 and get some introductions going here. The person we're visiting is John Piedrich. We have Carl Neweasel, on my far left. Tour Nelson, board members. Bob Wernick, I'm Chair. Pauli Mimberty. And the zoning administrator is Tom Badowski, who you all know. If you introduce yourselves or somebody introduce your team. So I'm Dave Birmingham from Twin Cities Super Room. Jose Oliver. Brian Lane-Cardis is the engineer and lead on the project. Joe Greed is the architect. And I don't see him, but I heard Brian, who works for our contractor, Cummings. Paul Simon's on there as well. Paul Simon was somewhere a minute ago. Hi, Paul. He's here. Sorry, he's muted. I can't. Yeah, my problem is I cannot read the name of this person. Can you guys read the names of this person? I can kind of tell. I can tell Michael Rushman. If I know the name, I can. All right, well, thank you. Michael, you're here as well. Yes, I am. You want to introduce yourself? Yes, Mike Rushman with the land strategies. I'm here on behalf of Berlin Mall LLC. Hello, Michael. Hi. And I'm not sure why my video isn't working. I had some problem getting into this. But as long as you can hear me, that's fine. We can hear you. Yeah. OK. So we have one application tonight. The application is by Berlin S1 Realty, LLC, Dave Birmingham. And for it's a major site plan review of approximately 13,000 squares gross square foot addition to existing 11,900 square foot auto dealership. This project is located on 32 Berlin Mall Road. And I'm going to ask Dave to kick it off and tell us what you're proposing here and give us an overview or turn it over to Brian. Yeah, I'll probably turn it over to Brian. He will articulate it much clearer than I shall, I think. Hey, Brian, we'd like an overview. We're obviously going to go through all the criteria. I got to tell you that I'm not optimistic, but it closed tonight. So I'm not shooting for that kind of thing, because I think there's going to be some loose ends. But let's go as through as much as we can. OK, thank you, Bob. First, as Dave said, I'd just like to thank you to GRB for scheduling this special hearing. We do appreciate it, since we are trying to get this project underway as soon as we can. And at the beginning here, I also wanted to just acknowledge up front there has been some discussion around this project. And whether the proposed project fits the vision for the Berlin Town Center has expressed both in the town plan and in the recently, conditionally approved New Town Center application that the town had before the downtown development board. Twin Cities Subaru absolutely supports the town's development of the New Town Center. And we acknowledge the work that's been put in by the town and the other stakeholders to achieve the designation. And just also wanted to acknowledge that the designation itself will certainly benefit Twin Cities Subaru. However, the project, as we're presenting it tonight, is designed to meet to the greatest extent we can, given the existing lock configuration, the topography of the site, and the existing building, the land use and development regulations, the zoning regulations of the document that the town created to define the specific requirements that projects have to meet in order to implement the vision of the town plan, including the town center. And we believe that the project meets the current zoning requirements with limited exceptions that we believe can be approved as part of an existing non-conforming lot. And that the proposed project brings the property significantly closer to the vision of the town center and what exists there now. So just wanted to say at the top that we're here to present to the board how our design specifically meets the criteria of the land use and development regulations, and happy to answer any questions from the board or the public regarding our compliance with the zoning. Brian, let me stop you there. I failed to swear everybody in. Oh, great. Let's do that. It's been so long. This is where we've done this. I'm going to ask everybody to give testimony before this board tonight to please raise your right hand. You swear to tell the truth and let the truth and matters before this board tonight on the penalties of perjury. I do. I do. Michael, I'm assuming you raised your hand. Yes. Thank you. Go ahead, Brian. I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, no, no problem. Glad we got that taken care of. So I'm going to. One more formality. I think everybody here is either with this project in one form or another, or has a vested interest in this project. Is anybody here requesting party status? Yes. Michael? Yes. OK, is a buddy property owner here requesting property status on behalf of the Berlin model? Correct. OK, anybody have any objections to that? It makes sense. OK, party status is granted. OK, please proceed down, Brian. What do you guys think? So I'm just going to bring up my screen here. Is everyone seeing that? Tively, well, anyway. There you are. Yep. Excellent. So this is just a standard Google overhead just to orient everybody. I'm sure everybody knows where this is. But just in case, this is the existing twin city super dealership property. And it's situated here along Berlin Mall Road, next to the mall, the Kohl's Store, and then to the south of the two other car dealerships, 802 Turda and 802 Cars, Fisher Road and the hospital across the street. So this is a general orientation. And so I'm going to start with the existing site. So here's the plan of the existing site. There's the existing car dealership here in the middle with some sidewalks around. The majority of the rest of the site is devoted to parking areas for visitors and car storage for both cars to be sold and cars being serviced. This is the existing access onto Berlin Mall Road along the south side of the site. And just to orient everyone really quickly, north is to the right on all of these plans. So I will do my best to use actual cardinal directions, but they'll be rotated based on what is typically northing up on the plan. So like I said, north is right on this plan. Pardon me for just a second. So this is the proposed site plan. The majority of the 13,000 square foot addition to the existing building will be used for the existing use, which is the sales lot, which is a permitted use in the town center district. As part of the addition, we'll be at the customer drop-off bay in the front here. So that will be for folks that are coming to get their car serviced. They'll drive into the north side of the service drop-off, talk to some service advisors, get their car set, and then they will either wait for the car to be serviced or get a loan or car or such. And when their car is finished, leave from the service drop-off on the south side there. So attendant with the building addition, there are some modifications to the sidewalks to the southeast of the building here. And modifications to the existing parking, really, and so much as they're needed to accommodate the building. So we're eliminating one parking bay that is currently between the building and the Berlin Mall Road, reducing the second parking bay that's currently between the building and Berlin Mall Road in order to accommodate circulation and the building addition itself. There's some small changes up the north side of the parking here, but this is more because of just graving and improvements to the store power treatment over here. The south and west sides of the building, essentially, are remaining as currently exists. So that is the general overview of the project. And I'll just take any general questions from the board before we move into the specific criteria. Yeah, I think this is a general question, perhaps. It's noted on the plans that these are not, the boundaries are not, this is not a boundary survey. How reliable are we on these boundaries you've shown as being the property line? So these property lines were developed from previous property plots. And we had Vermont Survey and Engineering do this survey on this. What I asked them to do was locate as much monumentation as they could, and then or the boundary from existing plots onto the monumentation that was collected in the field. So they're pretty good. It's just not a boundary plot. OK. To that extent, are all the necessary easements identified? I don't have specific identification of easements on this plan. However, we did get permission from Berlin Mall LLC to apply for permits on their behalf for the work that is necessary for this project that is on their property. How about the access road? To my knowledge, that's an existing access easement. I don't know that we've specifically read that. Is there an easement for that? I don't. I believe there is, but I don't have that information right in front of me. So as we're looking at this, the property line on the east side is the base of the edge of pavement. Is that correct? Edge of the park? Yeah, that's correct. And then all the property to the east of that belongs to Berlin Mall? Right, as well as to the south. So the property line is this double-dashed heavy line, but I'll just outline it real quick. And the property line to the north, I presume, is the same partnership, same owner? It's a different company, but they are both owned by Dave Birmingham, yeah. Yes. So what I'm focusing on mostly was the east and that easement that's not clearly defined on this drawing. We'll go into it later. Well, I just want to be clear. So the slope down to your property is owned by the Berlin Mall, not you guys. That's correct. OK. Are there other questions by board members? Well, I wanted to address the height of the building. I don't believe it meets the criteria. Do I point now? I don't know. When does that come in? I was planning to address the dimensional standards next. We could jump into that if there aren't any other questions. We're sort of general orientation questions at the moment. Yeah. Yeah, we can wait. No, that's fine. That's fine. We're going to be there next question, I'm sure. Tom, did you have comments you want to give us at this point in time? No, he's the chair. OK. And Michael, did you have anything you want to ask at this point in time, Mr. Cardi? Probably I'm you. No, I do not. Thank you. OK. All right, well, let's proceed with the next step then, Brian. Great. So dimensional requirements. Section 2101D for the regulations defines Berlin Mall Road at the project site as a sea stream. The project meets the sea street dimensional requirements except for two. The proposed building is four feet beyond the maximum build two-line distance for a sea street. And the parking, obviously, is not all 10 feet away from the property lines. So we're requesting that the project be approved as a modification to, in terms of the building itself, as a modification to the pre-existing non-conforming building. The addition is on the front of the building between the road and the existing building. And by its location is significantly improving compliance with the build two-line standard. We can't put the building really any closer to the road because of the circulation needed around the front of the building, particularly in the area of the service drop-off, which is the closest thing to meeting the build two-line standard anyway. We need to maintain the circulation around here for customers that may be trying to circulate around the building but not going in the service drop-off or emergency vehicles. If we put the building any closer to the road, we'd have a lot of trouble circulating emergency vehicles around the site. And then similarly with the parking spaces, along the eastern and northern border, they're essentially on the property line. And we're requesting for that to maintain the existing as approved as an existing non-conforming lot. Brian, you mentioned when we had fairly significant discussions about the conditional approval of the Newtown Center and which the downtown board prohibited C-street in the town. Your narrative reflects that you were designing to a B-street, but your testimony just now was to a C as in that street. So I'm confused on what you are designing this project for. So we're designing the project to do the best we can to meet the current throwing regulation, as well as the approval of the Newtown Center application. So we do address B-street in the standard. However, I wanted to address in the zoning hearing the requirements in the zoning regulation