 We're all here, I guess. So we'll call the meeting to order any changes to the agenda. Hearing none, looking for a motion to approve the minutes of the previous meeting? I have one comment on the minutes. Go for it. It says in the last paragraph of article five or yeah. After discussing the uses, it was decided that education facility and daycare facility should be included as a permanent abuse in all districts. I think the way we left this was that we were going to continue discussion that maybe it was like a conditional use. I don't know if we ever end cap that. I don't feel like we did, but maybe others felt differently. I'm sorry, you were, where were you exactly? So under the fifth. I don't know, what do we call these bullets? The last paragraph talks about the zoning district uses table that we discussed and near the bottom it talks about education facility and daycare facility. And the way that it's worded, it sounds like we were conclusive in permitting that use in all districts. But I think we wanted to continue that discussion to make sure that made sense on this call. Versus having like a conditional use for those. I thought, I thought that we had decided that we would do educational and daycare and all it was religious facilities. We're going to. That's what I recall too, actually. Okay, because I, I kind of went and apologize profusely for going back on what I had originally suggested, which was to make it a primitive use. And thought that maybe making a conditional use with hat would allow more discussion from the neighbors. Before it was permitted where it before it was permitted. And my, and my thinking was, you know, it's not permitted at all. It's not even on the chart as, as a use in most of the districts that we're now saying that it's a permitted use. So we went from there's no option to put it in to now anybody can put it in anywhere. And I just thought it warranted further discussion that if we made it a conditional use, then the neighbors could get involved. There were traffic concerns there. There was a voice to be had. It wasn't just like a straight up permitted use. And so I apologize for going and making. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Revisiting it after we sort of like really quickly said it's permitted and moved on. But maybe I'm the only one that remembers that. And if you all think that it's like, it's a use that you're like, oh, if your neighbor moves out and they put a school in there, it's no big deal. We're all comfortable with that. Then it, then it can stay that way. I just had concerns. We talked about it really quickly and then moved on. And I wasn't sure if like the conditional use was a better. A better spot for that to set. So I remember you bringing that up, Abby. I don't think I can review the, the video, the recording to see if there was any consensus on that, but we still can talk about that again in the future. We're not obviously done talking about the use table. So we can revisit that if you, that's something you want to talk about at a future meeting. Yeah. I mean, we said we were going to revisit it at this meeting, but I'm kind of looking at you guys to see if you want to revisit it or not. Because, because I can't tell. Is everybody comfortable with it being a permitted use in all zoning districts? Yes, I would like to revisit it. Yeah, I would too. Actually, I remember sort of that we, I thought that we said it was, it was a permitted use in all zones, but now that you're bringing it up again, I guess I would like to have further discussion about it. I recall also, I, I, I asked about daycare and, and I thought daycare we decided it would be allowed in all zones as a permitted use because of the, the, I think the mayor brought up the, the question or the, the idea of difficulty in, in finding or having daycare facilities, adequate daycare facilities. And Christine, tell me if I'm, if I'm misquoting what you, what you said. You're not. Okay. Yeah. I remember you called me on the carpet on that. Yeah. And I was definitely, you know, aligned with Christine on that too. But this category does include K through college, right? It's like a, it's a, it's a very diverse category. So we haven't separated like daycare. Yes. And every, in that, in every district, but college, no, or like, you know, K-12, no. So I was going to pull up and maybe Eric has it handy that, that matrix that we were all looking at that kind of showed our current uses and what's permitted in what zoning area. Just to remind everybody that right now, educational facilities are only permitted. I think it was like in the commercial zoning use. And we were talking about all the uses. Your use table, Abby. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have that handy? Yep. Um, could I just interject here that we, this item is not on the agenda, right? We're looking at minutes. If you want to revisit it. Right. We shouldn't like start diving into that right now. So do we need to change the minutes to reflect that it's not. Yeah, go ahead, Mike. I was just going to say, uh, Christine is right. We can, we can get into further deep dive in it when we get back into this agenda item. Um, but for the minutes, maybe what we do is, is Eric, you were going to review the tape to see. I can do that. Yeah. We'll just have you do that. You know, a question was raised about this part of the minutes. And so we should probably then table approval of the minutes. Until we find out. We can, we can, um, we can approve them next at the next meeting. Once we get clarification on that. Does that work for everyone? Yeah. Just, just my general recollection of it was that we did have a really rigorous discussion of the subject and we were all pretty. Open to changes. Um, for like it being approved throughout the zoning districts, but I don't, my understanding, general understanding of it was that we kind of had it in mind that we were going to be revisiting that and coming to a really more conclusive stance. It was more kind of whether we were kind of feeling out whether we were open to doing this and I think we all by and large were. Uh, so let's, we'll just table the, the, um, minutes until the next meeting till we get clarification. If that's all right with everyone. And we'll move on to the next agenda item. So the next item on the agenda is the, uh, discussion of the master plan goal progress. And I will turn it over to mayor lot to. Lead this discussion. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Eric. So last winter we were talking about getting all the commissions together to check in on master plan progress in the spring, which of course was thwarted. Um, so in the absence of that effort. Each commission is taking a meeting to look at the goals for the. Section of the plan that they are associated with. So for us here, this is land use. So we're going to go ahead and go ahead and look at the goals. And see if we feel like. Initiatives over the last year or two are aligned. If there is somewhere that we're really off track and what our priority should be for the near future. Um, so. The way we approach this, uh, at the finance commission, the other night was just to kind of talk, go down the list of goals. So we have eight here for land use. And just have a discussion about like, what are the goals of the commission? Um, what are the goals of the commission? Um, I don't know if there's something we're missing. Um, and then I'll ask you a few questions at the end to sort of summarize where you all think we are and where we should be. Um, You all have the, or do you want to put the goals up, Eric? Oh, and I should say that the end, the outcome of this will be. Um, The council will look at all of these together from all the commissions. We're going to try to do this. Um, We're going to do this. Um, We're going to do this. So it is like a big picture of where we're at as a city moving forward. And then, um, Also share that back with, with, uh, Commission. So you all can see like the overall, where are we across the board? Okay. Yeah. No, I was just going to say. You're in charge. Yeah. Yeah. Um, The first to the first goal we have here is, um, We're going to look at, um, We're going to look at, um, About infill in building upward in accordance with regulations to ensure economic sustainability. So. I. I think that's what our form based code and gateway development is aligned to. Um, Are there. Other initiatives that folks see supporting this goal or places where we're missing it. I think you hit it right on the head. I, I, I think that. It's a zone for and to me make sense is the gateway in the downtown. And I, And I think that our regulations, um, Address that adequately. And it also seems like there's a fair bit of a fair bit of construction going on in those areas as well. So it seems like it's working. I guess the only, the only thing is when you talk about, uh, Build upward. I think we've, I think we limit height to. Um, The maximum six stories in the downtown. Um, In some cases or, or a height. I mean, I don't know as we want to go any higher than that. Um, That would be the only other thing. And I think at this point, my feeling is that it's, we're, we're fine the way it's written now. Um, basically, I think in the gateway. Um, I think it's a little bit of a difference. With a bonus five, I think. So the gateway is. It's a story limitation and a overall height limitation, depending on where you're, where you are either north or the railroad tracks or south of the railroad tracks. But with the bonus story option, it's. Uh, a maximum of either five and a half stories or I believe it's 65 feet or four and a half stories and 58 feet. Yeah. Um, while it seems relevant is. Is that like consistent with other, um, Patterns throughout Chattanoon County? Is that like generally a similar. Those building heights. Yeah. Size. Yeah. I mean, I think it depends on, on the municipality. Um, for example, in Burlington, they allow for. I would say probably at least twice that depending on where you are in their downtown core versus. Or I guess around the church street area and their kind of downtown versus other parts of the city. Um, I believe South Burlington is somewhere similar to that with some of the new development they've done in their form based code as well. So I would say it's not inconsistent. Okay. That was my general impression. I just wanted to know if that you had any more insight into it. And look at what's happened. I think that it's still the tallest building in the state. The, um, the elderly housing down on, um, Pine Street or St. Paul Street. Yeah. And then, and then, uh, To Burlington Square, not to Burlington Square. Um, The building seven Burlington Square, I guess it is the, the 10 story building. And then after that, I mean, I think four to six is, is. Typical. Um, Well, three to six is, is more typical, um, of what's being built and or is allowed. Um, I guess that the proposal for the new. City place or whatever city. Tower of battle. