRB on environmental concerns but specifically is a project uh adhering to the LDRs uh well that was kind of a difficult thing and we spent a lot of time looking at the old LDRs and and considering if we could add to whatever the planning commission was doing uh and essentially all of that effort came to not once the committee uh became defunct but since then the planning commission has done a lot more work they now have a uh proposal out there a concrete proposal and those those that whatever those LDRs turn out to be that's what we're going to have to be dealing with on the natural resources committee so what i've been trying to do as a committee chair and i've been spending more time on this than i think i originally wanted to when i joined the committee but nonetheless i was trying to give i am trying to give substance and direction to the committee so that this committee has a goal has has the direction has a reason for a being if you look at our work plan you'll see a whole bunch of different priorities on it up and down and it's kind of like a mishmash of things but how do you get a committee to work together and have that community get some momentum and move forward and have the committee members feel like they're involved and and really participate uh and that worked uh starting back before the committee had its problems we created uh we had a work group and we created a document that we gave to the planning planning and zoning that was called natural resource early considerations and it was just the list of the kinds of things that a developer could expect us to be looking at and evaluating on any project we employed that document uh several months ago over the christmas time on the east view project the o'grain east view project and we actually i felt we did a really good job and the committee worked together like a team nine people like a team of people who didn't know each other worked together as a team so i felt good about that because we were getting momentum we are getting direction um now there are a number of other things that relate to our ability to do that one of them is and if you've seen any of our reviews we've done two reviews so far you'll see wildlife corridors is one of those things wildlife corridors have not been fully mapped by the planning commission and i know there are wildlife corridors out there having been an outdoorsman much of my life there are wildlife corridors out there that do not show up on any map so one of the things that we're discussing doing is doing that mapping and why would we do that mapping now why don't we just do it project by project what's because take for example the long property there's a wildlife corridor there and identified wildlife quarter and if we say to the developer there that well we'd like to see you maintain a quarter i would fully expect fire and build or i'd come back and say well what's your overall plan why are you telling us to have a wildlife quarter when you've got this whole area to the south it's still open so what that speaks to is we need to do the mapping and have some sort of plan in in place as we continue to go through and review projects so in short if you continue on the committee you would like to really push for and get some mapping done and and be able to have that as a tool yes that's true that will be on our agenda we're going to make a decision whether to do it or not and the consideration is do we do it project by project or do we try to do it as a single project and then use it when we evaluate the various housing developments come up i'm going to let the committee make that decision i'll make the case that we should do it but the committee is going to make that decision okay um does the council have any questions we have a little bit of a time frame so when you are incoming so we probably don't matt we can't hear you matt mr gonda you said you said in your comments that the natural resources committee disbanded or went away for a time being in your opinion what was the reason for that uh probably due to myself i was an advocate and there were some people on the committee that were not advocates and i think it created some sparks i don't understand well this is something i really didn't want to talk about okay but i'll just i'll just speak it lightly we had a committee chair at the time who it's just hard to explain this uh would not let our working group get down to business and do business he was that person was too concerned about form about about authoritarian structure you know i can't really explain this in this meeting it's just going to take too long and i feel very uncomfortable doing it but matt is it that is a good question and i think it's appropriate that you ask it let's just call it personality differences that led to some sparks within our committee and i think there were there was one person who didn't like that so that person left the committee there was another person who left the committee before all this happened so that was too down and then the third person left the committee after we completed the early natural resources committee document that was basically he did the basic work on that document and when he was done he left so what i'm saying is is there were a combination of reasons as to why the committee went the fuck does that help matt okay other question oh are you done matt yes thank you mr okay and megan race talked a lot about what they're working on currently can you tell us a little bit about the dynamic of the committee now i think it's pretty good there are two exceptions uh one is a member who doesn't believe global warming is real and the other is not attending meetings but currently that's for health issues so essentially we're down two people otherwise one person who doesn't believe in climate change doesn't attend the meetings well he hasn't attended the last meeting and he hasn't been he hasn't joined except for the original project we did on eastview he reviewed what the whole document was and gave my gave input on it he did that much but he has not participated since then so how many people are left that actually do anything there's there's seven of us it's a big committee yeah it's it's it's big enough as i said one of one of the members is has got health issues and he hasn't attended the last two or three meetings well he attended the first meeting i think that was it and you so you have four openings one being you because you're an incumbent and three others okay well they haven't resigned so i can't say anything about that but by the way well the term might be up that's what i mean yeah i don't know if they are not yeah okay other questions all right well thank you for reapplying and working hard to pull the committee together i was aware of some of the issues it was um a challenging time for sure so thank you ray thank you um bill wargo hello bill it's been a long long many many years of uh i'm knowing you how are you hello so you're interested in the natural resources committee as well right and have you attended any of the meetings i have not but i plan to okay and you're retired now so you have lots of time well i'm retired but i'm gradually getting into other kinds of things i'm still working with jan carney at the medical school and develop developing a course and i uh am doing some guardian at light um work and uh good for you of other things uh in the couple of other irons in the fire but yeah so i'm keeping busy great great so you want to i mean i know a lot about you and how you work with people very well um why don't you share some of that with the council sure um uh well i think the main reason as i indicated in my application was uh for my wanting to get on this particular committee is because i've had a lot of experience working with the city of wunewski for 10 years and with the health department for a much longer period of time than that on issues related to natural resources and the environment um and i could go into specifics about that but there may be other people waiting in line um to uh present their cases about getting on various boards and everything so i'll just say that um in uh in carrying out those particular positions and jobs i found that i'd be very interested in getting another job where i could focus on or another position where i could focus on the natural environment and natural resources and it seemed as though this particular committee was the way to do that um since we moved to uh south burlington um and since my retirement i've been involved in working at the south burlington public library and starting up a cookbook club which is another thing i'm doing and that's been immensely successful and and we've been doing that for about three years but it seemed as though it was a good idea to get into something that was much more related to the kinds of jobs that i