for C-street. The board would like to discuss B-street standards. We provided the information, and I'm happy to discuss it. I think for this case, and Dave is here, he could speak to the nature of these conditions that when the town applied for their Newtown Center designation, it included C-street and preliminary review from the downtown board's staff was that they would not allow C as intact streets on the Newtown Center. They had draft conditions to that end. Those draft conditions were circulated amongst all the property owners, all of our project partners in the Newtown Center, including Dave. And on March 29, 2001, the town of Berlin-Sleckward held a special meeting to discuss will we accept those conditions or not. And at the end of that meeting, it was determined by all property owners, all participants in this process, Newtown Center, including Dave Birmingham, that they would accept these conditions. So we've had pretty extensive conversations about this. And I'm just surprised now that the C-streeters argument is back on the table. C-streets do not exist in the Berlin-Town Center. And anyway, so I think for us to even discuss C-street standards is a waste of everybody's time. And I'm not quite sure how that hasn't been made clear to you over the course of the last three or four weeks. So that's all I would like to say now on that, Mr. Chairman. Brian? Yes? Comment? My only comment is I'm happy to discuss these C-street standards, if that's what the board wishes to discuss. Again, we've addressed it in our narrative as we were asked to in conversations with the zoning minister prior to application. And I'll leave it to the discretion of the board as to whether the C-street standards should be what we are discussing in the hearing. But if that's the pleasure of the board, I'm happy to discuss it. I don't see how we've been told it. Yeah, I don't see how we can do it otherwise. Karla, you had a question? About the height. Yeah. It doesn't meet the standard. OK. So it's really the same issue. Essentially, yeah. It does meet the C-street standards. It does not meet the B-street standards. Does it meet the C-street standards? Yes, it does. Oh, it does? I mean, I understand it's a difficult law and that the frontage is difficult because the Berlin Mall does own that land. But there are certain criteria that this just doesn't meet, in my opinion. Well, let's go through the criteria in there. Let's identify them and let's possibly work through a process that gives us where we're all comfortable. Sure. So the build to line discussion and parking setback discussion is really the same between a C-street standard or a B-street standard. Obviously, the build to line is closer to the road for a C-street. But in this case, the property line, the closest the property line comes to the road is 40 feet from the edge of pavement. So it's actually physically impossible to meet the build to line standard on this lot. And then, again, the reason we have this located where it is is to maintain adequate and appropriate circulation around the building. We discussed the parking lots. The next thing is the primary street facade standard is 50% of the build to line. A portion of which is actually not even on our property. But in this case, we are increasing the amount of primary street facade from 33% on the existing building to 36%. And again, given the existing configuration of the lot, just because we are building off of an existing building, there's a number of reasons why it doesn't make sense structurally and architecturally and circulation-wise to make this building 20% wider than the building that we're putting addition on. So again, we're requesting that as an approval under an existing non-conforming building. And again, we're slightly improving the compliance of the lot to the primary street facade standard. Then the last criteria from these streets that the project is meeting is the building height. The reason we're proposing to match the existing building height is, again, because we're putting an addition onto an existing building. And this is really a structural issue. If we increase the roof height five feet from the existing building to the proposed building, that will create a significant snow-drifting load at the intersection between the two buildings. So essentially what happens is snow will be drifted up against the edge of this building and create an uneven snow load on the existing roof that it wasn't designed to meet. So it would be a really significant reconstruction of the structure of the existing building in order to be able to support that snow load. So that's the reason why you're not proposing a building that meets the building height standard. And again, we'd request that to be approved as part of an existing non-conforming building. Questions on the standards? So Brian, another condition that I don't know how this application works around, except for a memo that was distributed today by Heidenberg properties. It was conditioned for E of the conditions. The Newtown Center regulations must not allow a development envelope without street frontage or otherwise allow an envelope or lot in front parking lots or service circulation drive without connected street frontage. I just don't know how this board could even make that determination. So I'll let Michael Rushman here today be distributed to the board today. Maybe a work around to that end, but I'll let Michael Rushman talk about that. Tom, I'm sorry, before we move on, can I just ask a question? The texts you were just referencing, is that part of the zoning regulation or is that part of the condition? So I guess it's difficult for us to address conditions that are in a document that isn't part of the approved zoning regulation. I don't know if you can help me. I know we've talked about this, but I honestly still don't understand how the conditional approval from the downtown board of the Newtown Center became requirements of the zoning regulation that aren't listed in the actual zoning document. Again, it was a meeting of all the property owners and including Dave that said yes, they could live with these conditions, all right? So for lack of a better thing, it's I guess a gentleman's agreement while these conditions be rewritten. The zoning regulations will likely be updated in October of this year to reflect the conditions placed upon the town by the downtown board. And so that's the reason. If anybody at that meeting would have said no, they could not live with the conditions, I believe the town of Berlin would have rejected the conditions and not accepted the Newtown Center designation. May I address this point because I'll be referencing several times that I agree to these proposed regulations. And the spirit of the conversation was, do you support the town center? Do you wanna see the town center come in? And I'm 100% behind that. Shame on me if I didn't read through the things and before I designed a building, I realized what implications that might have for me. But the spirit of this was we want the people around us to be supportive of this initiative and we were 100% supportive of that. This is now sort of being thrown back and held against us as really it was, yes, I wanna see this go through, yes, I wanna help with any way I can. When you look at the use of my properties this honestly doesn't, it all likely would fit in the vision of what a town center is all about. People don't walk around car dealerships. It's not actually something we would encourage because cars come and go and there's a lot of vehicular traffic and very little foot traffic. So I certainly appreciate it. I'm not denying anything you're saying, Tom, or but in truth, the spirit of this was, yes, I wanna support everything going forward with the town center. If we had a building design that I could have held up against that, and I don't know how clearly they were spelled out back then, frankly. But it would have been a different discussion, I guess. So I have to say it was good nature and ignorance on my part, but clearly if we're gonna be held to a standard that looking at our properties, I don't know how you could, particularly the Twin City property which is so far below grade. I don't know how to meet what we want in a town center when you're walking by buildings and you have store front sort of. So again, not negating anything Tom's saying, but there is I guess a difference of intent in terms of saying, yes, we support what's going forward with the town center here. But in order to do that, you have to understand that if we approve an application that doesn't meet those conditions, it's a conditional approval, it's not an approval. If we don't, if we suddenly start putting in approving proposals that don't meet those conditions, we don't get the town center designation. Understood, but right now we're not in the town center designation. It doesn't matter. I mean, for our purposes, it doesn't matter. We just won't get the designation. But I mean, so I think what Brian and what we're struggling with is we have to meet the current zoning regulations to get a zoning permit where we have a permissible use on historical property that we've used for this very purpose, or it's been there for since the 70s, at least some of it. So if we have to meet B Street criteria, we don't belong there apparently. And I can't often move 300 employees and three buildings that simply. So I have to find a way to have capacity to manage the business on site. That's what we're attempting. So I was discussing street frontage. So I believe Heidenberg properties had a unique pure to that today. And I would ask Michael Rushman to talk about the memo that he distributed to the DRB today. Well, we're not here to give testimony or raise questions about the applicant's proposal. But as I think most of the people on the DRB know, we've been, we and other stakeholders in the Newtown Center zoning district in the conditionally approved Newtown Center area have been working for many, many months on the town's longterm objective of upgrading mall road all the way from Fisher Road to Route 62 with a road that would meet town standards and that would become a public street. The focus up until recently has been on what I call the Southern segment of that road between Walmart and Route 62. There's no need here to go into the current state of play on that, but all the parties that are involved have made tremendous progress on very detailed design for that segment and funding sources and so on and so forth. And so when this application came in, it was like a fairly normal reaction on our part. And I think the town's part to start thinking longterm about how does what I call the Northern segment from Fisher Road to the former penny store, how will that be transformed from what it is today to a street that meets the B street standards from a design standpoint and meets the construction standards for a public street. Our understanding is that at that point in time, and that could be years from now, I don't know what the timing this is, is that the town will end up with ownership of the street and our expectation would be they'd end up with the ownership of, I'll call it the orphan strip of land on the west side of Mall Road. So all we were doing with the letter that we submitted today was saying, we think this is a great opportunity for the stakeholders at the Northern end of the street to come together and start talking about this longterm transformation. And that we are prepared to give the town an easement over that strip as an interim step, if you will, to get us to where we are now, to where the town wants to be ultimately when the road gets upgraded and is turned over to them. So that's all the bet is. So what I'm suggesting is, and I don't know the legalities that this just came across but just today in the ramifications of that, but if that strip would come under town control, we could help all the 802 properties become, help street frontage them. And so any of your applications, this does not become an issue. And so I'm just suggesting that to Dave and your team that I think it's a unique opportunity to bring this project into compliance on one of the numerous conditions that we have. I don't think we can really talk, get into this tonight. Because again, we received this sometime late this morning or this afternoon, but that's my initial impression. Well, Tom, if I could just add