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think Christine, uh, Christine that, uh, on number one, I think we're, we're in good shape. We've met the goals. Right. So for number two, we're talking about the future of the city. Um, We're also, um, Continuing development and support for the downtown core. So we are still supporting the, um, VEC hotel project, which would complete build out downtown. Um, Little COVID delay, but still moving forward slowly. Um, and I think. This is maybe not a land use issue, but, um, down there is kind of supports this as well. That's pretty historic actually once that gets built that that be like the final keystone there. A long time of planning and work on downtown. 20 years. Well if you go back to like model cities it's like 50 years like working on that. Yeah so Christine there still are two other lots that are are potentially developable down there. The question is will anything ever happen on them and should that be changed? So they're not they don't have to be financially speaking. But what's his name? Um what do you see hotel group guy there? Oh yeah I know what you mean. Adam Dubroff. Yes yes yes. Still does have land rights there. I thought he he didn't swap those for for the parcel that that's being proposed now. I thought he I thought he was the one that started with that hotel proposal and it got taken over by Nettie and those guys. He never completed the land swap right Eric? Like that never went through? I believe that's correct. There was discussion about swapping with lot 7D and also potentially swapping with lot 8. But the the land swaps never never materialized. Well I mean if the hotel does develop on 7D I can't imagine he would move forward with the the hotel on well I'll call it the the west pad site. I'm not sure what the number is. Yeah I mean I think that is so we're focused on development of this last lot you know making the whole Tiff financial situation whole completing the vision for downtown. I think then the next step would be focusing on what do we do about those two lots and what the long-term situation is there. Yeah I mean he owns it he's gonna want to do something with it right? Or sell it I don't know. Okay yeah yeah is that like as far as if we're talking about like goals and values here is that like something that the city really wants to see is something on that spot? I don't think so. Okay that'll be my land though right so we'd have to there would have to be some effort made to keep it open. Right there is also a development agreement from 2006 which gives him some which does allow him some some some concessions from the city to develop that lot if he if he so chooses in certain ways so it kind of outlines some of those components that the city will support the development on mostly related to access and things of that nature but he is the property owner and does have the the right to develop it. As I recall part of that was also the the the city would would consider or let them expand that lot from I forget if it's if it's 80 by 80 or 80 by 100 but give them a little bit more land around it. I know when the hotel was initially proposed that was one of the things that that that happened was it was a very tight site so we said okay we'll allow you to expand it by like 20 feet or something I forget specifically but there was something to do with that and and parking spaces in the in the garage but that was 14 years ago now is it that's a done deals there's a there's a new chief in town that's right Mike that's right and I'll blame all that on Clem because he was mayor at the time so good to know so number three is to transform the gateway districts using public and private investment specifically trying to capitalize on some public investment into infrastructure stabilize and strengthen mixed use commercial areas create pedestrian friendly multimodal district expand housing ensure a complementary relationship between corridors and surrounding neighborhoods and better utilize existing resources to develop underutilized lots and create an improved pedestrian experience I think Main Street obviously is is set to achieve kind of all of these we also completed the East Allen scoping study which could have that gateway meeting these goals when we get to the point of being able to fund that project and you're talking about corridors yes what does that mean is it just like so I just think he's down now let's be having him and what was the other point I wanted to make on that oh I mean we got some private investment to pay for the crosswalk on East Allen that is currently there so those are some efforts that are working towards this obviously there's still more more to happen here yeah in terms of of our role I think that the the form-based code in these gateway districts are set up to achieve all these things it's a matter of you know when it all happens and like you said we're seeing on a main street we're starting to see it on East Allen Street Mouseby Avenue we I think we've always known is going to be the last corridor to really get redeveloped or achieve some of these things because there's some there are some physical problems there with topography and whatnot but I mean I think that zoning has is set up to allow us to meet this goal folks agree with that I do agree with that the things that we have yet to achieve with some of the multimodal um pedestrian friendly or bike friendly I mean it doesn't say bike there but being one of our goals are things that we're set up for in our planning to allow that to happen over time as the resources become available and the opportunity becomes available yep I'm curious where the whole you know like parking on the corridors and affecting the neighborhoods where that are we I guess I'm just wondering because it seems like there's a conflict there um amongst some of us I don't know if it's compliment if it's a compliment a complimentary relationship as it is currently moving forward it seems like we're just getting more parking in these corridors so I don't know that is I would just be one issue yeah I think it was that too Amy when I was reading this number three and number five kind of don't seem like they're compatible necessarily I think it's I think they could be compatible I think that that it's it's just a matter of of us being aware of especially the parking thing in the infiltration into neighborhoods because this this clearly talks about preserving neighborhoods that's something that we have to deal with and I think that our regulations currently again I think our regulations are such that it it allows these two to coexist but we have to be careful about going forward if we if we when we look at parking requirements what not to keep that in mind of that conflict between the gateway and infringing in the neighborhoods right I see what you're saying because currently as it stands it's okay but if we change it it might conflict or we need to be right okay could I ask a question here on number three number three point f what is um better utilize existing resources what is existing resources mean there that sounds a little broad and I'm just trying to wrap my head around it for my own knowledge having not written these myself um the way that I interpreted that is that what's that taxpayer dollars they mean those are the the city resources budgets taxpayer dollars towards towards projects right well so I think like an example is main street we already own curb what we're trying to like bring in the curves right to expand the sidewalk and use those under like better develop those underutilized loss so that's not like that's an existing resource of the city is that public right of way that we are trying to leverage to change that experience in that corridor okay interpretation I just have a question I noticed that um I guess off topic but somebody in the chat keeps asking is that allowed I don't know who that is I don't know who that is so I'm just curious about that yeah there's any weird participants in the meeting but that's that's been taken care of thank you for asking about that just a casual zoom bombing please continue thanks fall um so not to be too presumptuous but I actually was kind of assuming that goal number four here about refining the land use regulations like that is something that we are doing have been doing in this commission and that this would likely be the prior one of the priorities going forward because we've been having these discussions time to address part and the complementary nature between the corridors and neighborhoods make sense fair assessment I would agree although I would love to see more about stormwater too so I think four is a good one to highlight one of the questions I would have is why would stormwater management be part of just a little confused as to what we can do in planning to do something with stormwater management Eric would you like to take that one sure um yeah I think one of the aspects of stormwater management in that we would be looking at potentially is our impervious coverage limitations and uh potential green space requirements or landscaping requirements and things of that nature to help um allow for stormwater to be managed on site rather than to be have to be conveyed through another system so those components we could come into the land use side of things that makes sense more directly I do remember that now thank you they do think