had in the past and the natural resources and conservation committee seemed to fill that bill and it sounded from what ray gonda said just a couple of minutes ago it sounded as though he was trying to kind of steer the committee toward more specific kinds of uh projects and and things to do and i'd like to work with him in doing that i've never met him but he sounded like a very uh a guy who would follow through on the kinds of things that he wanted to do okay i have a question for bill sure i'm making hi um what are your views on the science of climate change i guess we have to ask that question i am uh a believer in climate change and you know i will um try to do my best to try to convince that person if it ever comes to it who's on the committee why climate change is real and that and something has to be done about it okay they also believe in solar power and a lot of other good things too are you a friend of these and all the pollinators that we need right ray ray is very much into into bees and pollinators uh oh i didn't know that any other questions but i think it would be interesting to have your and helpful this sort of health um world view um and how important the environment is to our health and um and natural resources to our health and and how we really need to protect them so thank you i'm excited about getting involved yeah you have a lot of expertise on that for sure thank you so i appreciate you um applying and thank you and we'll um we'll let you know in um june june okay thanks thanks everybody else too so don't hold your breath that's a whole month hopefully we'll be alive for you in june i've held my breath for the last year with covid so you know that's true absolutely haven't we all okay thanks a lot bill thank you very much okay now we're gonna hear from denise um hyzinski hersey did i pronounce that right you did i'm very impressed and i don't even usually use the pizinski part so well i figured since you put it down i needed to use it i don't remember putting it down but i'm glad okay so denise you're interested in the library board of trustees so um tell us why you know i have a lot of work before i'm so sure and i know you're um it's getting late so i am a librarian um i'm actually new to south berlington and vermont i moved here in august uh i um came i'm coming to academic librarianship profession so i'm actually the new director of the data medical library at uvm and i have a well we've always wanted to live in vermont my husband and i so we're excited to be here and we intend to be here for many many years and i really appreciate um being involved in my community and supporting my community so i did see the ad um the board and my son is in college now so i have the time and capabilities to really um devote my myself to uh something that i believe in and i think you know many of us can say we are big proponents of public libraries and what they do so i feel like i bring some expertise um in understanding interlibrary loan library budgets uh how to license resources with vendors um so i'd like to i'd like to bring that experience to support the south berlington public library great questions have you been to any of the meetings no no i see that there once a month on thursday so it's six so okay great i do have a card i did get a library card although it's kind of virtual right now i haven't been able to pick it up but i can use it right yeah well there'll be a lot going on and going forward with the library right i heard roister yeah somebody did hear earlier about the schedule for the new building so so questions anyone did east do you live across the street for me it could be what number are you 162 i think you're across the street 179 royal you live on the cider mill right yeah yeah you live across the street for me so how nice are we if i look at my window do i see you well no i'm on the backside and i know people new people move in and then i go wait i know her it didn't become a cookie for anything tim well now you're fantastic okay well welcome to vermont denise thanks for coming oh thanks oh no we've always wanted to come so i'm so happy we had the opportunity where did you come from all right well i'm going to tell you i came from new jersey but i was only there for a couple of years working at princeton it's okay it's okay yeah the princeton area um i'm just kidding oh well that's a nice part of new jersey yeah it is it's gorgeous um and prior to that i was in Connecticut for 25 years so yeah denise what is the data library it did you said is it larner or is it uvm it's a medical the medical library at uvm okay so we serve the learner college of medicine in addition to the the medical center and the college of nursing and health sciences it's called the dana dana yes and there's also one at um vermont the medical library there is dana as well so okay thank you all right well thank you very much for applying it sounds like you know your way around the library and um i'm hoping you have a whole lot of new good ideas and want to um help us with our new way so thank you our questions for us or not yet i've been exploring the website um and i saw that there's a site for the the trustee so i think i do have a question if that's all right Helen oh yeah of course denise have you always always been in a university library or have you ever been in a public library i have not worked in a public library so i'm i'm just a library user so i've always been in academic libraries and one corporate library oh an corporate library oh interesting okay yeah a nonprofit so cool all righty well thank you very much denise thank you thank you you too and welcome to vermont yeah okay libraries are wonderful places they're very good museum librarians they're they're all right the next one is dana short quote that was that was close it's dana sorda sorda oh okay the last second w is not said okay i thought maybe the t wasn't said get your finger one of them was silent and i guess the wrong one but anyway so i'm gonna find you okay and dana you're interested in the library as well heard uh denise i don't i do not have library experience on a public user um but i have over 35 uh years in higher education and i'm getting ready to retire in may um and uh like many of the people i've been listening to i'm very interested in serving back into the community i moved to south berlington in 2015 um to take care of aging parents um and so actually when my parents were living here uh and we would come to visit we always talked about retiring here so i feel like we came to help them and we also got the the benefit um i have worked at all three schools in uh berlington so st mike's i started out my career there uh uvm and i'm currently working at champlain um i was working at merrimack college where i helped design the new library there so some of the renovation pieces um and looking at the new plans for the library really excite me um have done fundraising before um and consider myself a really good team player and collaborator and and do this as a opportunity to give back and also to gain something for myself uh getting involved in my local community great okay i'm not afraid of fundraising that's a really good skill to have i worked at big brothers big sisters for a couple of years and did the fundraising uh grant writing i'm comfortable with the public speaking and telling the story um and really believe the library is the community uh like the living room of our community here in south berlington so it's an opportunity to make sure that we have good access looking at inclusion and really just making it a place where people want to be um and so that would be something that i would really be curious uh to learn how we could do that for everyone well i like your comment that you'd love to tell a good story that supports a mission because that's that's really important especially with fundraising yep yeah do you um have any questions for us i don't i really appreciate that you have put this in for an entire evening so uh with a lot of gratitude yes long night for y'all ready okay well thank you again for moving here and for um applying for this we appreciate um thank you all probably have so many volunteers and they're so wonderful they really make the city what it is so they do i i helped out with voting um during the pandemic and really got to do some things that way and actually helped the library move from its old place to the mall great so yeah so looking forward to help moving it back yeah okay thank you dana for both of those major tasks yeah taking care all right thank you good night good night okay last but not least ted lensky wants to continue your incumbent yeah yes i am hi there so i'm glad you want to stick around yes uh we moved here in 2019 and the board was kind enough to um asked me to serve on the library board i've um been