one thing, I do want to let the DRP know that we forwarded a copy of that letter to Mr. Birmingham and he and I had a phone conversation today about it. We didn't want to be blind sighting anybody. We want this to be as collaborative a process on the Northern segment as it has been on the Southern segment. So. Thank you, Michael. Okay, I'm just, we've got a number of issues that where we don't agree with regard to certainly B Street and even C Street standards. Let's work our way through those and see it to the extent that there are issues that we can't transcend. So let's just hear all the testimony and then work our way back. I don't want to stop here because we've got a glitch, you know? Let's go through all of it. This is my proposal. And the applicant's done a lot of work here. Let's hear what the applicant's got to present. Are you speaking specifically of conventional standards or the rest of the standards as well? Well, let's, I think this throws it. I think there's a the street frontage issue and that's a significant issue. Clearly it's condition of the permit. In fact, it's condition of our existing zoning, I believe. The lot doesn't meet those standards. It's seeking to get approval of a existing access point, which we don't know if it's 50 feet or what it is. So I'm not sure how you're proposing to deal with that street frontage issue. Can you speak to that? Yeah, I mean, to be honest, the topography really precludes any direct access from, well, more direct than what's there now, from Berlin Mall Road to the project kind of regardless of, you know, whether Berlin Mall Road is privately owned or publicly owned. So I'm just getting down to the grading plan here. Across the entire frontage, there's eight to 10 foot difference in grade between Berlin Mall Road and the site. And that is, you know, roughly at a two on one slope there. So there's really no opportunity to make that much different than it is now without significantly disrupting the trucking portion of the site and where we are building the post. Along the bottom of that frontage is a existing permitted dry soil, which is part of the facility's existing state stormwater treatment permit in order to get a state stormwater permit, which we have applied for for this lot. You're planning to reconstruct and improve this dry soil in order to get as close as we can to the current stormwater treatment standards, you know, as required in the 2017 manual. So you can see that in order to get from the elevation of Berlin Mall Road down to the elevation of the system development, well, I don't know how well everyone can see the contour, so I'll zoom in a little bit. But you can see that there's, you know, so there's a flat banding up here and then go down into a slope. I know that I know offhand exactly what that slope is, so we can measure it as long as I correctly remember the scale. So let's just say roughly one, two, three, four. Yeah, five feet and 90, you know, so we're already looking at a five to six percent slope along the straddleway. Not extreme, it's not flat either. And you can see that in order to make it down to this elevation, there's some significant side slopes most of the way down the straddleway either. So, you know, regardless of the ownership of the Mall Road, I don't really ever foresee there being a direct connection between the road and the front of the building just because of the topography of the existing site. Well, I'm not sure that that's the issue. The issue is, do you border on the road? Right, and I think we're, you know, could be a pedestrian access, it doesn't have, I think we were talking about just some creative ways to make pedestrian access, that kind of thing from the road with that strip of land, not necessarily a drive access. I'd like to circle back to this, if I could later on. There's a whole number of issues I'd like to go through. And if this is the remaining issue, then let's circle back here and not lose progress. Go ahead, Tom. Mr. Chair, Tony Snow from the Berlin Planning Commission has joined the meeting. I just want you to know that. Okay, good. Hi, Tony. Okay, well that I think concludes our portion of the presentation on the dimensional standards. So if we're ready to move on, we can talk about the architectural standards. Why would we do that? Yeah. Okay, I'm going to bring up the policy and plans that were submitted, and I'm going to invite Joe Green who's the project architect to talk about the architectural standards. With us, Joe. I'll mute myself there. Everybody hear me okay? Yeah, yeah. My apologies. This is the biggest part of the file and my computer struggles with it a little. I will get up on the screen in a second. There we go. Okay, so in looking at the zoning districts and standards section 2101 point F as submitted in Brian's cover letter, we tried to take each criteria one by one and address them for you. Number one, being orientation and compatibility. It says newer renovated buildings must be oriented to the street. At least one public entrance should face and be accessible from primary street sidewalk. Well, as you know, from Brian's site plans, we faced Erlen Mall Road, even though we're not physically adjoining it by property. And our primary entrance remains the same on the South and where it is today, which faces the access drive in. So that remains unchanged. The difference here is as Brian pointed out is the customer service drop off area is now in the Southeast corner of the building oriented towards both the Erlen Mall Road as well as the access drive. And that is the left hand side of your screen on these renderings. It's actually at a 45 degree angle to the building for two reasons to help create recognizability to folks that are driving into the site as well as help break up along the side. So in terms of orientation and compatibility, we feel like we have met that criteria. As again, we are extending an existing building storefront that is there today and oriented in the same capacity, just bringing it 80 feet closer to the road. So I'm gonna go through them all and we wanna follow them. Well, let me stop you, Joe. My drawing doesn't mention whether we got east, west, north, or south. So I have no idea what I'm looking at. This drawing that Brian is showing is the east facade that faces the Berlin Mall Road. Okay, all four? It looks like... So this is the same elevation. It's just rendered four different ways in an attempt to show you guys... It's an attempt to show you guys that the owner is willing to be flexible with the exterior facade solution, but this is the primary facade shown four different ways. Okay, I wasn't sure if we were looking at all four facades, which didn't make sense at all. Yeah, we like to wash, rinse, and repeat on all four walls. It's very easy that way, just kidding. Yeah, well, one word on here would be helpful. Like, you know, east facade. Yeah, my apologies. I guess when we put the 802 Subaru on it, really just as a reminder that that's what it says today. Actually it says Twin City Subaru today, but it will say 802, and that faces the road. Okay, now that I know what I'm looking at, you wanna sort of set my repeat what you said? Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah, no problem. So again, the criteria asks that the primary facade, the oriented streets, and at least one public building entrance face in the accessible from primary street or sidewalk. So once again, you know, the service entrance drive for customers dropping off their vehicles is at the southeast corner, which faces the Berlin Mall Road as well as the access drive that we've been discussing. And it's oriented at an angle to the primary building to create interest and also orientation recognition when you drive in. So it's a point of origin for people to see and recognize that's where they drop out their vehicle. The facade itself is basically the same dimensional facade as what the existing building is. And as you can see, Paul Simon has done a great job. We've tried to represent that here in a rendering in terms of landscaping helped break up to the primary facade. In terms of criteria one, orientation compatibility, we feel like we've done that. So what material is the primary facade? So if we want to, I can go to that criteria where we can talk about a spine. The primary facade is made up of a mix of materials between metal panels, stone, and synthetic rain screen if we ought to go with that solution, which is representing the top two versions of this rendering. It obviously glass and storefront on the primary facade. Looks like the middle is greater than 50% of the building. The middle? The middle. The middle. The middle. In terms of the overall facade, it probably is more than 50% of this facade, yes. We could do the measurement between the storefront, the slate stone, and the other elements. It's probably a little bit more than 50%. Just want to find. It says metal is an accent, how can be an accent? So under the material section of the regulations, it says metal is appropriate as an access material and when used in contrast to another primary facade material. Yeah, I understand. It also says that vinyl or PVC, synthetic stucco concrete, matron units, panelized brick or stone, plywood, plastic panels are prohibited primary exterior cladding. So it really kind of limits our choices, but really the whole point of this initial proposal is that that is what is there today. And we're trying to promote continuity within the site. And this facade is breaking up the current significantly with the angled service drive, the varying roof heights, and also introducing the stone, slate, and rain screen. So by all means, I can do the calculations and see if we're more than 50%. I don't know how we define primary versus accents, but when I look at the example given under metal under the zoning district standards, page two dash 19, I see a photo of a building that says metal is appropriate as an accent material and when used in contrast with another primary facade material, and the image is a completely metal building with a wood band accent. So without a definition per se, we're feeling like this is consistent with what's there and we've made a concerted effort to break up the durable metal panels that is pretty customary in these commercial buildings with these other materials such as stone and synthetic rain screens. In the landscaping, of course, I mean, Paul's done a great job significantly enhancing the landscaping on this site. And I know this 2D image probably doesn't do that justice. The landscaping plan, I think we see that that's significantly enhanced the site as well. We jumped ahead to materials. I'd like to really stay on focus. Because, you know, we don't keep it. I know it's hard because they're all related. Don't bounce around. Let's just get through one and go to the next. And the first was the orientation and compatibility. Did anybody have a question about orientation compatibility? Well, I guess I just wanted to say to Joe, the architect, that it would be really helpful to me to see perspective drawings of this proposal. Like from Mall Road, you know, what it would look like from Mall Road. Because it's hard for me to visualize, you know, these elevations in terms of how it really fits into the context. Sure, sure. I know I appreciate that. I mean, we could call up a Google image, I guess, and let you see what it looks like today. Appointing that we're going to basically replicate that. It's only gonna be 80 feet closer to the Berlin Mall Road. But I don't have a 3D rendering available to you if we had to generate one we could. Again, in the spirit of existing understanding what's there, the orientation, the size, the scale, the colors and materials have all been kept consistent. And with the exception being that we're creating a new customer service draw-up off area in the service pack. So something you said, and you said it's typical of this type of commercial building. I'm not gonna get verbatim, but that's basically what you said. And I hope everybody in this room understands that, that this is Berlin's new town center, right? We don't want the typical commercial building. And I'm gonna try to impress upon you that fact. Anyways, again. No, that's just fine. You're correct in that I did say it's typical of this type of commercial building, which it is. This is an auto dealership, which is a permitted use in the town center