that's important because I know many other cities require it but we don't um I just wanted to say something quick about number three um on e the complementary relationship between the corridors and the neighborhoods I know we've talked a couple times about like adjacent um how the zoning the way it's set up in the gateway district affects property on on the gateways but then the property next to the gateway district sorry can you hear me okay um the one next to the gateway district there's a lot there was a conversation about whether the developer could why that yeah the split zoning conversation I'm not sure if we ever um if we ever as a planning commission really talk through that but I think that that that he would really directly relate to that conversation Eric that's still in the list of yep yeah yeah we have that queued up for for a future discussion with the as we're reviewing the regulations okay maybe the important part part in this one is is that we have those discussions that there's a forum for those discussions as it relates to these goals so that we're not ignoring the potential for impact to the neighbors so abby before we get any further who's the newest member of our planning commission um so this is Kai Kai say hi look this way yeah hi dad is missing an action he must be doing something outside so we're gonna babysit Kai for a couple minutes till he comes back in no problem we like having future planning commission members needs to represent his age group you have anything to say about daycare no do we need more yeah I had brought up earlier when we were talking about a little bit of elaboration on number three um with f there I guess because the way I read that that's kind of we're a little bit where I interpret that like you know we have talked about historic preservation and managing historic assets in the city and that's kind of why I read better utilize existing resources um and kind of like because my observation is a little bit of the tactic that's being used right now is clear the lot and put new in rather than kind of integrating existing things that are worth saving um into new development um um and I just kind of think that's where our objective in having the um the inventory that's being produced I think actually dovetails pretty good and with that that point if I'm interpreting that correctly I think that's a good fit Joe adapt was adaptive reuse is that the right place yeah I think so yeah yeah and how could we as the planning commission or the city encourage adaptive reuse well hopefully the people doing the study for us tell us that exactly okay well and once we once we get that study done we can we can then thoroughly address the whole historic preservation question and put in language that we feel is um appropriate and has teeth that can you know as opposed to what happened to us getting caught with our guard down if you will on some of these things you know thinking that the state was going to protect us and finding out not so much yeah I just bring it up here because I think that that line really clearly illustrates well like a good balance um because like I think sometimes the misconception is that like historic preservation is either things like you know stay exactly the way that they are and you know you can't change anything and anti-development and that's not really the attitude it's kind of like well how do you work with what you have it's worth saving so there's something um and I don't know again I'm just mayor put me in check if you don't want to go down this road um but I was looking at the strategic the master plan uh recently and if you go to the Winooski housing needs assessment um and there was a project done by CDAE in July of 2016 and the very first line there it says key findings and says Winooski has a large share of subsidized housing units and needs to invest in existing housing as opposed to being focused on creating new affordable housing the city would be well served to put its resources towards preservation and rehabilitation of existing housing to improve the quality of the units so it's kind of taking us another trip but the only reason I brought it up here was to say you know that wording is and the affordable housing is another storyline we don't need to get into that for the moment but just it is that preservation is is said again and again in the master plan in different ways and I think we do I mean I know we're headed towards that I'm just backing up what Joe's saying is that um resources are the communities said that they want those to be considered resources as well so I'm just putting that in there I think it's interesting go ahead Christine sorry I was just going to say I will share that there is you know some of the work that the housing commission has focused on in it's been aligned to that a little bit more focused on quality but improving quality of existing housing um and there are also some side conversations happening among staff but you're right that we haven't like that's not something we've really gotten into here at this level yeah yeah I was going to say that 3f is a is a good illustration of of a line that can be interpreted many ways yeah what are existing resources yeah didn't you write this mic yeah everything everything is either clam dated or or maybe billy norphal did it before clam I don't know yeah yeah yeah somebody throw someone under the bus what's that it wasn't you I won't say that it was all of us it may have been me who knows but he will take credit for the better points the plumber who complains about the one before him yeah that's right that's right no I'm I say that in jest I will take all the blame if you if it needs to be given some place because I was I was in the middle of all this stuff it's a lot of work Mike but something like this do we want to go in and clarify or do we just leave it as is and let people interpret it as is well so so this is from the the master plan right so that will get addressed when we're ready to update the master plan I think the master plan has a lot more detail we're just only looking at these goal summaries at that yeah the master plan is I'm proud of that and when I look at it I really think it's a great document and I just kind of might what I'm always in the back of my head is how are we actually executing yeah idealized there it goes back to what we all as we serve we're forming our group when when the new mayor Christine came on was that are we meeting the goals of what the master plan what the community um asked to have you know so speaking of that how do we feel about number five move us along yeah move us along it's good yeah I mean I think I think we've been dealing with it we've been trying to address that yeah I think there are things that we have to keep looking at um but we are looking at it um so number six is allowing neighborhood scale retail and oh that's right there's a second page um allowing neighborhood scale retail and services do we feel like the zoning is meeting that need I know Eric recently proposed changes that were similar that align to this yeah that was another topic of discussion in the last meeting we approve some new uses in some of the residential areas but yeah the integration of neighborhood scale services I don't feel like we've besides that we haven't really talked about that yeah I think we're just starting that conversation I think last I will kind of dug into it I will tell you that this there was a lot of conversation about this when we did the these zoning regulations Tommy you'll remember this I I'm assuming I do yeah that was a very big consideration is allowing smallish commercial neighborhood type uses within the residential districts and it was clearly to meet that neighborhood's needs what is what we were looking for so that for example one of the small grocery stores like there are well there's only one that I can think of right now that's in a neighborhood but it's meeting the needs of that neighborhood and we wanted to allow that to continue and the same would be true if we were looking at services for the daycare um setting to allow that to exist within a neighborhood I'm just curious Tommy what which one you're talking about which um which grocery store what's the one I don't know the name of it it's it's um I get my streets are confused yeah I am yes okay um yeah check on a meeting in the neighborhood well you know I mean the grocery store that's why I was asking yeah well I have no I've never been in there to tell you the truth but yeah so what what do I know yeah but something in the neighborhood that would support so I'll take that back but we clearly when we rewrote the zoning we talked about things like you know neighborhood grocery stores um like service uses like hair salons or barbershops or you know whatever else you might think of but just you know small for commercial I do think my general impression is that a lot of a lot of when you ski neighborhoods have lost some of their vibrancy in the absence of this stuff um that it historically did have and I think that when zoning was initially enacted it kind of wiped out a lot of that and I think that was part of the impetus for like changing some of the zoning to allow that more and I would kind of like to foster that but I think it's key that it has to be neighborhood scale because that's why people are getting a little bit apprehensive when they hear about this kind of development in neighborhood because they want to make sure that it is something that really fits the needs there and will be harmonious rather than an obstruction absolutely yeah and I would say it's a great goal to try to get that in but then you've got to deal with the realities of of the financial you know um world and will these make a would something like that make a go in the neighborhood and that's where the entrepreneur has to make that decision yeah unfortunately unfortunately over the past 20 or 30 years 40 years um there's been a move away from neighborhood stuff yeah to you know big supermarkets and you know those kind of things exactly and like um even is it Sammy's market that's down on Mallets Bay Avenue yeah in my lifetime that has changed ownership so many