serving as the treasurer of the library board um work closely with jennifer and the team on the on the board we're excited about the new library um excited to work with jennifer as part of the treasurer and the finance committee to develop our staffing plan to try and make sure we have the library available for the hours to support the community to develop its people and to be the resource for the community um want to continue um being a part of my role into the community and would enjoy serving on the library board again okay well you get good marks from your chair thank you patrick yep wrote me an email um do you have any question i don't i don't know if anyone has any questions for ted i'm tickled that you want to continue do you have any questions for us i don't i've been i've enjoyed my role enjoy working with patrick and jennifer and um would be honored to serve again great okay well thank you very much thank you we'll we'll make our position in in june as i've said all righty thank you thank you thank you for hanging in the air apologize for running late no problem at all thank you have a good evening you too okay well we're not well we are running finally okay let's move on to um item nine which is consider and possibly approve the local emergency operation plan terry francis i move that we accept the plan yeah i would second that second after a complete reading so right okay we by the chief i apologize running late but who's janet francis why we can't hear you you don't look like a janet you really don't yeah that's good she's much better looking than i am a lot smarter so you need us to um approve the local emergency operations plan yep we managed to skip it last year because of covid but during an emergency all the ranks all the right phone numbers and it's all up to date i took the little management course right three years ago maybe it was really fascinating yep and hopefully uh we can get the folks that haven't had that yet back into that program i think it's really good for people to know that the local uh emergency action plan fits in dovetails very nicely with the states and uh we can all pull yours together and get work done and we certainly didn't last year any major changes no let's move it i move that we passed that we approve the emergency uh local emergency operations plan the second okay all in favor thumbs up hi thank you chief hi thank you very much i'm sorry you had to hang in so so late for this that's all right i'm getting i get a chance to meet some of my community people that i wouldn't meet otherwise good okay well thank you for all that you do okay charlie you again yeah so i know we sent you uh some information and a presentation in your packet i'm happy to open that up and review it uh if you looked at it you saw that there were a couple questions we're really just asking for a recommendation from the city council about what to do with interchanges at this point i don't know so i'm happy well madam chair if you'd like me to do a little bit of the presentation i'm happy to do that but i know we've already spent quite a bit of time with you on this topic and it's getting late yeah it is i but i think it was important and helpful to read all the comments from various committees they didn't all land exactly in the same spot um but it seemed as if the vast majority for whatever reasons or for many reasons like the um and to the point that i'm going to interchange a couple of committees weighed in on that topic and we didn't hear from a couple of the committees as well so i don't who didn't who didn't get back with you uh you know i think the one uh the one i was surprised not to hear from was the economic development committee uh well we got something oh okay good like i said you may have heard some uh feedback that we didn't get so which is yeah did everyone get to read that i think it came in an email that kevin followed us and there's your packet too they saw everything we sent that we sent that directly to the count to the council the economic development came in on friday we sent it directly to the council so they'd have that tonight yeah they wanted 13 and 12 feet they really wanted to nail home the business community keep them happy so what do you need from us i mean um yeah i if uh to whatever extent you'd like to give a recommendation uh to the process that would be great um but completely up to you from either taking action or not taking action we're we're flexible well that's that seems to me the 13 came in a little ahead and i would agree yes so if we're gonna support something i guess i would i would suggest that it's well helen i i would support 12 b i think it's important for uh the future of our economy not in south berlington but vermont that we developed that infrastructure and i would not want garland is to stop thinking about ways that we can incorporate a new exit and the ways that that south berlington can work with um that possibility to improve our economy well all of them create a new exit right and i would say that given the desire to have more housing particularly in that area i would rather not have an exit there i would much rather see that be a place for residential housing near those employment centers in an area where we already have the transit route starting just inching south on heinsberg road and and i i just i don't see um the the compatibility there um i am concerned about what kind of development i'm torn but i think given the need for housing i am gonna opt for the housing as opposed to to having um that traffic infrastructure i i think we can have both i think we can have it all and 12 b makes it possible i'm not so sure living living close to a highway is not necessarily desirable and and you have exits with the truck brakes and all the rest i i i just i don't see that as possible well i'll wait and so the highway is going to be there no matter what i just see 12 b in the similar light to the economic development letter and i'm sorry you didn't see that charlie but it really spells some out spells out the arguments that i've heard it since i first joined council um i remember when i first started thinking about running i met with people like john nicklidge and he was talking about how 12 b's been on the books for uh decades and i remember him also talking about the importance of it fitting our land use uh zoning for that area the two tech parks right there so that's why i just see that 12 b it does fit since on both sides of it is not currently residential housing it's currently zoned for industrial use and it's also got the airport off to a stretch so i wasn't quite following your comments there megan about uh i'd like to have a change in the zoning i i'm in it for the for the long haul to have that be a mixed-use residential commercial area the tech parks okay you want to rezone the tech parks for residential housing what does that have to do with the interstate interchange then because i think that when you have roads with biking and and and pedestrian and all of these this needed infrastructure for this new residential and and business center i think that an interchange in the middle of that is just it's not sound design well currently we don't have you we don't have an interchange between we don't have a full interchange between exit 12 and exit 14 exit 13 is this kind of like hybrid thing that wasn't fully conceived i think when it was planned um i would love to see exit 13 have at least the full north south compatibility that 14 and 12 have but right now 12 doesn't have anything and people live in 12 exist people that live live in the south in heinsberg and endorse it far uh sorry all their farms oak creek um the rye property and eventually the hill property and and all the businesses in the tech park right they they have to take 116 north to get to kennedy drive to go one direction the other either exit 12 or exit 14 right to get back to the interstate that that concentration of business and housing that it has expanded out from that that intersection of 116 and and 89 is the perfect place to put an interchange and to get that traffic off of kennedy drive get it off of 116 and let it flow where it wants to go and and i know that there will be some sacrifice of some of that land for um for the the interchange roads themselves but but any argument in my mind that says that oh you're you're just going to create more traffic it's like you've already got an interstate right underneath 116 and it goes right over the top of it what's a better place to connect up with the interstate system than where you have that connection right now you're gonna you're gonna have much more you know like gas station convenience store uh you know big box store as opposed to what i don't think you have zoning for big big box stores there right now i i don't think that's what i just i've seen