district. As we pointed to earlier, this property isn't in the designated Berlin town center. Even in the conditional approval, this property lies outside those boundaries. So we keep coming back to the zoning regulations that are duly adopted as of today, as of the application of the laws in which we feel we have to abide by. We understand the vision and we support the vision and we understand the town's goal to inevitably incorporate these visions into law. But currently we have to design according to the current law, which is the zoning bylaws that are in place today. So Joe, all these zoning regulations apply to this area. Yeah, yeah. Don't understand, totally understand. And I'm just saying that. So you're just saying that it doesn't apply, but what they do apply. No, what I'm saying is we're crossing conversations a little bit in that we have a town center district, which these architectural standards apply to. And we have a hopeful and proposed Berlin town center. Right now the town zoning district is the bylaw that we're trying to adhere to. Proposing and understanding and supporting the fact that this is an existing facility that we're expanding. And this facade enhances what is there today to try to get us closer to what that town vision is. All be it in respect to the fact that we also have a automobile brand that has standards. And we also have an owner's vision and budget that has to be met. So while we're willing to make certainly accommodations and try to address these issues for you, the other standards of materials within these zoning district standards asks for durable materials. And these are very durable, proven materials that are applicable to this type of construction. Would you consider this to be a typical Subaru building? No. I mean, it looks like others I've seen, some very similar. It's typical in that we have the iconic slate tower, which is a requirement of the Subaru brand. It's typical in that the dark gray and light blue colors are provided as primary accents for their brand. But in terms of the amount of landscaping, the amount of added glass and storefront, I would say that this goes beyond typical. And just, I mean, we did look at a lot of photos online of other Subaru dealerships that were very unique, that were probably situated in an area like this. And some of them are very fancy, I wouldn't expect that. But some of them are quite simple, but yet distinctive. And I think we really do want to be reasonable in that we'd like to see it be distinctive, not necessarily some out of bounds price-wise building, but just something that is, it just doesn't look like something that you're gonna see on route 302. And this looks like something you're gonna see on route 302 to me. And that's where I think we're trying to get to is we wanna, we realize that it's a difficult law, but we want it to have some characteristic that makes it unique and doesn't look like it's gonna be something that you'd see on route 302. I mean, that's where we're headed, where we'd like to get to. Well, certainly I can confer with Dave and Jose about what direction they'd like to take it. I guess ultimately what's there today could inevitably stay there, which I don't think is the right solution either. I think that this effort has been made to create a solution that is unique to what you would see maybe in a different location. But at the same time, it's trying to be respectful for what is available from a budget standpoint and obviously material availability standpoint and still keeping it in context with what the use is itself. And the use is a permitted use. The job is to try to sell motor vehicles and display them in a way that is attractive to their customers. And so that is a factor as well. But once again, ultimately it's the owner's decision in terms of how much more they want to spend to enhance these facades. But again, without a true definition of that, it's really very subjective at that point. Joe, you show us four different elevations. Which one are we proposing? Which ever one you like the best. Well, honestly, the reality of it was the owner was more than happy to suggest that he'd support any one of these solutions. But this was really a way of also addressing some of the other criteria such as breaking up long facades, changing heights, changing sight lines, screening with landscaping. So there's a lot of different standards that are addressed in these renderings. And at the end of the day, whether you like rain screaming on the building or whether you like stone towers on the corners, those are expenses that the owner has already said he'd be willing to invest if that becomes a solution that the board is content with. Going significantly in a different direction from these, that would be a conversation that we'd have to have after budgeting and design and seeing where we're at with what that solution is. And the truth is right now, the cost of building is skyrocket. And what would have cost $180 a square foot is gonna cost $220 or $250 a square foot. What we initially brought to Tom and what you see now is probably $150 or $200,000 difference in something that doesn't help me sell a car, service a car, take care of a customer, pay an employee. It's simply to try to improve and meet these criteria to, you know, I employ 300 people. I wanna employ more. That's, I would hope what we're about here. You know, we're certainly willing to try to find a way but it sounds like there's a lot of conditions that we're not going to meet. And I would suggest that at the end of the day these are car dealerships. They're not, you know, we're not gonna have nail salons inside. We don't have apartments above. These are car dealerships. And, you know, that's a permissible use. And, you know, we're certainly wanted to be attractive and not be a blight. But I think you want people driving past us to your town center is the truth. And that's, you know, we wanna accomplish right sizing our building for the demand of the customers and to grow the business. Well, I wanna move along and so I wanna continue to hit criteria and make progress here. Because as I say, we can always circle back afterwards. There are strong points of disagreement that we seem to have and work through those disagreements. But you really have probably gone through not only orientation and compatibility, but you've also probably addressed articulation. Joe? Well, I mean, I'll talk about that, Mr. Chair. That's fine. I mean, it says newer renovated buildings must incorporate one or more of the articulation techniques described below on street-facing facades for a sense of human scale by dividing the mass of larger buildings in smaller parts that relate to the scale of traditional buildings typical of Vermont downtowns. Again, I mean, human scale is another subjective term that can be defined by many people different ways. But when I look at a building that is multiple stories and several hundred thousand square feet, that doesn't necessarily screen human scale to me. I think keeping this car dealership at a lower roof height and breaking up the facade with these techniques meets that intent. This is an approachable building. It's not a towering building. It doesn't have towering walls of glass. It has made an effort to break up the materials into smaller parts. It's very descriptive in terms of accessibility for people approaching the building. I think it's very descriptive in where you go and how you get there. So in terms of articulation, I think this building does a very good job of that to meet these criteria. Questions or comments on articulation? I know we've sort of transcended some of this stuff. Yeah, well, I'm a little concerned because the north end doesn't seem to be that articulated to me, you know, where you have the 802 sewer road. I mean, it's kind of a blank wall to me. I think, you know, you're- Well, once again, when we look at the articulation goals, it's to break up visually distinct components that do not exceed 80 feet. That entire north end is only 79 feet and it's clearly broken up by the slate tower in the middle, which is 12 feet or 10 feet wide. And it also has a stone new wall that is heavily streamed with vegetation. So I believe it does meet that intent. I guess- I'm not having a facade that's greater than 80 feet that's not broken up either horizontally or vertically. I guess, again, it would be helpful to have, you know, show some people in the drawing or something so that you could see it. Well, our doors are seven feet tall if that's any consideration. And obviously our average people are five foot six. So, you know, it's one of those things where when we look at this criteria of articulation, it's pretty definitive in terms of the goal and the goal is to break up these long facades, different materials, heights, and to not have a facade more than 80 feet wide that's not broken up. By design, this is designed to draw people to the southeast corner because 80% of our customer entrances are gonna occur through those doors. So we don't want people going to the north end. It's a dead end, essentially, for them. So we really try to draw your eye to that service area. Facades? So under facades where it says new renovated buildings must A, feature a regular pattern of windows and entries are on street facing facades. For A, our primary facade is still the entrance drive on the south. That is the entrance to the current showroom and will be the continued entrance to the new showroom. That facade does have a large span of storefront windows. That is in the two-dimensional black and white drawings that we submitted. I don't have a rendered view of that, but basically it's existing and we're expanding that with a new showroom. So it's the same architecture, if you will. B says screen any stretches of solid or blank walls between windows entries on street facing facades that are more than 40 feet in length. So once again, I think Paul's done a really nice job of breaking up these facades to the southeast corner of our service entry. We've even added landscaping on the angled portion of the wall to help frame that wall and break up that facade. And then C says locate vehicle and service entrance areas to the side or rear of the building. So any normal daily delivery traffic such as EPS, FedEx, et cetera, is at the rear of the building, which is on that west facade. Also vehicle deliveries. So when the truck shows up with a car hauler we go to the rear of the building, which is completely screened from the Berlin Mall Road on the vehicles. So the only service, if you will, is the customer service drive that we've already spoken of in the primary side. I did not get copies of the elevations of any of the other south or the north side. Just one here to the east. Did you include them in the drawings? There are emails. I think what happened actually was that we included them in our original submittal. But then I think having significant discussions with Tom about this particular facade, I don't think that those drawings were included in the package that were mailed out to the DRB even though the part of the earlier submission is in our next submission. But I'm happy to bring those up. If you would, please. One second. So this was over. I hope that you'd like. Yeah, Joe, if you've got a handier than me, I could just stop sharing. You could share them from your computer. Yeah, let's do that. I'll share my screen in my viewmaster on the right side of the bus here. Can everybody see that? No. Okay, let me try that again. Did the old monitor swap a room and didn't like me. How about now? Yeah, yeah. Okay. So what this attempts to show you is this elevation here is the existing south elevation of the building. Okay? Yeah. With our addition, our addition goes everywhere from here to the right. So that service drive is the other side of the angled service drive that you saw in that rendered image. So this is the south facade. So what you see is that this existing storefront in the existing showroom remains intact. And then we duplicate that entrance to expand the showroom and then duplicate the storefront. So as you come down the access drive, this is the primary facade that you will see. And again, the color scheme staying consistent. Joe, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but the tower that's shown on the south elevation was relocated to the west elevation. Is that correct? Well, we haven't