times um and I think it's partly due to the fact that it doesn't have gas pumps and so otherwise if you don't have that kind of steady major income source it makes a small enterprise being you know kind of a struggle I think if we also if we also look at some of the um some of the ethnic markets that have popped up in neighborhoods that actually some of those I would consider to be grocery stores um oh definitely you know so I think if we look at those then and those are also neighborhood scale and they're serving the neighborhood so exactly that's that that that's what we should be encouraging I think number seven yeah and currently I found our table our zoning table um there's nothing permitted um no retail uses permitted currently um in our residential residential zone neighborhoods except for a couple conditional uses so I imagine when we start digging into that we can talk a little bit more if there should be other other right now we have um two residential zones that have conditional uses for retail sales and then three for little cafes and restaurants but everything else is blocked up right now so I think when we have that conversation um we can we could directly link it back to meeting the skull and and how and how to meet it meet it because I don't think our current table does so at the table we were discussing on the last meeting that you're referencing again okay so yeah this conversation actually we started it for sure yeah yeah we I think this is probably our newest like bit that we're shooting on so number seven is to maintain and evolve commercial industrial districts to retain and grow businesses and enable startups um I don't have any like examples for this I mean we have supported our existing businesses and retain them and we have some growth the CBD plant yeah oh dear um I'm not sure if there's like this is something that zoning needs I'm not sure if we need to address zoning on this right like we have the zoning in place to support those um businesses right now right where Heather shines exactly this is really one of the things that we were thinking at the time that we wanted to do this was having the pop-up kind of office spaces that small businesses could share and having some of our commercial zones be able and zone so that that would be possible um to have those shared office spaces so I think that is happening right now the Champlain Mills definitely doing that oh yeah yeah I think that's allowed I mean I'm not sure you can get so um precise as to allow shared use but you can you know you've got office uses are allowed and so if someone has an office use that's shared it I think it still meets the definition of office use and that's what we were really trying to um see if we could actually even encourage to have a low impact business be part of our um commercial and industrial districts yeah and then to the to the I think the larger question the districts themselves I don't know where we have um an area that we can expand either commercial districts or industrial districts the only possible industrial district expansion would be the Gilbrook and that would not go over well if that was proposed I can tell you that right now because I don't read this as expansion it maintain and evolve to me it reads like the existing but I'm but right but I'm just saying we don't have this place space anyway that we could expand to allow greater development if you will of industrial or commercial uses couldn't you go up near the school isn't there more space up in that area that could sort of there's all those parking lots that could be expanded it's just the school owns it all yeah so if the school if the school closes for some reason or if they want to sell some land then it's possible that could be rezoned but I think that's now zoned public and I don't know if you if folks were around recall um 10 or 15 years ago there was a proposal someone proposed putting a pharmacy I think it was where the soccer field is in the front of the high school yeah I remember that that was a kind of a big debate um yes and I mean it was not favored so I can't foresee that I guess because it was talk about selling that lot and I I don't know how they would make the expansion that's going on right now feasible if they had sold that right I guess I wasn't thinking that close to the school I was thinking up near like repo graphics off weaver oh taigan yeah that's all industrial right it's maintain commercial and industrial districts so I just didn't know I feel like there's room to grow there isn't there yeah depending on those businesses needs yeah yeah in yeah I think in in my lifetime it did slightly grow because they're um right where it turns to go to main street that did not used to be an industrial I mean it was probably zoned industrial but that was not developed from what I remember and so they actually added some more industrial space in there and there actually is some vacant land down behind biotech going running between there and orchard terrace yeah that has kind of some weird stormwater runoff things going on too which might be why it hasn't been developed yeah there's a there's a stormwater pond back there yeah we're wandering here sorry they call us the water practice to maximize opportunities for the recreational economy I think this is something that hasn't happened but we just the council just approved the parks and open space plan at their last meeting and so I think that's a discussion that can come now that that plan is in place we're going back um so number nine is to consider expansion of the neighborhood development area designation I don't have a lot of detail this I know I've heard Heather talk about it area because there's anything you want to share so this is yeah I mean really the I think the impetus of including this in the in the master plan goals was more because of some of the um uh funding so funding being one of the items but also some of the the relief that's granted to the neighborhood development areas from the act 250 process because we have a rare really robust local review review and and and planning and and zoning and development program already it seems a bit redundant so I think this was a way to potentially allow for some of the that relief from having to go through the local process but then also go through the state process so there's a question about whether or not we would qualify to make the whole city and neighborhood development area but because of our geography being as small as it is there was the thought that it might it might happen so it might be preempted with the some of the legislative discussions on act 250 reform so this was I think also a way to to get at that same same concept Eric do we currently have any neighborhood development area designation in the city we do yeah all three of the the gateways are in the right now but the downtown is got a different designation correct it's part of the downtown designation it's right so so that wouldn't need any any expansion of this neighborhood development area would exclude the downtown because it's already got its designation that's correct it would be the downtown designation is its own program and has its own set of requirements and and benefits the the NDAs are a separate state program that has their own benefits and program requirements I I find this to be kind of an odd an odd objective here to be honest because like the neighborhood development area already covers so much of our small city that expanding it to be like the whole city seems a little a little excessive well and it may also fly in the face of keeping the the neighborhood residential neighborhoods residential neighborhoods you know I mean we've had that discussion yeah I think it also that has implications as well um in what we're talking about it's going to be number 10 as far as um because I know that was part of the reason why a lot of the buildings that are in our gateway corridors that are on the state historic register are threatened um because the NDP kind of gets them off the hook from more rigorous um scrutiny as far as historic resources so the neighborhoods themselves the the the areas that are zoned for residential wouldn't be really impacted by the NDA designation because the underlying zoning would dictate what could be built there or how those areas could be developed I think what would be beneficial though are some of the some of the tax programs and some of the other benefits that the NDA the the state program offers for those designated areas so that's I think part of the reason why this was explored for um for making the whole city in NDA seems to me like uh we should probably at some point down the road um have a discussion about what the neighborhood development area is what it means all that stuff so we more understand what it is it's not a priority is what I'm hearing though we just we can just to disregard this goal for the time being yes um 10 and 11 I think both of these the historic preservation that we are in the process of trying to create are really the initiatives we have working towards these right now um which would directly go into updating the the regulations so in number 12 I'm curious did the open space master plan address all these issues identified yeah so habitat and water quality protection and those things yeah there's recommendations in there about you know conservation for our natural areas um that's the word I want like boardwalks or whatever to protect it from erosion um there's stuff in there about flood attenuation I don't know about carbon sequestration right the human enjoyment do you add anything Eric I don't know how detailed you got into the parks plan I've read it multiple times um in various iterations but I don't I don't have anything else to add at this point does would that kind of relate to um like the main street redevelopment plan um and like the east street east allen street scoping because if we're talking about I know there was a lot of discussion about tree canopy and trying to foster that and partly why I I think where we were talking about adjusting some of the the build to line setbacks was because so we could have like better better tree canopy in those areas