i've seen interchanges throughout my life and that's not where you want to settle down with your family and go for a bike ride i think you already have people settle down in in butler farms oak creek highland terrace all those houses up in there cider mill 2 is going to be a huge feeder for that road and those people are not going to want to have to go to exit 12 or exit 14 to get on the interstate you have people commuting up from heinsberg you know on on 116 it just i mean i i'd love to see exit 13 completed but you can argue for the fact that exit 13 is like almost all the way there if you had to you can go down to chauvin road take a left take a left and get or take a left take a right and get back on the interstate and head back you know in the other other direction it's not optimum but maybe one type of the one type of change that could be made that would facilitate more growth in that area would be 12 b so have you ever gone through has it st george um and and then gotten on the the interstate at exit 12 that's perfectly possible that's where we've gone several times when we're in that area i think it's important for us to hear from the planning commission who unanimously supported exit 13 and we should ask them why especially when we're looking at all these new land development regulations coming forward with the puds and looking at where that housing should go there's clearly a reason why they unanimously recommended exit 13 and i think we should hear from them because i think that there are ways to get to exit 13 so if we exit 12 b i'm the one who who recommended putting the that exit where it is but when i look at our housing needs and i see that we're going to be taking cars off of exit 13 and putting them in 12 b in the middle of a place that i'd love to have families move into that just makes no sense from that perspective and i i just don't understand what what what housing is going to be displaced by exit 12 b megan exactly what housing is displaced well you're going to have you're going to have many more cars you're going to have much more exhaust because you have cars stopping at life where does that where does that displace housing that's what i've got to know i would like land is being taken that's going to eat away at housing i would like to see housing just near meadowland drive tilly drive that's but that's in meadowland that's not where the interchange is about the interesting with 116 what land will be taken away from housing at 116 and in 89 i'm saying as a i'm not a young parent anymore but i have a 10 year old i would not want my daughter going out on 116 knowing that there is a highway interchange there whereas if we can do real infrastructure with pedestrian and biking bike lanes maybe when charlie's plan has a plan for pedestrian and biking access it's better than today because right now there's a tiny little strip because i bike on that road yes but i i could travel to uvm by bike you know what i did it once because of those interchanges that is not a place where if we want to have young families with children that we should have interchanges because you're just not you're not you're not making something that it's going to be family friendly okay i think tom wanted to make the comment i just really appreciate council barrett's comments and i'm very much of the same mind and i was going to say in my strong support of 12 b and i think 13 is also makes sense too but i'm very sold on many of the pluses of 12 b and i would want two additional aspects to be added it as things go forward is one would be an amenity oriented park and ride really to address some of the concerns that i heard councilor emory raise i would love to see any new interchange there take advantage of an opportunity to design a park and ride like what we have in richmond but with the thoughts in mind to really get people out of their cars to really address climate change concerns we have and to foster public transportation i think that's a possibility and the other thing is we have to watch out for that we all want to watch out for the self-growth taxpayer and i'd love to further further explore any transportation tiff transportation infrastructure or you all understand tips i don't need to go into that but ways to have the any growth that does occur in that area similar to how we have the downtown to pay for any local city burden so those are things that i want to be part of a conversation about hopefully going forward but i fully support that interchange as well as 13 i think all the all the commissions including the planning commission makes sense for looking at road for exit 13 but 12 b makes a lot of sense for all the reasons already offered i just find 12 b going into tilly drive or all those medical buildings are just very odd yeah well yeah you won't you won't get housing there that's for sure it will change the development pattern that i see for that area yeah you're not going to get housing where the buildings are until you drive anyway that's all zoned for professional we can change zoning tim we're in the process but that that is a huge uvm medical facility and it's all owned by them right now yeah but wouldn't it be wonderful if you had people who could walk to their you know get their their their their appointments is down the road i mean i can do that for my dental right now i could do it for brian hillside property is going to be filled with people that could take that could technically walk over there if they wanted to uh if they're also undeveloped land there's undeveloped land to the northwest of that property which could have housing someday yeah but the interchange to walk from there to across an interchange you know you're going to have wide this is you've seen you've seen across that thing today megan because there's no crossing there's no crosswalks there's no crossing and lights at least if you have controlled signalization you can have people safely cross a highway when cars are stopped uh who wants to live when you have to cross on highway to get to someplace i'm sorry this is just so anti you know quality of life and and i and i just if if you know if we could have both ways i would go for it but i just i see that there's a real conflict here and it's conflicting with i would say our housing goals uh so so to redirect charlie wants us to give some guidance is that correct on on where now are you asking for a formal motion because i'm prepared to make that motion if you'd like that or if you're just looking for the sense of the of the council charlie uh you know the that's formal as you want to make it is better from you know my standpoint because then it's something we can clearly communicate we have a planning commission member here i wanted to hear from the planning commission too i also want to mention one other just just to keep in mind that this is a planning study um and that this is not a finality in either direction um so i just you know why you to know that like it's going to go through quite a bit of process after this right with the environmental stewardship just yeah and that would include the NEPA process and environmental impacts so um there is a process for this and i just want to just be clear about that that this is not a final position if anybody was having that kind of anxiety so well i do think by the time this gets built even the the business models that i think mad is thinking about may not even be viable who knows you know just to make it all about servicing a couple businesses i think is i don't know that's really hard to predict accurately so we may have this and and i i guess that question you know i i can't remember who it was said there was so much traffic on um kennedy drive kennedy drive is practically empty we built this huge four lane thing that hardly gets used i mean why don't we want that to be a place to get to the airport or or chelburn road or williston road it just seems like city center let's pave over the county trying to it's very pro car 12 v i agree i would argue it's really just pro efficient transportation and movement of good services of people just to give it people faster reduce commute time so thus less environment eight look at your strap chart it's anti-environment it's right there i also think it would foster a resident uh regional density so i think it's that if you can you look outside of just south burlington i think it'll draw the growth not but smart growth intelligent growth that we can design around already well one will want to live there no megan don't keep interrupting please sorry i'm hearing westford is talking about sewer infrastructure i'm not necessarily for against what westford's thinking about but what i'm saying is westford is at the furthest corner of chitin county so as we look at the entire region i see this as the type of smart growth to reduce