decided whether or not we're gonna put a second one on that facade or not. So that was kind of one of those things where we left it there because it's a good distinguishing feature on the driveway side, as well as on the rotten mall roadside. So for the purposes of discussion, we assumed it would still be there. And then this elevation is essentially the one that we were just looking at that was rendered, except this was monolithic and this is before we added the other materials. So once again, showing you that this was the, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. This is the existing elevation that faces the Berlin mall road. So the existing Subaru tower is here, would be removing all of this facade. The lettering would be removed, but we bring that lettering forward. And again, this represents the twin C Subaru language without the tower. As again, this was the 2D without the rendering, but that's the same view that you were seeing in the rendered option. And then go back to see if this is gonna play the game. So what you see here is this is the existing north elevation. So there's one service door and a man door and basically a blank wall. That stays the same. And then we add the addition, which essentially is a duplication of that for service. And then in the distance, you see the service drive, which is that angle drive. And this is just a straight on view for dimensional purposes for construction, but it's the same elevation as this guy that's on an angle. Then the last elevation is the existing south elevation. I'm sorry, west elevation, which is here. And really it doesn't change because all the addition is to the east, except for obviously our brand tower that might be on this east side. So essentially that the side remains unchanged with the exception of some modified storefront here. Easier access for vehicles in the showroom. Joe, your north elevation before you leave. Yes. Would you break those? Break that up. It just looks pretty utilitarian. Yeah, well, once again, I mean, we viewed this as a non primary facade. It's on the side of the building between the other two buildings. So we didn't think that needed a lot of attention, but again, I think the discussion is open to try to find a way to create a solution that the DRB is going to be happy with. So right now it's just because it is utilitarian, it's exactly what it is. It's the service garage. This is where the vehicles get worked on. And it's a repetition of what's there. What's that? I don't know. It's a non primary facade. What's the length of those two bays? The addition is 76 feet and the existing is 78 feet. You do see it as you're approaching the... Yeah. Driving in on the Berlin mall road. I can't remember how visible it is and who is it. I mean, yeah, again, you'll see it. It's like anything else. It is, as Brian said, 12 to 14 feet lower than the road. It is streamed by the middle building that is between 802 Toyota and this building. I forget what Dave calls it, but we all call it the middle building. It is streamed a little bit. And also, as Brian pointed out in the site plan, there's a pretty significant gray change between the middle building and this building. So there's actually a retaining wall that's kind of in the foreground that you can't see here that's three or four feet tall. So between the unique topographic features of this site from the road and the other buildings that are basically partially screening it, and once again, I haven't shown Paul's lovely vanescaping in this view, but there's a significant amount of vegetation that's been added to the site that's not there presently. Okay. Briefly note that the articulation in facade portions of the architectural standards do specifically reference street-facing facades. And... Under materials, I think we've beat that one up pretty good unless you want me to go through it again. No, I guess other questions on materials beyond what's already been asked or suggested. The materials that the metals are primarily the existing building, is that correct? Well, it's proposed on the addition as well because it's a matching material to the existing. But yes, the existing building is entirely a metal building. That's what it's been constructed of with the exception of the store-prime glass, obviously. And so the new facade, the primary street-facing facade is what we've attempted to address with the articulation and a mix of materials so that all the metal being, you know, the primary material in the building, I think if we did the material takeoff on that primary facade, I think we'd be very close to 50%. And if it's a 50% mark that we're trying to hit, we could very easily increase the other materials so that the metal was not more than 50% of that facade. Joe, the 50% is not, no, that's... He was just making the point that it was the major, not as opposed to an accent. No, we're not shooting for 50%, I don't think. Right, but we don't have a definition or a measurable criteria that we can shoot for. That's what this discussion is all about, I guess. All right, that's why I mentioned it, because 51% historically has meant majority. So if we're using that as a measurement, I think we can get there if the bullfrog thinks it's not good enough. The language is accent, not majority minority. So that accent sort of implies considerably less. So I have a question about your statement about rooftop units. You said they'll be towards the center of the roof, so they'll be screened from view at ground level. What about from view from Mall Road? Which is... Yeah, I think, you know, people will see them. Just, I don't believe that it's ever been intended that people can't see a mechanical unit on a roof. They're expected, I think they're part of a building. And I think for the most part, the average passerby would not be able to tell you if there was one, two, three, or four on that roof that you quizzed them. Before they went there, if you asked them, sure they'd count it. But rooftop units become that kind of enigma in that it's a necessary piece of equipment to service our building. But oftentimes a big effort is made to screen them, and then the screening becomes all people see. So the reality of it is that these are very small rooftop units on a building that's arguably the smallest building on Berlin Mall Road. And I think they're expected. So I really don't think that there's a huge concern aesthetically about four or five small rooftop units on this 36,000 square foot roof, or whatever it is. And from the street level, obviously the street level for me is how you approach the building as well. So anybody circling the building is never going to see the units from above possibly. Other questions, comments on materials? No. That we haven't already covered. Thank you. It's just going through everything and make sure we hit all the stuff here. I'd like to go ahead with the general standards. It's already 8.30. I got news for you. I'm not good for much after about nine. Maybe. So that's a problem for me. We passed Carlos bedtime. So general standards, if you would, please, Brian. Yeah, absolutely. And we bring the site plan back up. So first standard, you know, these are the ones that we saw as a public project, fences and alt. So there's a fair amount of concrete existing waste concrete block walls on the site. There's two here at the driveway that sort of, you know, routine soil and also have this covert, the main covert when you grab the coast through them. There's a whole bunch of them here in the backside of the site. So these sort of dark gray filled in lines here, background here. So almost all of those walls are failing and starting to tip over. So we're just proposing to replace them in time. Some of them are higher than six feet, but we're proposing a segmental, precast segmental concrete block wall. And those do, you know, the plan, the construction plans will require a stamp design from an engineer licensed in the state of Vermont. You know, we typically, what happens is the order them from the manufacturer, the manufacturer contracts with the engineer provided the stamp design to say, yeah, these walls are going to fall over. Sometimes they include action of reinforced soil behind, but not the more we're not interested in any problems with that system in long-term stability and use. We are proposing one six foot chain, like fence around this new dumpster enclosure back in the backs, back, corner of the site with privacy slots and that. But no barbed wire and fence fabric on the other posts. The other general standards outdoor lighting, but typically save that description for the site plan standards. Okay. Any questions on the walls and fences? And we'll cover the lighting later. Special use standards? The special use standard that applies to this project is automobile repair service. Essentially everything happens inside the building in the northernly base of the building here. We go, reactor partially dismantled or under-districted cars stored on the site. And having to go in a site plan if there's no questions on that. Any questions on the automobile repair service? Okay, go ahead with the site plan standards, people please. Great. First site plan standard is parking and loading area. By our calculations were required to have pretty eight parking, at least 38 parking spaces for the site based on the customer area being retail with regular traffic and the best description for the service area being serviced with no regular customer traffic. We are proposing to reduce the amount of parking on the site which is mostly a function of the building expansion picking up some of these parking. So currently there's 304 spaces, proposed is 313 spaces. As I said in the beginning, they're generally located in existing locations around the building. Customer parking would be on the south side of the building here facing the main customer entrances for anyone who's not coming to the stop off. All spaces are designed by a team with minimum 20 foot aisle to a circulation. And we're proposing this number of spaces, I think probably obviously, because not only we have to provide customer parking, employee parking, we also have to provide storage space for both cars that are for sale and also cars that are being serviced on a daily basis. The parking area will be really asphalt pink light striping trucks that do come and make deliveries of car carriers to come down the driveway and park behind the building. You have a designated loading area here at the north west for the site for the car carriers to park and unload carts away from the main circulation pass around the building. And snow stores generally around the perimeter of the site being that there's enough pavement here that maybe the snow has to be removed from time to time but if it is removed, it'll be disposed of in accordance with state regulations. Let me offside storage for cars. I don't believe so. And maybe something that Dave or Jose could speak to. We'll be back in front of you for that in two times. So not currently, but yeah. But to that end, the parking in front of the building, does that meet our regulations? Yeah, we may have skipped over that actually. Thank you for inviting me, Tom. Yes, and then B Street parking setback is 10 feet behind the building line. So generally I think the intention is to prohibit parking between the building and the street. Again, we're requesting that this be approved as an existing and conforming lot and it can work significantly reducing the non-conformance with East Street standard by removing an entire bay of parking and a good portion of the second bay of parking that's out there. That's a reduction of 87 spaces between the building and the road or 63% of the existing spaces. But being a car dealership, obviously, I want to like to retain some display spaces in the front of the building. And I think that meets with the existing and also allowed use of a sales lot where a portion of the purpose of the use is to display cars or other large retail outdoor things, boats or whatever, better for sale. But isn't that best serve on your south end of the building? And the reason, I know there's been discussions with ownership of offsite facilities. If that's truly the case, I think this is one of these areas where you could come into compliance with our regulations by removing that parking in front of this building. And so I'm just suggesting that what you may want to