in the city which would promote carbon sequestration that's a very good point so we in a way we have I guess made some progress well and water quality protection I think that ties into the stormwater regulations and also stormwater I mean that could that deal with the flood attenuation yeah yeah so Joe Joe put us a little bit into number 13 about promoting vegetative landscaping and new developments um I think our setback discussions also get at that yeah there's some duplication here it's very important yeah yeah I think 12 13 14 are all pretty tied together and kind of 15 as well yeah I mean it's river corridor but it's all yeah and 16 is when I read it was like let's talk about it but we don't need to because there's no agricultural things in in runuski so so if I were to go back to um to summarize this you know so the specific questions put forth are the passing current initiatives been aligned to policy goals I'm hearing for sure yes our current efforts supporting multiple goals yes um for priorities I think it's continuing these discussions about zoning and making sure that we're having that complementary relationship with the neighborhoods um maybe lower priority but later discussion is the commercial uses in neighborhoods um are there other priority oh and then continuing with historic yeah um are there other priorities that I missed for like the next two years um I think this might be part of the parks master plan but we did talk about getting a clear I if my understanding is correct um a clear view of what could be permitted for use and like the cast event area my this was like a while ago that we talked about this is yeah making sense to anyone yes so that there are recommendations on that in that open space plan and something that would have to come back to this group to discuss so I'll add that to the priorities as well yeah I think open space is particularly important now also because of COVID yeah people need to get outside more and I was just thinking that that might be like in the upcoming year something that ends up coming up in conversation yeah and also Christine if um I'm wondering in the historic preservation part of this I think I don't know how other people feel about this but I think maybe some wording that that is more about repurposing or or has repurposing in there as opposed to you know that gold standard tie a rib around and don't touch it because I think a lot of I think there's a lot of excitement in repurposing historic buildings and it may be a easier pill to swallow a little bit for redevelopment and it doesn't have to be as draconian as other municipalities it's just kind of giving localized control as to saying what what is worth saving yeah and and you don't have to save it for what it has been but it can be something new you know yeah well and I think that's going to be this group's role when the consultant brings forth you know here are ways to approach this policy ways okay um for you all to make sure that that is the trajectory we take yeah the disappointing thing to me was seeing in the in the goals of the master plan so much attention paid to historic preservation that whole thing and and getting smacked in the face with these projects that came along that that you know um old homes old historic structures have been ripped down basically yeah that's been painful yeah I mean yeah it's sad that that there was it doesn't seem like there was any weight given to this document that we're looking at now yeah but to make you feel a bit better Mike I've talked to a lot of people in historic preservation and it says sometimes that you just need the sacrificial lamb to get the community to say hey wait a minute are we are we paying attention so we need to pay attention to Stevens is for example so anyway we're getting off track ma'er sorry um because there's an Eric has an agenda item two tonight okay so just two more questions so one quickly do we feel like we are on track towards meeting these goals over the next seven years yes nice no I didn't hear anything alarming like I think we're not sure about goal number nine we're not going to the neighborhood planning so we're that's super low priority and I think there's a couple of other items in here that the open space plan tease us up for so like the zoning for cast event for example so we haven't made progress towards those goals but we have like just started like we are now in a position to do that majority of you have made some progress towards I'm going to also throw in when we redid zoning however many years ago it was now one of the things we kicked down the road was the the the zoning question in cast event as well as Gilbrook having a larger conversation about Gilbrook yeah so those are both in the open space plan to okay come back to us um and then my last question would be as a commission do you feel like you have what you need to like to succeed and keep making forward progress here we need higher pay oh that's off the table I'm sorry so one thing and I don't know again just stop me and we'll put it somewhere else if this is an appropriate comment um there's a sort of gut feeling that I'm having about watching the new development and a lot of it is housing and it still seems like a lot of the the commercial build the commercial part of what's going up is sort of an afterthought and you know we're going to have a lot of people living here in a lot of these big buildings and are we creating that walkable um I mean not walkable that's the wrong word but is enough of the commercial stuff viable and going to really make it feel like a I don't know a church street or you know or a pine street even at this point or do you know is anybody else how many yeah are we working more towards like an an integrated community or is it are we promoting more of a pattern of bedroom like that yeah yeah that's a good way it's just a sort of it's what I feel like we're seeing going up and that the commercial space under it is sort of a little chunk of a bottom of a big building and is there a way to be be watching out for that and making sure that's the right direction and well said and I'll have to think on the phrasing of this but there's something here about the long-term bigger picture and if we have the information we need to envision that are we discussing the right thing something around there yeah if others agree with that feeling I do I would agree and I think being that so Winooski is already so densely populated that's such an important value I think and if we really want to reduce you know automobile use and have multimodal transportation we really have to be looking at that as well yeah and really the intention of the formulas code is to have these districts have what I understood was commercial retail on the bottom floor and residential units above so that's not happening and I think warrants for their examination of the code because it seems like they're building what they have to build which is could be a very small piece of the first floor footprint and I don't think it's it's even Winooski's fault I think that just promoting that kind of entrepreneurship that would bring that is kind of a challenge for I mean everywhere in like the US right now is it's basically trying to make small businesses viable yeah and the other part of it is in the current world it's much more profitable profitable to put in residential and commercial yeah and so you're fighting with that dynamic as well so so it also it philosophically it also might say to you maybe we need to pay more attention which we are doing to our parks and our open public space if we're not going to gain that residential or that sorry commercial stuff just because the the market doesn't support it in a way so so that we end up with a place that feels like everybody's if you're all living in in densely populated apartments you want to be able to go out and feel as if you have parks around you that are that are usable usable yeah and accessible and within a distance of your home that you can just walk through 10 minute walk yeah I think we are doing that actually about Winooski is that you can walk to several parks within your home I just think it needs to be promoted and yeah accessibility needs to be provided there's a statistic we have that it's like it's a high volume of percentage of landmass in the city actually is park space and I think that our our parks master plan is really going to help kind of maximize their impact and it is wonderful that we have a city where there's these kind of like little natural pockets where you can kind of escape I don't know yeah I put the parks master plan in the chat and folks haven't seen that yet but I will say the scale of the buildings that have been going up recently have been quite large that's not necessarily a tea shop we're talking about I mean you could have like a significantly large business or office you know taking up a bottom floor at these units so it's not like the the morning light space is so tiny it makes it really hard to have a viable business in there but we actually use the the entire ground floor some of these new developments that have gone up on East Allen I think you would provide an opportunity for someone not only be able to be able to live here but to work here especially if it was like an office space yep well I really hope that this was helpful for everyone as a moment to like reflect on the work that you all are supporting and the summaries of the entire where we are at with master plan will be coming back to you in a future meeting I think this was very helpful Christine thank you just just to get us keep us focused on the master plan because it's it's easy to kind of lose track of it sometimes yes there's a lot of content there yeah and it's nice to as as I went through this and as we talked tonight it's encouraging I think that we're we're I think we're doing a pretty good job of staying on track with the master plan and hitting the goals yeah I'm pleased with this discussion I will hand it back then to to you Mike to me yeah to the next item there you go thanks Christine and you're going to hang around right so oh yeah okay I gotta find my agenda again are we moving are we just