commute timescape faster access to good services employment centers so i think it's the right type of uh of uh thing to plan for in the future but i would also go back to what charlie said which is this decision is not making 12 b happen this is a long process that uh it's with way romant works in the champlain parkway and this presidential highway nothing is going to happen or be decided tonight it's just yeah there is there are no construction trucks that are happening now i think what charlie's asking for is the sense of the board and and i think i have the sense that uh the board wishes cc rpc to continue to study 12 b as a viable option in south burlington for the future and if the cc rp may say no it's not viable we can't do it and then the money may not be there and that's fine but we don't want you to stop looking at it i don't want you to stop looking at and i would make a motion that says to continue to investigate 12 b as a viable option for our city our economic development committee said you can you should do both i would love both of them um active and active um discussion or can you do that charlie look at both of them as a combo are you looking just for one you know i think we're trying to um doing both is really a compounding thing because we're we're doing one of these with new improvements at x of 14 to add the third interchange improvement kind of doubles or triples the work um because that's uh you know three combinations instead of one um so i'm not saying we couldn't but it would probably cost some more to to take a look at that uh in addition um i'm happy if that's where you end up i'm happy to explore you know how to do that um and it may stretch out the time a little bit too i don't want to uh speak for the consultant team without talking to them first but um so it does make it a little bit more challenging um just from a study aspect um i don't know how to take back charlie but if that's a motion that you're looking for a second madame supportive of it i also i don't see 13 as something to shut the door on either i think both of them the case has been made and i wish money if there was an infinite amount of money i want to do both so i'm of that opinion too we have a motion um but i think we need some and seconded further discussion michael did you want to chime in for the planning commission and then yes um well you've already received the planning commission's views that uh and and i get back to charlie charlie wants you to choose one right that's that's the mission we were given at our that would be easier from our view yes pick one and the planning commission and several other committees uh chose exit 13 to make it a full single diamond uh interchange because it would give you direct access to the airport it would give quick access and and a benefit for city center which is the commercial we hope the commercial center of south berlington um uses a huge amount of land acres and acres of land uh and nobody is to me how they would avoid destroying a major major wetland uh between the southern and northern buildings of uh a lot of that land belongs to sure that it doesn't buildings at least them to uvm i can't be sure but was it clear for extra people in the chain michael you're going in and out we don't see bigger pardon your voice now it sounds good but it was going in and out ah well i don't know why that is but can you hear me clearly now i can yes yes yes you froze up again if i can adjust this thank you froze is there another planning commission member here an energy uh also let me just take a look at the list here i know that andrew chanek was here yeah andrew's here andrew could you talk to us about energy committees the energy committee i think um kind of felt similar sentiment that michael's articulating that kind of exit 13 now doesn't really work great and that um it you know if we had to choose between a new exit and kind of fixing the current exit um we we we thought we'd better to kind of fix the the current exit and kind of share your concerns megan about the quality life around the new exit there for the residents i will say that the the overriding sentiment of the energy committee was to if we're going to spend 10 20 million dollars to to build more pedestrian and mass transit and and bike mobility rather than car mobility but um if if we were kind of forced to use the money for for this project um you know we we kind of unanimously thought 13 was better than the 12 day there's one other thing anything spoken to me he says if you build the exit you don't need to funnel traffic uh into that area am i still breaking up you're back now you're back now but somebody else in your house using you know what the problem is take time if i could jump in here all i all i would say is i would like for me to be able to develop a resolution where we look at policy decisions through climate change lens and i i realize that you all know what that means that means that to my mind 12 b is very much contributing to our climate change issues i see 13 as a solution um and i would really like that's my request that we hold off until next meeting and i'll prepare a resolution and we look at we look at this through a climate change lens but there's a motion on the table and it's been second and so we should have a vote um we can table that motion matt if people agree well i don't agree okay what i'd say i i don't see 12 b as the calamity for environmental for climate change for the the region because i i see it as smart growth with the environmental benefits of regional density to get more concentrated housing in that area away from the corners the far corners and further out into the hinterlands i also see the public transportation amenity oriented park park and ride is really needed for the whole region we need more richman richman park and rides and i also see this is reducing commute time so i don't see this as a as a bad thing for climate change even electric vehicles are going to need shorter time so to to your point council emory i don't see 12 b as as anti climate or not addressing the climate change concern oh let's have that discussion right now it has the lowest environmental stewardship it has uh the lowest livable sustainable and healthy communities uh i think that these lowest system preservation as a lot of things that i think we need to talk about and if you're willing to have that debate i would ask that you table this so we could have that that debate i think those debates are going to happen what as this moves forward because of all of the different requirements that the federal government act 250 and everything else requires so all of those things will be considered about April 29th they have a public meeting so if we meet at our first meeting in may and carry on i don't think we're slowing them down is that correct charlie uh to be honest with you i was hoping to come out of this meeting with a decision that we could communicate it at the public meeting and kind of start to turn the page into what the packages of that are more like what andrew described you know all the climate change efforts and investments that we would make before we would do an interstate um so uh but uh consular emory we will remain flexible um you know the best laid plans um so we'll uh do we'll follow your lead whichever direction you go with i see that jim burton wants to speak michael you're still breaking up maybe you could leave michael and come back yeah i wanted to as uh i'm involved with the economic development committee and uh important to realize that we landed on 12 b is providing the most economic benefit to the town because of high paying jobs and improvement to the business parks access would accelerate more businesses settling in in our business parks so uh we see it as actually a win-win that uh with the increased tax base that will come from all of that uh and taking uh you know large trucks off of the secondary roads uh i think this is a win for the environment and i think uh with the additional proceeds that could come from the taxes that would result from further development in the existing business parks that are already prepared for this i that money could be put to other great things like bike paths and pegs and all the rest of it so uh i see that the area is uh been already prepared for this uh most towns of size have a business park district and generally it's built right off of an interchange in effect national uh companies coming in the area will expect that uh so the absence of 12 b has actually slowed uh you know people uh choosing to settle at the business park that we have so that was the uh the consensus at the economic development committee uh we said if you don't do 12 b then yeah 13 has some economic benefit but not as much as well be will you see residential and those business parks that you have