give consideration to. You don't have to answer that now, I'll just... Yeah, and I mean, frankly, it's a discussion that I have to have with David and Jose anyway. He's certainly got something I can commit to on my own. Any other questions on parking and loading? I have any. Go ahead with the access and circulation. So access is provided from Berlin Mall Road to the existing driveway. The driveway needs to be 71 standards, 26 and a half feet wide and 25 feet curb RAI and an appropriate flat lining at the top. And we're not proposing to change anything about the existing curb cut. As I mentioned before, all the internal drives are at least 20 feet for two-way circulation. We are proposing that the service drop-off be work from north to south. We had a bit of internal discussion about this in order to minimize conflicts between anyone entering and exiting the service drop-off and anyone who might be trying to circulate around the end of the building here. So in order to keep all the traffic that's moving to the south on the same side of the street, this will be the entry to the service. And so there won't be any, you know, cross traffic from folks coming out or folks trying to go around the building. And then we were proposing a stop sign and a stop bar for anyone who's going around the building to give them a chance to stop here and make sure that no one is coming out from the service drop-off as they're trying to circulate around the building. But otherwise, you know, everything is two-way circulation and access all around the building, which actually provides great access and turnaround for emergency vehicles, as well as the shared access through into the eight or two cars and the eight or two Toyota parking lots. Brian, is there a way to, Brian, is there a way to make your cursor a different color? Cause like, the boards, the board saw all that lost in the gray and the blue and maybe they did. Unfortunately, there's not. I could do more drawing and less pointing. But essentially, I was saying this circulation through here goes this way. And then there's a stop sign and a stop bar in this location so that anyone who's circulating around the bottom that way has to stop here and try to make sure there's not a car to come out of spirits with conflicts between coming out of the service drive and circulating around the building. So that's like a roof structure there and they're going underneath? That's what I was going to ask, yeah, what is that? This, the service drop-off here? Yeah, what is that? You're two arrows. It's part of the building. The oval, the little oval shape is a landscaped area. No, no, no. You're two arrows to the very far west. Does that go underneath the roof there? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, you drive it, you're going inside. You're going inside, yeah. So can I just? This, go ahead. That's part of the building. So there are essentially garage doors there. It's exactly the same as on the Eater to Toyota if some folks are familiar with that. There's a burn, you park in front of the garage door, they open it up and let you in and then you talk to the service advisors once you park your car inside. It's pretty typical for most car dealerships nowadays have this kind of drive-through service drop-off. Did you say that's one way around there or I didn't quite get that? Yeah. So it's not one way on the outside but it's the service drop-off is one way through. Okay, but the rest of it's all two lane, right? Right, right. The approach from the west is two lane. On this side of the site. Yes, so you're saying this portion here. I'm not following. Yeah. Is two-way, that's correct. Yeah, what about on the south side now? Yeah. Also two-way, yep. So everything's two-way except for through the drop-off. That's right, that's right. And mainly because if you went the other way through the drop-offs there's a potential for someone, so if you were coming, say, out, which we, this is not what we're proposing but this is why we did, right? And then someone was coming along here then you have a potential point of conflict from someone who's trying to get over onto the right side of the, correct side of the street. Right. And someone coming down. If somebody's coming in from the Berlin Mall Road, what's to prevent them to take their first right as they enter and try to go that way? How would they know they need to go? So that's gonna be a management issue more than anything. So it'll be signed as to which side to go in. But, you know, these Uber is going to take paint to inform their customers when they are coming to drop their car off they should be accessing the site from the north. So either down through the shared access from the other two or preferably not circulating around the building but, you know. Well, also a point of two way traffic in all these drive lanes is because we know that people are people and they're gonna find their way into this lot. And so rather than create one way travel we created two ways. So it gives folks an ability that they have to change directions, turn around, they can do that. So having two way circulation on the building maximize that flexibility. Plus obviously signage will be incorporated to help guide people to where they have to go. Can I just make a comment that has nothing to do with parking or circulation? Looking at this drive-through thing, I mean, just my personal point of view is that would be a great place to put something to make a more unique aspect of the building if possible, just a thought. Like if it was higher, if it was. A tower type thing? Yeah, just something, because that would really add a unique aspect to the building that I think we might be looking for. Agreed. Just a thought. That actually, you know, we kind of did that based on some of Tom's. It was a lot more vanilla before Tom gave us a good talking to. So, and that's where it would make sense because we want to draw people there. We don't want them, the north side of the building is a service entrance. This is a customer entrance. And we have a Planning Commission member that's very creative, so maybe he can go up and look. Great idea for you. By the way, all the beautiful Subaru buildings and there are some really cool ones, all of those are metal panels, by the way. That's the standard. And we try to get away from that as much as possible because they're, you know, it's not the, we have them on the Toyota building to some extent and other buildings. Not my favorite look, but that is the standard, is all metal. But yeah, when I see that, it just seems to scream. This is where there could be a really unique. We're looking for a wild factor. I don't know how best to invest to explain it, right? Just, something that will, people will come off the interstate and come into here and take a look at it. That's just something. Yeah, we were having discussions about it. It could be something that would actually draw, you know, something that people want to look at, you know, that they want to see it. The destination, yeah. And it would just, it would only benefit the dealerships in that regard. And we didn't think it had to be anything that was really. Too crazy. But, you know, Tony, I don't know, he maybe can speak at the end but he had some ideas. So coming out of the service drop off, that's staff bringing those cars out. It's not clients, correct? Generally, I mean, I think at the end of the day, I believe the service clients present there too, is that right, Dave? So it would be a mix. You'd drop your car off there. If you're waiting, you're gonna pick your car back up inside, especially on a bad day and drive away. So, yeah. That's typically how it works at the Toyota. Yes, yeah. It's pretty nice if you're the one eating your car service. It's actually a requirement of just about every manufacturer now that you do this. Continue on access and circulation to bike, Ted? Yep. So generally pedestrian access in the site is intended to get people from the parking lot safely into the building. Again, visitor parking is intended to be in this area. Maybe some either on the east or west sides as well, where we've also provided sidewalks at the building entrances. We are providing two bicycle racks, which they're on a landscaping plane, but they're located at this location right here at the top of the curb to found an accessible spaces. And the bike rack is based on, count is based on employee and customer parking and not really taking into account storage spaces which aren't generally generating bicycle traffic. You know, we've had some conversation about this frontage along this property and the fact that it is somewhat problematic between the drop in grade, the permit, stormwater practice and existing parking spaces that are against the property line. So we really have no feasible place to build a sidewalk along the road frontage. You know, as we heard from Mr. Rushman and as we understand there's plans in the works to redevelop Berlin Mall Road and we would just request given the unique circumstances of the frontage of this property that we rely on the development of the Berlin Mall Road to provide pedestrian access on the frontage on Berlin Mall Road. Well, and also Brian, don't we understand that it's part of that development? The east side of the road is proposing a sidewalk? Anyone? Yeah, I understood that was maybe proved in some previous developments, but it seems from Mr. Rushman's testimony to the baddest, maybe not the current case, I'm not sure. Paulie? So will there be sidewalk along the access road for those people who don't wanna wait in the building but wanna take a walk or go to a shop or something in the rest of the area? Along this access road? Yeah, I mean, is there a way for pedestrians to get out of that site and go into the rest of the downtown area? So we're not proposing a sidewalk along there and again, it's really more than anything due to the physical factors of trying to build a sidewalk along there. You can see in this contour map, that particularly on the north side there's some very steep slopes going down to the existing grade that would really preclude the inclusion of a sidewalk along here. And it's similar on the other side, there's maybe a bit more room in this area, but once you get down to this portion of the site again, it's gonna be, the grades are needing to maintain this existing stormwater and we're trying not to take out all these trees along here as well. It really precludes the ability to put a sidewalk in without putting it on top of the existing drive which would kind of reduce it to, in my opinion, too small for too many tracks. Can you wind the drive and do it then? Winding the drive is the same physical constraints with the grade in it, adding a sidewalk to it. Not on the lower end, right? And can you at least landscape it so it's a little more? One question, darling. Yeah, it kind of, I'm sorry. It falls off from either side, pretty steep on both sides. Not on the bottom, when you're getting towards the bottom of the hill, but as you start getting to the top, it's a pretty significant slope on either side. What we could do is carve out a portion of that driveway and we had actually thought about that internally. We have a free shuttle that brings people out to the mall five, 10 times a day probably, but the reason we opted not to do that is when they get up to the mall road, there's no real safe way to, they're kind of walking on a steep edge if they make a left and they have to cut across traffic to get to the sidewalk on the, going towards the mall or just kind of squeeze along the edge there. So we thought it was a key to the town center concept that was making the rest of the mall accessible and walkable. And so having pedestrian traffic along mall road is kind of almost basic and having access to pedestrian traffic on a mall road is kind of basic here. It would seem to be something that you haven't looked at very hard. No, like I said, we'd certainly be willing to go carve out a portion of that road as a walkway. We could do curving or something to keep cars from wandering into that lane, but it's just what happens when they get up to the mall road, I guess that we wouldn't know. Well, there could be, couldn't you strike it as a crosswalk at the end of that road? I mean, to cross, the sidewalk will be on the other side. Yeah, you got to cross in two directions, well, yes. Because you got to cross here and