moving to the pick up the discussion from last time Eric so I can't find my agenda that's why I have a whole new thing I thought the next item is to continue our review of the land development regulations but instead of picking up where we left off I was gonna move us a little further along mostly because uh last month I believe or the month before the some new legislation was was passed that impact our regulations mostly because we are not our regulations are not currently consistent with that legislation so what I wanted to do was maybe move us up to that to that discussion of on accessory dwelling units to to look at what changes the state made and how that's going to impact our regulations and talk about the changes that we can make in our regulations to potentially move through that piece quickly so that we could make sure that we're consistent with state statute with that said because our regulations are not consistent with statute currently anything that comes in would be reviewed against statute so the fact that we are not consistent doesn't mean that we can continue to review under our regulations the statutory changes will will preempt what we have currently in in our in our in our code so I wanted to to revisit this or to to move along to the accessory dwelling unit section so that we can like I said hopefully make some changes or at least review the changes and and be able to get this potentially off to a public hearing so that we can get this done so that's why I'm skipping ahead a little bit but it will it will relate to what we were talking about at the last meeting and tie back to that as well so it's kind of a it's it's related to the land use table in the sense that it is a land use but we're looking at specific detail of that use so included with your agenda I provided a memo of the kind of what we're looking at and why we're looking at this draft language for our regulations particularly section five one that is related to accessory dwelling units I also provided our appendix sorry article nine which is our definition section where we also define accessory dwelling units and then the actual bill language from that was that was adopted or that was passed by the governor or signed by the governor act 179 as it's called so what I wanted to do is just kind of walk you through the changes that will be required based on act 179 and then a few changes that I am proposing to have discussion on those elements as well because like I said those will impact the use table but I think it will personally I think it'll help strengthen some of the regulations but there could be some some some good discussion involved here so with having said all that I just want to remind everybody what time it is so that if we start getting too deep we can you know maybe put a put a pause on things and and come back to it because like I said state statute will trump whatever our regulations have in them now anyway so we don't we don't have to force this through quickly so so basically what state statute did when they when when act 179 was passed it it focused on several items one being accessory dwelling units and what it does now is it it primarily increased the size of an accessory dwelling unit whether that be attached to the primary unit or as a detached structure so the the previous regulations as we had an hour in our ordinance was that the accessory dwelling could be up to 30 of the primary dwelling statute was changed to be either 30 or 900 square feet whichever is greater so that's one aspect that we we need to change and another part of that is that the statute removed the the language that we had in our ordinance or yeah in our regulations about it being an efficiency or one bedroom that's been struck in as well so it can be as big as it wants it can have as many bedrooms or as large of a living area as possible or as as could be designed as long as it stays within uh those those dimensional thresholds of either 30 or 900 square feet whichever is greater it's a little bit like a phone based code approach where it's just kind of like you have this space and you can do with it what you want for residential purposes kind of yeah yeah the owner doesn't have to live on the site in order to have it right or is that so that is that's a piece that i'm proposing so the it is still state statute does still require the owner occupancy that is something that i want to discuss about potentially removing from from the language from our regulations we currently do have that included as well so as you can see on the screen here that i'm sharing the the first section here on the efficiency in one bedroom is part of act 179 which is why i've proposed to delete that and also they change the language to say a distinct unit so that's where that change comes in the second item here is that it's either and this is we already have this language it's more just a re-wording of it specifically that it's either located within the the within the single family dwelling unit or a pertinent to it so either attached or detached the owner occupancy piece i want to i do want to have a discussion on that but i want to i want to put a pin in that for right now just to get through the rest of the changes here the next change again per the act is the adding the 900 square feet whichever is greater enter a question yep question on on that so um if you've got a house that's 1500 square feet yep okay um does the if the accessory dwelling unit is is put within the house can you do it for feet or or does it you know within the existing structure does that fall on on setbacks and all that stuff you you just froze up on me there mike i didn't catch what you were saying so so can you expand on your existing residents or does it have to be within what is there uh i believe the this that it you can expand the existing residents okay but then it would be subject to setbacks and all that lot coverage all that stuff okay yep yep which is the next couple of lines come into play so item three here the you know so this is really it seems like it's a reiteration of the definition that it's the the property be developed with a single unit dwelling at the time of the application um so i guess to step back to take one step back an accessory dwelling unit is permitted by right by state statute anywhere that there is a single unit home so if it's a if it's already developed with a two unit structure on the property then it is not it's not permitted by right so only where there is a single unit dwelling can you by right have an accessory dwelling so which is included as part of the definition but so what i wanted to do is add this item number three more in to to make it clear that just because there is a single unit dwelling doesn't mean that you automatically get an accessory dwelling and this is more this is more related to a planned unit development so with a planned unit development you will have multiple or you could have multiple single unit dwellings on the same property so this line here i i wanted to add to clarify that there can only be one single unit dwelling on the property at the time the application is made so that a planned unit development with four units four single units on it couldn't have four additional accessories on it so it's it seems like it's a little a little redundant but i that's that's the clarifying piece for that item erica wordsmithing i'm just wondering if it would make more sense to say instead of saying with only a single family with only one single unit yes so some smart lawyer doesn't come and say there is a single unit dwelling yeah there's two a single family right yeah i'm gonna on board with that yeah um part b here is really more just a re-wording of what was number three i believe previously where it's basically saying that it's still even though it's by right it still requires a zoning permit we're still gonna review for setbacks we're still gonna review for lot coverage we're still gonna make sure you have adequate parking so the use itself is permitted by right but you still need to you can't just throw one in wherever you want because it's a use by right so this is really just a reiteration of what we previously had in our regulations related to kind of the dimensional standards and overall lot configuration to make sure that that's still intact so then item c in this gets starts to get into if it's larger than 30 percent or 900 square feet and makes it a conditional use and simple as a duplex basically as a two unit right right so this is where so this ties into these next two c and d tie into the kind of the owner occupancy question that i want to discuss because right now as as it's written and as state statute provides the property has to be owner occupied that could either be the accessory unit or the primary unit the owner of the property has to live there i'm proposing we take the owner occupancy piece out for several reasons one because it's it's it's hard to regulate the owner occupancy it's it's kind of a it presumes i think it presumes that just because the owner is lives on the property that it will somehow be better cared for or the attitude of the behavior of the people living there will be better controlled and i don't know if there's a direct correlation between owner occupancy and any of those things the other part of it is we don't define what an owner is so we would need to add definitions for what an owner is we would also need to add definitions for what occupancy means and kind of how those two things correlate and then i think we would also need to add language in here that talks about what happens if the owner does not live there so if somebody already has an accessory dwelling unit that's been established and they sell it to somebody else and the owner does not live there then we have to have language in here that says what needs to happen for them to basically remove that accessory dwelling so you basically be buying a property that has an accessory dwelling with it you in essence need to remove that accessory dwelling if you are not going to live there as the owner so there's there's some components that need to be need to be discussed and thought about with with what owner occupancy