seen uh no they're business parks and there's a place for business parks and in fact south riland has the most business parts of any city in vermont so it is the economic engine of the state in that regard i think it's important to the state's economy and to the county economy uh and uh if the role we play the the benefit is we get the tax that activity as well and use that for other public good so the answer is no is that correct you don't see residential we don't think it's a it's a residential issue we've already got residential zoning we also don't believe that by the fault uh the properties around that exit have to dramatically change that's up to planning zoning and regulation uh it's not a given uh certainly uh it will provide better access and get some some traffic off of our secondary roads particularly the heavy traffic that is going into the business park excellent thank you john no residential so not excellent well um we have a motion um i think you know as charlie said this is not a way to complete i think we can come back to this um if need be just as a community oh michael mitag yes let's see if we can hear you now if you can hear me now how's that sound yes that sounds fine until it doesn't sound fine now okay so i just have a question in closing before you vote on this motion about the weight that will that will be uh the waiting given to the opinion of the council or some members of the council and the opinions of the the various committees of the city that that worked on this um a few weeks ago which which committees and and uh represented a long a large part of our community many many people participated so um it's a question of balancing the needs of of evidence for whom the quality of life is more important possibly than the development of of easy access to the to the business parks um technology park or meta and um also the use i said earlier that 12p will use up a lot of land if you look at it the way it's laid out um the hill the hill farm it'll use up a chunk of that the contribution to um the negative contribution to climate change just from building it will be significant um so no we all preferred exit 13 for the reasons we've we've given in our written comments to each other you know there's a question of balance here what's more important um we don't see that uh that they'll that that it's needed because exit 13 access to route 116 which which gives you access to the Tilly Drive area and um and and Kennedy Drive gives you access to uh many lands as well so we just don't see that it's necessary the other thing is that 13 full interchange of 13 had the lowest cost on the the highest scores in many in many categories so it didn't seem like a no-brainer to us thank you i agree with you it had the much higher court of ranking and i think there's a number of committees that weighed in um and i appreciate that work but um apparently the council as other majority of the council have other ideas so we have a motion on the table um are you ready for that vote just one one more item uh Helen is that as Charlie's pointed out before don't forget that all of these bridges all have to be replaced anyway right so there's going to be a ton of energy spent in tearing things down and building things back up and fashioning the steel and bringing it in and trucking it and then putting it in place so we're not going to get away from having to spend energy to replace even aging infrastructure it has to be done anyway the question is exit 12b versus exit 13 you have something at 13 now it does something it's been serving a a function for many years there is no connection at exit 12 and there is demand for inter for intersection to to be able to conduct traffic you know on and off the interstate that hasn't existed before there is demand for that you have the opportunity to make a decision to pursue that in the future where it doesn't exist today and that will have benefits for commute times and also reducing travel times for people that have to go out of their way into the city to get back on an interstate to go somewhere and also for all the people have destinations for the uvm health services that are going to be right off that exit so I just want to point that out that it's an opportunity to provide connection where it doesn't exist today and it has you have to rebuild it anyway so you might as well spend the extra money and put something in that gives you an advantage absolutely two people wish to speak Helen I'm reading in the chat Chris Trombly and Ariel or Ariel I'm sorry okay why don't we hear from those and then complete this so Chris why don't you start yeah thanks Helen I'll be brief I just want to weigh in the portable housing committee did take a look at this we weighed in that you know we incurred attributing a greater weight to likely economic development benefits of the exit alternatives you know we didn't weigh in on 12 v or 13 but we understand that you know housing affordables the ratio of resident income to housing expenses you know and the opportunity to bring in jobs to the region does have a positive impact on housing affordability so we didn't we didn't pick one but we do ask that the economic development is weighted higher than it currently is so that a team can evaluate the benefit of which which exit would be better thank you thank you Ariel hello no you sound like one of the chipmunks nope no you still sound like the little chipmunk maybe take it in the chat box and Helen oh no there your voice is okay I don't know what you did but you're a human being welcome thank you now the only thing is I think what's missing from this discussion is the grant that's already in place to basically revamp that hill on spear street that goes from the intersection of swift and spear to uvm once and that actually is going to need those two ramps on kennedy drive to be redone in my opinion it's and it's also going to include a pedestrian byway now once that's done it's my belief that that's actually going to liberate a lot of traffic that's currently on shelburn road and going to make it much easier to access between south burlington and uvm so that I just wanted to bring that piece in because when I was sitting in on the affordable housing committee we really didn't include that in our discussion we were really talking about the exits but we weren't talking about the other pieces that were coming in as far as that grant and that's already been approved that work is is definitely going forward so just wanted to add that piece in okay thank you michael I don't know if we can we're gonna be able to hear you can't hear me now well that's how you start out and then we can't but I mean can you make a real brief because it's getting late we have a motion on the table I'll make it brief and comment that exit 13 actually does not work as Tim says it doesn't work at all you can't get on onto 89 Michael I know that I didn't say it weren't completely I said it partially worked but if there's something there let me finish I didn't interrupt you okay for me to get up to the highway anybody who lives around here has to go down to Sheldon Road and back up and that's four miles additional travel just to go 500 meters that doesn't work at all and it would work very well if it was a full interchange in addition we'd recover some land on once on the north or south bound lane of I-189 which would not be required to be a full highway it would become a boulevard I believe apart from all the other things you said lower cost it'll take some load off exit 14 and Kennedy Drive is underutilized and we spent a ton of money on building it so let's utilize it okay thank you so are you ready for the vote yes let's make it roll call so this is to support 12b a ray ganda ray ganda also said the natural resources committee favors the diamond upgrade to exit 13 and does not favor 12b I know as I said earlier I think we have many committees who are not supportive of this but we're not listening to them today so um the motion on the table is to support 12b so Matt hi Tom hi Megan no you can go through St. George to exit 13 it's really easy Tim Tim hi and the chair votes no so the um vote is three to two so that's Charlie thank you Charlie can I make one comment um it's certainly me because I'm I'm hearing you know certainly the split in city council and certainly the split amongst your committees and I just want to in fairness to you and the conversation this is a recommendation done to this to the study advisory committee I think one of my takeaways from this conversation is you're going to make us think long and hard about whether we can look at both of them in the next iteration so we will take a hard look at that and I just wanted to make that comment before we left the conversation so thank you very much I really appreciate all your attention on this in the