then if you're going towards the mall, I guess you got to cross, go over the crossback. Well, you need to go across, through the pennies, yeah, toward pennies or you'd go across. Yeah, if you go towards pennies, I think it was already striping there. Yeah, there's a driveway where all the big commercial trucks go into there to deliver stuff on the back. I mean, if you were going to cross to the sidewalk, you'd cross then head south and then have to cross again to get into the mall. You have to do a U- I think there's not a ton of traffic through there, I don't think there's a U-Cross by J.C. Pennies. You want to go that way. I don't think you looked at it very hard. I think that's very doable. In fact, earlier plan for a sidewalk connecting the mall to the hospital property had it on that side of the road, had it on the west side of the road. It required moving some features and it required moving the property even moving the road a little bit. Oh, okay. The one I had seen approved was along the right side. And once we got past north of the Toyota driveway, it cut across. Right, but then there was a previous version of that. That was along the west side. Which Act 250 actually favored. The commissioner was favoring, which is basically traveling on the west side the entire way. And they saw that as desirable as opposed to having crosswalks in two different locations. So it was doable. It may require some retaining or moving the road or somewhat. So it's just without sitting here and designing it, it's something that could have been looked at. Although, I mean, you know, Berlin Mall Road is off of our property. And while there is some off property work, it's really maintaining and recreating the existing stormwater that frankly has failed and is jumping us to water onto the pavement. But I don't know that we have permission or ability to build a sidewalk along Berlin Mall Road on our, well, not even in front of our frontage, really. Well, I see the offer that's been made by the mall as a step to get us there. I realize I was just sprung on it today, so. Well, but so if it became a public road, would we have anything to do with building that road? Yep. Good have. In other words, I've talked about site and pedestrian access right now. Yeah. And I've talked about rebuilding the road per se. And I'm saying. Yeah, for pedestrian access on that side of the road it's really unsafe, as it currently is built, so. You don't have to build big retaining walls with handrails for people at night. Because if you build the retaining wall and put the sidewalk on it, then you'd have a 20 foot drop on one side of the sidewalk. Because I mean, if you drive by, it's pretty steep from the road to the bottom. So you'd have the big retaining walls with handrails for people to not go over. Without that, it wouldn't be safe at all. What if it were to move the road slightly to the east? You'd still have to put some sort of screening because you'll still have the drop. You won't get rid of the drop. So even if you get off the sidewalk, you'd have to move the road significantly to the other side. What is it? Three of one slope, Brian? On the corner over there? It's just a little bit. If you measure it towards the corner where it's significantly, that's where it's really steep. As it gets to Toyota, it becomes a little bit flatter. Yeah, it's three on one in that area. Yeah, that's what I thought. Well, in your regard, isn't that still mall property? That's not even the applicant's property. The access drive is what I thought we were talking about. And that's a different conversation in terms of being focused on that. We jumped ship and I apologize for that. I just want to make sure I was following along. Yeah, well, there was two conversations. One of the conversations started when you get up the access drive, then where do you go? And the logical conclusion is you have a path along the sidewalk along the road that gets you to the mall or wherever in the crosswalk. Right, which should be the responsibility of that property owner, right? It could be a responsibility of this applicant, because the applicant's on the B street if we're embracing a town center. Right, except the applicant doesn't own that property. Right. I think it's still, even with an easement from the Berlin mall road for the Merlin mall owners, an easement is not property ownership. Okay. Not disputing the fact that we should have sidewalks. We just think that just to clear everybody's pointed out some of the trials and tribulations, including yourselves in terms of what is practicable along that road. As far as the access drive, I think you could take that back and talk to Dave and Jose about how we can improve that for sure. Well, let's, again, I'm interested in continuing and then moving back and see what we have as issues. I think we're identifying this as an issue, and, but you made points, and I think we made points. So I think there's a way to get there, but I could be wrong. Let's just. All right, well, Chair. Sure. Could I just say something here? The, the state's made it pretty clear that there are going to be sidewalks on both sides of that road, ultimately. And I think it's also pretty clear that this use has some kind of, the proposed use has some kind of responsibility for providing pedestrian access. So I don't accept, from our standpoint, we don't accept the characterization of Mr. Green about who's responsible for pedestrian access on the west side of the road. Oh, no, my apologies. I didn't mean to infer that. I was just trying to make sure that I was following the conversation because we started on an access road and then ended up on the Berlin Mall Road. And I was just trying to point out and remind the board that we don't own the property. But to that regard, though, I believe it is everybody's responsibility to create pedestrian access, including the current and proposed users of the road. So there is a high-level responsibility for everybody. I think our applicant included so to maintain access to that road, but there should be a cooperative effort to make the road accessible currently, even without this project. Agreed. So there were two issues I was trying to raise. You just mentioned the one important issue, which is access along the road, but also access to the road from the mall was what we were asking you, that what thought you give that. It wouldn't necessarily have to be up the access road. There may be an alternative route. Right. It wouldn't necessarily have to be up the access road. It couldn't make that happen. It would be logical to be up the access road, but it doesn't have to be that way. And just can I ask what the board's reaction is to the owner's free shuttle service they provide currently for customers that are waiting? Is that a viable alternative or is that something that? No, no, it's not bad for those who have a hard time walking, but I don't see it as an alternative to being able to walk yourself to wherever you wanna go, when you wanna go. It's true. Just wanna ask the question. Obviously we have six months of weather in Vermont that are walkable access points and enjoyable by a lot of people, but certainly for our elderly population, that walk is a good one anyway. So I think the shuttle service. No, I think that's great. Probably something that's not provided by many businesses. No, it's not a bad thing, but it's not a substitute for pedestrian access. And Newtown Center is centered around pedestrian access. It's the key function of on the downtown. Okay, again, I'm interested in keeping this movie along. See if we can't cover a couple more points before we move back. Board, what's your preference here tonight? I think we're gonna be a good stopping point. I'd like to suggest we cover a couple more areas. You don't mind? And then we'll be basically, we'll need to come to a stop. Yeah. Because we do have landscaping screening, so we have that next, and we also have outdoor lighting, which I had some issues with. Well, I'll defer to the member board. Do you wanna stop here? I'm fine to go through those, but it's not gonna take long. Yeah, I'm okay if it's gonna be 10 or 15 minutes, but it's not much longer. So, landscaping screening. Brian or Paul? Yeah, I was gonna say, I'll hand this section over to Paul since he's here today. Hello, everybody. So for landscaping, I'll be quick. We basically are providing tonight a view of a color plan. It's the same exact plan that you got in black and white version in the packets. This one just has a little bit more shading and color to it, but we're basically demonstrating that we're meeting the, there's a front yard landscaping requirement with a minimum required of 10 trees and 48 shrubs. We're providing 11 trees and 48 shrubs. We're counting existing trees as well. And then with the building perimeter calculations, we have a required amount of trees of 19 trees and we are counting again some existing trees, but mostly that'll be all new trees for surrounding the building. And then the perimeter shrubs gonna require 109 and we're providing 112 of those. Parking lot landscape calculations are not done because that would be required with new additional spaces added and we're actually reducing the parking spaces. But we still nevertheless provided a substantial landscaping here. And what we did to demonstrate this to is to show all the required trees and shrubs in the boxes there around the plan. And then if there's others and other landscaping mentioned without that box, that's just additional landscaping that's been added. Have to answer questions on that. Well, one question I had was had to deal with the front yard landscaping. Basically, as I read your ordinance, we're talking about a minimum of one tree for every 50 feet of front yard. And I don't see any trees along the front yard. Now, admittedly we got the same discussion which is what do you own out there? What do you own in the front right now is parking lot. But did you consider putting any trees along the road? So that, yeah, that's an area we didn't have an easement in. We have the easement through the access drive. So we have some trees there that we're counting. They are part of the front. So you can see the FT and the FS for shrubs that are added along that access drive. We're counting a couple of those existing trees. We're counting the existing arbor varieties also and we're adding some additional red seeders in there. So, yeah, I mean, basically that property line is almost right at that edge. So we did not include additional trees in there. But it's just pretty straightforward. One tree for every 50 feet of front edge. But we're, let me look at my calculations here. So we have 10 trees that were required for the front edge. I guess you're reading it that they have to be placed at every 50 feet. I did not read it that way. I just read it as a required number of trees that were required to have, but we're meeting that. Go ahead, Paulie. Just to follow up, did you approach the mall at all in terms of asking about landscaping the bank? I did not have a conversation with the mall on that. We were submitting pretty quickly with what we had. I think it's an excellent landscaping plan. I just thought it was the only thing lacking from my perspective is there's no trees along the road. No trees in the front, if you will. Even if we could, landscape along the bank, I don't know if it would really be effective because of the large drop from the road down to the building. So, as you're up on the road, if you're 10 feet higher, typical trees are gonna be looking at the top or over or anything that we'd be planting in that area. There are some trees along the front edge in this area that, and along the building, which, they're counted as building trees, but they really function as both front yard trees and building trees as well. Again, we're looking at an existing site and we would request that the board would understand that we're kind of doing our best under the circumstances to provide and significantly enhance the landscaping, focusing on the area in front of the building as much as we can. But if the parking went away in front of the building, that could be turned into some green space, right? It's critical. Which parking way, are you mentioning? There's, of the two in front, which one are you talking about? Along the Toa Slope. The East side, along the walk? Talking, generally about this area. Can you put