is going to end up requiring um i think i asked this actually at like a meeting not long ago um and and mayor lot brought up that that's a difficult thing to regulate um as to whether and there like you said there is an assumption that if the there's an owner living on site that's going to receive better attention and that's kind of why we favor that and i'm assuming why the statute favored that put it in the language yeah and i don't know if that's an unfair assumption i mean being next to somebody who just built a giant detached cottage in her in her tiny backyard overlooking my tiny backyard her plan is to fully Airbnb it and my i think probably fair assumption is that she's going to be more responsive um as the owner living in the front um to make sure people in the Airbnb are acting appropriately um because she's my neighbor and i can walk over and say you know say something and i have a relationship with her so i don't know if that's uh i don't think that's an unfair assumption i agree so i totally agree just seeing all the rentals in my neighborhood in the houses that used to be owner occupied that now are are just rentals um and duplexes are permitted here and um people just don't take care of them there's garbage all over the place there's you know even around the corner on hitcock street same thing people that don't own them there's garbage left everywhere there's you know furniture and crap on the side of the road um yeah i i don't think it's an unfair assumption either eric i'm gonna because it's almost eight o'clock can we kind of skip over this and pick it up at the next meeting or or further down the road to talk about this owner occupancy thing because i think this this conversation could go on for quite a while yeah and we can all just think about it ourselves and then present maybe logically when we talk about it again or you know not logically but hopefully logically it's gonna say non-emotional logically yeah without emotion yes well we know that ain't happening i also had a question um that i think it was probably on our list eric i i think you had said that but i don't fully understand how a detached cottage and an ad are different currently like how they're in our standards can you can you explain how those are different the primary difference is currently is that we allow for a detached cottage to be larger than we do for an accessory dwelling uh and we also allow them where there is not a single unit developed like duplex if there's a if there's a two unit building correct in our primarily in our residential c zoning district we allow up to three units uh total a lot but we do not allow multifamily so the only way to achieve that is to have a two unit and then a detached third unit because a an accessory dwelling would not be permitted where there's a two unit already because it has to be a single unit only allowed where there's a single unit so if someone was planning to build an accessory building not attached to their primary residence why would they ever do an adu like why why wouldn't they always just go under as a detached cottage well so it's it would be the same thing so if it's it can and an accessory dwelling unit that's not attached to the house is always going to be a detached cottage but a detached cottage is not always going to be an accessory dwelling did you say that owner occupy needs to happen with a detached cottage not with a detached cottage so that's what's the difference at the moment no we yeah we don't have that in our zoning language um it's right this is what state what state statute is proposing to make this a universal we currently require owner occupancy for an adu right for a detached cottage we do not so but you said a detached cottage is always an adu but an adu is not always a detached cottage isn't that what you just said correct so then if it if a detached cottage is always an adu no no i think you got it backwards abby so an accessory dwelling unit um a detached cottage is not always an accessory dwelling unit but an accessory dwelling unit is always a detached cottage yeah i'm confused now correct me if i'm wrong but what i understood is a detached cottage uh can can be a accessory dwelling unit on a single unit existing single unit property but it's not a accessory dwelling unit on a two family a property that has a two family unit already on it so if it's the third unit it's not accessory dwelling unit okay but if it's the second unit it's always an adu or or if the property is not owner occupied if it's over 900 square feet as well if it's a single unit that's a rental it would be a detached cottage it's a really it's quite frankly it's it's a it's a nuance of of the regulations that i am i would like to i would like to clarify quite frankly please what part of what i'm alluding to with item c and d in this new draft is to try to get at that so that we can eliminate the the the detached cottage language and everything is an accessory dwelling unit it's just a matter of how big it is and it if it if it if it falls within the thresholds of the 30% or 900 square feet it would be permitted by right but if it's larger than that it would be a conditional use it would still be an accessory dwelling it would just be a different review process and basically eliminate this component of a detached cottage because it's always it's always an accessory dwelling it's just a matter of how it gets regulated so so eric you you're saying that adus in the zoning districts that they are allowed in currently we do require um it to be an owner occupied unit that is correct for it to be more to qualify as an accessory dwelling okay so how do how do we approach let me let me let me say a few words there joe for it to qualify as an accessory dwelling unit that can be um as the as permitted use can you explain that so right now our regulations have section 5.1 which talk about how an accessory dwelling unit is regulated and this is generally consistent with what state statute said so state statute has always or not always but for a time statute has always said that an accessory dwelling unit is a permitted use by right under certain with certain caveats one being owner occupancy one being the size limitations that it's you know has adequate water wastewater all those things so that's what we have carried forward so in order to qualify right now to have an accessory dwelling unit go through as a use that's permitted by right it needs to meet those standards so there's a size limitation the property has to be owner occupied and there can only be a single unit dwelling on the property when the application is made if it's larger than the size requirements or if it's not owner occupied or if there's more than a single unit on the property it goes through as a detached cottage okay and that process is not by right but by what review conditional use conditional use so if we have that for um 80 use now that we can i mean that that how are we enforcing that now that if you're saying that we can't um as far as being verifying if it's an owner occupied unit well i mean generally for example the uh you know we would making the application would would verify or provide some some uh confirmation that they live at the property but that doesn't necessarily then carry forward we don't we don't require them to put a deed restriction on it or anything like that and i'm not really sure what legality we have to do that if we can legally require somebody to do that sure yeah because i wouldn't like yeah when we talked about this briefly before because i was i had we kind of touched on this issue of how would you verify that and you have to have like a homestead declaration so couldn't they just get be verified through that right either that or where the tax bill gets sent because obviously if you don't live there you're not going to have the tax bill sent there potentially so i think a computer could see that i mean i was just i was actually talking with it with somebody today who their tax bill i they gave me a copy of their tax bill it's sent to an address in Winooski where there is a single unit um that's rented and there is a cottage on the property as well that's rented and they don't live there but the tax bill goes there and that's why i'm yeah homestead declaration would be most accurate the other the other part of that and then is too if we're you know yes we can weak i mean theoretically we can track that type of information but then if we find out that somebody is is not living in a property then we have to have them basically remove the accessory dwelling to make it no longer a dwellable space so basically they would have to the main way to do that is to remove the kitchen and make it no longer a place where you can prepare your meals independently which then jeopardizes potentially somebody that's renting it we've ended those types of issues with fair housing and in essence throwing somebody out of their house or there where they're renting so i mean there's we're not talking about that kind of enforcement though because like we're not doing that now well but that's what we would have to i mean that's what we we would be doing in essence if the owner is not living there then they can't have an accessory dwelling that's permitted in this manner but they could have a detached cottage if it went through a conditional use process yes however to so to expand on that abbey also right now if that if they have a an accessory dwelling that's attached to the house and they live there and they sell it to somebody who's not going to live there as the owner and it's in the r a zoning district it would have to be eliminated altogether because we do not currently permit two unit development in the r a district we only allow for single unit dwellings so they would have to eliminate the cottage all the accessory dwelling altogether in the r a district the r a we only permit single unit we allow for an accessory dwelling but if it's attached to the house and the owner doesn't live there then they would have to remove that accessory dwelling or basically make it uninhabitable from the context of of separate living space because we permit a two unit don't permit two unit structures