last couple months thank you you're welcome good night good night okay item 11 this is the consideration impossible approval of the resolution requiring that a third party conservation easement from the so-called wheeler property be conveyed and completed within five months of enactment presented okay we have a motion to approve is presented do we have a second second okay is there any discussion just one question for Kevin yep um so did Andrew have any feedback about the difficulty of applying the conservation easement in conjunction with the the pre-existing act 250 easements he didn't um but he is looking into that Tim um it was an interesting question but he didn't have a he didn't have an opinion on that yet he has been in touch with the land trust they may have um they may have some advice on that as well so the process is moving forward but he he does not have an answer to that question okay so I just I just want to warn everybody that I'm I'm I'll vote for this resolution that's no problem but I'm just worried about uh legal technicalities that could slow the process down that's all yeah yep okay well we've had other legal technicalities that's in the beginning so it's been a real slow process all right are we ready for the boat 10 years another are we ready for the boat okay yes all in favors thumbs up signify by saying hi hi and who are we seeing where is Tom are you are you a yes hi hi my camera's going in and out for some reason I think I'm sorry I'm sorry I usually do things okay so it passed that now we have February and March financials Tom Hubbard yes thanks Helen um so here we are three quarters of the way through the fiscal year uh or now in the last quarter and kind of prepared at this point to share some forecasting with you as we look uh through our revenues and expenditures to date as as well as some projections for the end of the fiscal year so currently as as you've seen from the general fund revenues we're sitting at about 86 percent uh on revenues and 66 percent in our expenditures um so first let's take a look at the revenues because this is where some of the expected shortfalls are anticipated uh there's a number of key revenue items that we're tracking and the major ones include the property tax, the local options tax, interest on our accounts, planning and zoning revenue, fire inspection revenue, ambulance revenue, and wreck and park activities and events these are some of the major revenue sources that we expect to have some shortfalls in and while these items that that I'm sharing with you have kind of negative numbers associated with them I want to come back after identifying the potential downfalls with ways that I expect that we'll be able to balance these out at the end of this fiscal year so let's take a look at the uh the local options tax we should be about 63 percent received to date uh both with our sales in our rooms and meals the sales tax revenue is right there um however the rooms and meals uh continues to lag behind we're currently at 38 percent of revenues received and the rooms and meals we're projecting about a $400,000 shortfall at the end of the fiscal year in the local options tax because of that interest on our accounts uh when the budget was built seems like ages ago at this point for FY 21 but we had figured in a two percent return on the investment and as I've shared with you over the past couple of reports we're getting at about a 0.25 this is going to be a shortfall of about $175,000 for us planning and zoning revenues while we're catching up currently uh we're around 64 percent so not at the 75 percent mark we still project a shortfall of about $90,000 there fire inspection revenue uh much of much of this as with planning and zoning revenue is based on the timing of development and review and we're currently at 57 percent fire inspection revenue collected anticipating about a hundred thousand dollar shortfall there ambulance billing revenue currently at 56 percent not near the 75 percent uh that we should be at about a hundred and fifty thousand dollar shortfall and lastly uh as you know record park activities and events have been canceled many haven't been able to be held we're projecting about a hundred and forty thousand dollar revenue loss uh from recreation parks programs now some of that will be offset and that we don't have to expend some of the money to make those programs happen but all told just those um items alone a million fifty five thousand dollars in shortfall so let's look at um some of the positive factors uh that we can talk about property taxes after the third installment we're doing very well 99 percent plus received to date reimbursement to the corona virus relief fund FEMA money that we received to date 169 thousand dollars city clerk recording fees vital records already collected were 55 thousand dollars over anticipated revenue in city clerk we have reduced expenditures and recreation park activity and events of 95 thousand dollars we have the refunding of the pension loan this year not having to make the principal and interest payments 668 thousand dollars we anticipate a health insurance savings of somewhere over 100 thousand dollars doing really well to date this totals one million 87 thousand dollars thirty two thousand dollars to the good i'm feeling pretty good about that and i just wanted to share that with you and the reason i'm feeling good about it is additionally this does not take into consideration any additional money from the corona relief fund from any additional money from FEMA that we do expect to be receiving or any of the money from the american rescue plan that will be receiving which is substantial this is kevin alluded to earlier over five million dollars we expect that the rescue plan money to be received sometime in the early part of june and really anxious to see some clearer definition about what these funds can be used for it's significant money we're hopeful that it can backfill lost revenue assisted with public safety costs hopefully to even include regional dispatch and other initiatives be utilized for projects and purchases in the cip that were put on hold that were reduced or were eliminated do a lack of funding and provide some funding for staff positions that have been put on hold as well as enable some of the enterprise utility projects for water storm water and sewer to be funded so we'll definitely be coming back to council for further discussion and meetings on this related to projects and funding once we have better information and we'll be working with with charlie at ccrpc and with the vermont league of cities and towns who have both received consulting money to assist communities in this effort so anyway that's just kind of a snapshot of of where we're at and you know still feeling pretty good about bringing the budget online for the end of this fiscal year and being very hopeful about some possibilities for use of the american rescue plan so happy to respond to any questions or comments megan and then matt all of the budget shortfalls that you are talking about they are taking our budget forecast lower and we're having to make up for it or are you saying that these were foreseen shortfalls now that's kind of a status of where we are right now megan and where we expect to be by the end of june with those numbers based on the percentages that we have today and we're falling short of our our budgeted correct revenues yeah the expenses we can control you know like i've said before those are things where we've had the budget freeze in effect and that's worked because it's it's certainly balancing out that shortfall and revenues where i think we are right now is at a point that given the fact that i think we put measures into place that we're we're still going to leave ourselves in the black for this year that i'd like to see us start freeing up some of the money in our capital expenditures to start purchasing some of the fleet to start doing some of the projects that we had anticipated doing in this fiscal year because i think those those projects and purchases can still happen and leave us balanced um we still have over three hundred and forty thousand dollars in paving that i think if we held that back as an insurance uh on any other shortfall that we might have that come july 1st we can always accrue those monies which i think we will be able to into the next fiscal year so that justin can just add that three hundred and forty to all the other projects that he's bidding out for f y 22 and we can be able to accomplish those in the same construction season and you explained to me how we're going to do that with budget shortfalls so the shortfalls that i identified were all offset with with the uh the additional revenue that that i identified so that leaves us with with anticipating that the rest of the budget would get