your letter where I go? Thank you, Brian. Yeah. I mean, yeah, if that parking wasn't there, we could certainly do something else with it. Again, that's a conversation that has to take back to the owner and, you know, see what we're willing to do. We're a car dealership. We need cars on the lot. This is not a, you know, we're reducing parking out of their, you know, horrible necessity and having offsite storage is a nightmare. It's because we have to do this. Agreed, it's not desirable. Well, I was thinking about more of the trees being along the road. Oh, I was thinking, like, the top. Which is on all property, but I think that's something that could be negotiated really easily. Except then you have to worry about them when they're pairing with a sidewalk. Well, we could be next to the sidewalk. Well, yeah, and depending on what kind of tree you put in the summertime, when it gets really hot, you get sap on all the cars from the wind and the trees and everything else. So that's, you don't want trees near cars as much as you can possibly avoid it. Because if you're going to paint, you're going to repaint cars and not just my cars, you've got a customer car that gets parked near a tree. That's why I pushed up by the road. Yeah. But, you know, so. Yeah. Let's move on, because we think we've found a point that needs to be resolved here. Anything further on landscaping screening, Paul, that we missed here? No, I mean, Brian mentioned that we included the bike racks. They're more noticeable on this plan, I guess, than the other plans so you can see where those are located. We also have, in addition to like building perimeter shrubs, we've added, you know, a lot of perennials, purple comb flower, rutabecchia, a lot of color to enhance the look in front of the building as well. So I've got nothing else to really add, but to the presentation on that. Great. Thanks, Paul. Looks good, Paul. Thank you. Yeah. Also a lady. So we submitted the photometric plan and cut sheets for the outdoor lighting. So here's the vector plan. Sadly, I don't know that this is really very useful on the screen, but sort of important points here are average light level of 1.83 foot candles. You know, it's been designed with typical average and maximum ratios. I think it doesn't quite calculate drawn here because there's some areas of zeros included in, but that was part of the lighting designers design. The, all of the exterior fixtures are proposed, you replace new dark sky compliant LED fixtures, warm color temperature, oops. Sorry about that. We are, because the building expansion we're reducing the number of pole lights on this type to 17 and then from 20, 20 to 17. And then the number of building mounted lights goes up from nine to 16. Of this proposed 17 poles, 13 of them have two fixtures. Currently the pole lights all have four fixtures per pole. So it's a significant reduction in fixtures. We're proposing to control the lights with a timer in photocell. So photocell will turn lights on at dusk. And then we are proposing for some lighting on the site to remain on all night just for purposes with all the stored vehicles on the site. But after 11 p.m., we're proposing to turn off 50% of the pole light fixtures to reduce site lighting levels and then bring them back up from six a.m. to dawn for when folks start accessing the site again. I think that looks good. The only thing I had was is that looking at your light, the lighting plan, it would, without doing the math, it would seem to me an awful lot of zeroes or near zero light intensities beyond the limits of the property are included in the math. And there's a pretty high intensity lighting on the parking areas, you know, excessive 10 up to 12 percadles, lumens. And so I just, I'm not sure how this is done, but we've had this game played with us before where we count samplings that are not even on the property and we include them in our averaging. You don't count zeroes. So I don't know that you would know the answer to this question, but that's what this drawing looks like to me. For instance, all those zeroes and 0.1s and 0.2s that are on that bank, are they included in the math that comes up with an average of 1.83? And if I had to guess, I'd say yes. Yeah, I honestly don't know if, I'm assuming the lighting designer included those to show like trespats off property, but I do not know whether that area, I know sometimes the calculation area is different than what's shown on the sheet here, but I take your point and I don't have the answer not being the site designer, I'm sorry, the lighting designer. And his notes basically sort of say, our information based on others. So just in looking at the intensities, I would suggest that they are, you probably got more light than the 1.83. I don't really see the two that was a maximum based on our bylaws for an average, but if somebody can verify it, that's always speaking to the light on the property. That'd be useful. It's even flexible. And is there, I understand, I understand that this area is off our property, there are some areas on the property that are very low. So just to clarify, are you just referring to this area or are you also referring to like this area? I guess I'm referring to any area where we really aren't using it for parking or any other sub functional purpose. That would be certainly off property, which is a fair amount shown off property. And there's some shown on property that's pretty much a swale right there, correct. So it may not include them. I've seen this done before and without somebody telling me that, no, we didn't include that. We only included basically the drive areas, parking areas, the building areas in our, in our averaging, just looking at the intensities. I suspect that that's not the case. You don't normally get a lot of 10s when you do that. Yeah, I take your point. I will have to take it back to the lighting designer and see what their response is. Mr. Chairman, can I ask a quick question too? While we're on the topic of lighting, I guess in respect to the whole conversation about the road, if there's an ongoing dialogue about landscaping and sidewalks, would it be the expectation that they would also be lighting along the road? By our bylaw, there is. I think it's the intent of the town that over the course of time, that road becomes redeveloped. So, I think it would be open to discussion when lighting would go in. Yeah, just one, I did get in the spirit of the whole conversation being comprehensive. They all go hand in hand and they just, if we're coming back for another visit, maybe it's something that we've talked about internally too. Yeah, I think it's an expectation. I do like the way you program the lighting to basically cut it in half a night. Others have used dimming as a tool, but cutting your lights in half gets you the same, so it's on the same place. Certainly, you still need to keep security, so I like the timing and the photo cells, so that's very good. It's just, I question the averages. It's good. I'm gonna go with the rest of the board here. I'd like to recess this to a date certain. That would be my suggestion to the members of the board. I apologize if that's an inconvenience to the applicant here, but I don't know that, I thought we were gonna resolve this tonight anyway. Perhaps we'd like to encourage some dialogue between the mall owners and the town and the applicant to see if we can address some of these issues. And then maybe a timetable involved in that, who knows? I'm speculating, I'm trying not to design, but we still have a few more issues. I do want to know more about stone water, and understand that the science will be a separate application, but what is the board? I mean, as far as the date? Yeah, as far as, you want to continue, or you want to? I'd like to recess. I definitely should recess to a date certain, but I'm just concerned about one that is based on, you know, there's a time concern. So, are we gonna do a special meeting or a regular meeting, or? Well, we do a special meeting right here. What's our schedule look like, Tom? We're pretty busy at the next scheduled meeting the first Tuesday in September. I don't have anything else currently. So the second Tuesday, the fourth Tuesday? The third Tuesday in September. It would be a good day. We are expecting a couple major site plans associated with the other end of this property. So again, I would encourage if we're asking these folks to do something different to us, for us, we should ask them that. But for us to come back in the September with not giving them any direction of things that you want, I think that doesn't do them any good either. I mean, we want to finish, and then regroup, you know, do we want to finish in a week and then regroup and get feedback? Or do we want to? You guys can meet, regroup, you know, recess, and you just meet and talk about. And then get this. We can deliberate, yeah. Yeah, all right. We'd love to do a recession, we can do that. And then perhaps we should do that to see where all of one mind. Yeah. And see we have, and then come back to the applicant with some suggestions. Right. And perhaps with some thoughts on how to get to a place where they'd like to go, which is permanent. And preferably in a timely fashion. So I'm amenable to any of them. It's gonna be a guy's schedule. Yeah. So I would suggest that you recess this to the second, the third Tuesday in September. And we do. But then you guys get together prior to that. Yeah. I think that's fair. And then give these guys some direction on it. Yeah. Time table work. We're pushing up against winter. So as fast as we can go is the best time table for us. I mean, everything's relative, right? Depending on what the outcome of the conversation is, three weeks from now, we're bidding documents as we speak to contractors with the hopes of getting contract signed. So if we have to go through a significant redesign, that will put that process on hold and potentially lead to change orders. But again, I think we're all saying the same thing. We're trying to work collaboratively to get to a positive result for everybody. So, you know, the sooner we can resolve it, the better. But it's all relative to what the resolution is again. Yeah. Well, we'd all like to be having this conversation back in late April. All right. But we're not there. Let's recess it to the third Tuesday and let's deliberate probably this week or next week. Well, I think, I think based on the timeline, we want to get the feedback as quickly as possible. Give them the right time. Right, so that they, so that there's time to write. Maybe address some of it, or at least address it. Give them time to. So I'll circulate to you all what's convenient times and dates for you guys to meet within the next week, so. I have intention to have Tuesdays pretty much up. Well, the stuff that we're like at the regional planning commission, but other than that. But yeah, I'm pretty flexible actually. So. I'm very flexible at night. So. Until nine o'clock. Until seven. Yeah. Okay, I'll accept the motion here to recess or I'll make the motion. So I'll let you all know. Okay, second. To the, what date is that, Tom? But I don't have a calendar. 20th first. 20th. 20th. And. And. September 20th is a Monday. Yeah, it's a 21st. 21st. I'd like to meet within the week. Okay. To this board. That's fine with me. Yeah. Okay. And deliberate. So. I need two dates. I need a motion to recess this and I also need a motion to go to the session. Tour, move. Yeah. Recess. Okay. Second. All right. For the discussion on motion. All those, okay, that motion please say aye. Aye. All right. I'll move that we meet within a week to deliberate. Just move it. We're going to go with a little bit of a session. A little bit of a session can actually be remotely as well as in person. Okay. So I move that. Let's, we need to clear people out before we deliver the session. We're not going to. We're not going into it. We're hoping to act, hold on. We're not going to do it. We can't go to the session unless you have a motion to go to the session after a reason. Can we have that motion when we actually meet? No, we have to. Well, we have to move it. We have to decide now whether to have it. And I move that we have to go into deliberative session at a time to be determined. Second. Second. Okay. For discussion. Okay. All those. For that motion. Aye. That was great. Never done that before. No, you probably did.