spent as is we've already got 99% plus of our property tax collected so at this point as i shared with kevin and i'm sharing with you i i feel comfortable and confident that we can begin releasing some of the money for the cip expenditures that we had planned in this year with the exception of the paving money which i i think we should hold just as insurance in case additional funds are needed but i don't think they will be um with the fact that that i'm confident we're going to have uh the money from the federal government that's going to be able to help us backfill some of our loss and revenue that's where it's coming from because four hundred thousand dollars in rooms and meals that's a big chunk of change yeah so it right now the 668,000 that we're saving in the refunding of the pension loan megan is going to offset that but when we were able to backfill that 668,000 with money from the american rescue plan that allows other opportunities for us to do some things in the city so that's that's where my level of confidence is coming from at this point and that so i just to clarify tom so but for the american rescue plan a lot of the cip projects you would not you would be putting on hold you wouldn't be you wouldn't be investing in the capital infrastructure is that correct thanks for asking that matt i think we're still okay to move forward where we're anticipating that those expenditures would be made and we'd still come out with a budget in the black so then how do you how do you plan a rescue plan so when you when when we're we're still understanding what the rules are and what we can spend it on but but you would be booking that revenue in in fy 2022 and the expenses as well i assume right even though money might flow in june is that right yeah i think we'll get the i think we'll probably get um half the money uh in early june which is probably two and a half million plus dollars sometime in june that's great thank you other questions tim tom what about the rooms and meals tax and its projections for over the summer into the fall especially next fall yeah i i'm hopeful that things are going to get better tim um i don't expect that there's going to be much of a change to the end of june uh which is why we're projecting the shortfall fortunately in terms of our local options tax the rooms and meals is only 25 percent uh the sales is 75 percent of what we collect um so i'm hopeful that that's going to get better but i i'm also confident that one of the things that that i have understood from the american rescue plan is that would be an eligible backfilled revenue loss that we we could cover with the federal funds in the meantime we're covering it we're covering it in our own way within fiscal year 21 to come out in the black okay well everyone keep their fingers crossed get your vaccination get your vaccination we all have one right tomorrow two i'm all set that's why i went out west right i'm good i'm good to go okay thank you thank you um 13 we need to convene as the liquor control commission to consider chipolte um well who else dave's cosmic subs duke's public house i'm moving the liquor control board second all in favor hi okay so we've got four i think it is one two scrutinize them but i'm gonna move to approve all of the presented liquor control uh applications through the second second okay any discussion all in favor signified by saying hi hi hi um moving on to item four i'm sorry let's move out second second all in favor hi hi other business um i remembered what i wanted to bring up and just i would like um us to think about and maybe it's an item we could just send me tom already identified a vacation conflict for this summer so if you'll think ahead of um if you're gonna be away and it's impossible to join either you know on um you know go to meeting or call in or something please let me know and we can try to schedule around that or at least not have anything controversial or real important for those meetings okay so as soon as you know um let me know for kevin or somebody so we can um organize that tom yeah june 21st i'm gonna be vacationing so i could join but it'd make my wife really frustrated so if you need me i can but i have that other business item about the ferry is now a good time chair yes you may all right so in one of my other roles a senator i greatly respect senator jenny liens is uh very concerned about the sinking of the ferry in the lake and they are taking testimony and they are looking uh it just came up in conversation i remember councillor barrett i want to say three or four months ago asking this council and other business what our thoughts would be about rather than dropping it to the bottom of the ocean imagine if we ship wrecked it or sank it on red rocks beach or pick another place and so i'm not going to push that notion but i want to say that if there's interest of this council i am open to it i i am not saying i i definitely want the ferry to be dry docked on red rocks but if this council would rather have that ferry on the land rather than down at the bottom of the lake uh now is the time to speak up not that we have the money to pay for it i'd want the state to pay for it all again this isn't a warned item if anything i just want to put it out there that there is uh there's interest in the senate in which i'm serving now to not drop that thing to the bottom of the lake and if a municipality with access to the lake express interest in such a device i think it'd be a conversation worth having that's all i want to say what would we do at the time we just let them use our land to get it out or what would we do councillor barrett talked about a plane and uh that i don't know if you want to refresh your memory when i was a yeah when i was a kid at weaton regional park uh in maryland they had brought like an fu-47 jet fighter and pulled the engines out and stuck it in the park and put steps up to the cockpit and then a slide down the other side i actually dug up a picture and sent it to tom earlier today i was amazed i could find the picture on the internet but you can find anything in the internet so the the point was that they repurposed this military aircraft on a playground the kids could crawl through the engines they could sit in the cockpit before somebody yelled at them and they could slide down the other side um you know i mean if they dragged the ticon deroga all the way across the land and made it a museum piece this ferry is pretty special i think uh just aesthetically i just don't know how technically feasible it is to situate it you know adjacent to the shoreline and then prevent it from sinking by you know somehow dry docking it you know like the boathouse sort of whatever and and then making it an extension of a park either through just activities i mean it's it's a shelter you could have you know parties underneath it uh kids could play on it i it's just you know ideas that's all brainstorming that's all why would they say i wanted to get some more information about the size i'm not thinking red rocks is the relatively small park and they don't have a huge beach i'm not sure all the residents want a ferry pulled up on the beach as a burlington has more room for something like that they have a lot of land though yeah a lot of beach underneath the maran plant you know and then they could have two metal structures that are you know but i'm gonna take from this conversation and relate to my good friend jinny lions if i can say that that no counselor bock door said no it's a crazy idea we don't want to hear anything more about so that's the only thing i'm going to convey and then i'll talk to kevin if there's uh any reason to put this on a future kevin and ellen about actually considering any possibility of south burlington considering this adron i don't want it at red rocks i'll say that i don't want it red rocks i we weren't supposed to decide today i thought this is just right right other business that's what i said i mean i mean i don't want to know what it is i'm committed to nothing so i'm at health council armory i will definitely convey there's concerns about red rocks but okay okay that's all i'm gonna say i'll i'll send that you know about any other business to come before us we had something about a conversation helen pardon me you had something you had a conversation about something yeah and i can't remember it was the vacation conflicts was one thing but i can't remember the other thing all right it'll come to me tonight good all right so are we ready to adjourn all in favor hi hi my meeting was so long i should know well i didn't we're gonna we haven't had a long one a while so it's good really yeah don't worry ace okay the first year on council i remember sticking around at one two o'clock in the morning 10 56 this is this is good we're good so glad you think that all right bye