currently in the r a district but i i sorry i'm in the r a district you're the rb oh i'm in the rb yep sorry terry go ahead it's okay sorry i was interrupting you um so it sounds like we if i'm hearing this correctly it sounds like you just want to eliminate this because it's going to be easier to to maintain this way and and i'm going to argue the other side of that and say that don't we want to preserve our neighborhoods and don't we want to encourage owner occupied homes in in our community do we want do we want more rental properties in winewski do we want to have more of that or do we want to have more people that are invested in this community and that are going to be here and that are going to you know and like i said you know everybody's saying it's an assumption that people don't that don't live that don't own their homes don't take as good a care of them but i think we many of us see that that's true um and do we want to promote that or do we want to promote more owner occupied residences in winewski well i think as a as a policy question we also need to balance that with do we want to promote affordable housing options too well the other thing too is is you can't really you can you can encourage homeowner owner occupancy but you can't really enforce it because i buy a house i can rent it if i want i can live there if i want and and if i rent the house there's nothing to stop that from doing that so it's a very it's a very difficult um situation to enforce sure i think i i don't think that the legislature put that language in the statute by accident though the concern with with upkeep of property i think that could be better handled through a property maintenance code where that gets enforced because people see that there's trash on the lawn and it gets dealt with that way rather than through land use regulation but to jeff's point i think there was intention with including that language originally and um it makes sense to i think the original idea was um for folks who live on their property would be able to have additional folks living in their property have maybe the additional line of income but um not being not turning more of our single family homes into rental rental units which we have an abundance of rental units and an abundance of affordable housing units in the city so like what are we doing to preserve owner occupied units this is one enforceable or not i feel like the intention of this was preservation of owner occupied units yeah and also if you go to sell that or buy that next property you're buying it with the understanding that you are going to occupy it and you're going to use that dwelling the additional dwelling and if you don't want that when you go to buy it you don't buy that property and again yeah there is the there is the enforcement of actually saying that person has to be there but it's a way of what abby's to abby's point you know well then i guess also you know to think about what we think about this is you know the nuance of what owner owner means so if a if you if you're doing estate planning and you put your home into a trust and you live there are you no longer the owner and therefore you can't have an ad you even though you've been living there for the last 50 years and you have a an accessory dwelling on your property or if your son or daughter or child moves into the home and it's still in your name they are not technically the owner on the deed so do you then have to eliminate the the ad you so you know those are some of the things we need to be thinking about as well with the ownership piece of it because we need to like i said we don't currently define what an owner what that means to be an owner so we do if if we are going to keep the language for requiring owner occupancy then we're going to need to define what an owner means and and then how we we regulate that piece as well is this somewhere where this the state who's handing down the statute can provide guidance i mean i i you know i've looked at some of the adjacent municipalities to see how to see if they they define owner and some do and some don't um and it's kind of it's a mixed bag of what what they what they say some some refer to the person or persons or entity whose name is on the deed some talk about how it's reflected in the grand list so there's you know it's there's there's various ways to define it i think it's just i don't know if there's a standard for what that means it's just a matter of what we can define and then enforce okay you raised very excellent points so let me just stop us for a second because it's about 815 i'm not sure how much more we're going to get through this tonight unless we go till nine or or later so i'm just wondering if it's it's appropriate to to shut this off now and pick it up at our next meeting give us a chance to to maybe chew on some of this stuff and and read through this again so that when we come back we can we can have a probably a full meeting i hate to say it but i i suspect it's going to be there's going to be quite a bit of of discussion about this um the accessory dwelling the whole legislation and the changes yep i think that's a good idea um you know again it's it is a big change and i i don't want to i don't want to go into this lightly so it's um you know there's there's definitely there's arguments on both sides and i think it's something we need to to be able to to think about and explore in more detail and i think in in preparation for the next meeting we should think about the whole onerocracy question and maybe maybe eric you can come up with some examples of some definitions or proposed definition if that's too much i don't know nope that's fine yep i've already started doing some of that okay that's all right eric maybe share with us um some of the definitions that you found in other communities that are nearby that'd be helpful i can do yep i'll do that as well yep i did all that thank you very good uh so i i finally found my agenda figure out where look for it uh department and city updates uh eric any updates we'll start with you yeah a couple a couple things quickly to all on um as terry alluded to at the top of the meeting um the uh vt cvd labs llc operating at 133 elm street they were issued a notice of violation for uh being out of compliance with our regulations related to performance standards specifically odor that was appealed to the development review board the development review board upheld that notice of violation um and that has subsequently been appealed to the environment to this uh vermont superior courts environmental division so that is um an ongoing initiative we as the city are working to prepare some uh formal action in the courts as well to begin enforcement of that notice of violation while the appeal plays out so we are still moving forward from the city's end to ensure that our notice of violation uh is complied with so uh more to come on that um also as discussed at the top of the meeting and throughout the parks and open space master plan uh has been uh approved by council so that is um now we are working to implement that and actually i am going to be meeting with uh ray coffee our community services cordon shoot ray coffee i'll just go with that i forget what this officially is but so i'll just say meeting with ray who will be managing the the parks and open space plan i'm meeting with him i believe next friday we have a meeting set up to go out and actually start collecting some data some uh doing some gps tracking on the the trail networks so we can start being out some of that information as because that was one of the the short-term items that was listed in the plan so already looking at implementation of of that uh that document um and the other thing i wanted to update you all on is the uh the parking inventory analysis and management plan that we have funding through the upwp for we had a meeting earlier today um to start talking about how to kick this off and uh data collection so one of the things that i talked about with you all at a previous meeting was um providing some assistance if you're interested in that data collection basically what it would involve is you would get a uh a data sheet that has a you would log the time of day the the street you're on and the number of vehicles you see parked between a certain block and basically that's it so if you're out going for a while and we have we have specific roads identified where we want to collect the data so if you're out for a walk and you want to you want to collect the information that'd be great um the more data we can collect on the very more throughout the day on various times and it can be anytime throughout the day um ah thank you paul community services director ray coffee um sorry uh anytime throughout the day um you know are you saying paul's sitting on this meeting paul sarn is yes oh haven't even heard from him today he did time in earlier he did how's it going oh i fall i will i will send out the the data to or the the information to all of you tomorrow so if like i said if you're interested in in collecting that uh those counts that'd be great if not that's fine too but um the more data points we get the better the modeling will be and the better the the product will be at the end of the day so um i will send out some information on that to you all tomorrow so one other thing on that eric so they did the south burlington um review as well the same group was it south burlington they did anyway my question one of my question is is there a report from another city or town that we could read that they they've already concluded so that we kind of have the language in mind of what we're going to be expecting to hear from them i think the probably the the closest would have been for the town of wiliston they the same outfit rsg did a did a some work for the town of wiliston i want to say a year or so ago but i think these studies are are pretty specific to each situation i don't know if there's really kind of a general template that's going to be transferable from one to the next i mean i think the methodology might be but i think as far as what the outcomes are really going to be more specific to each community so i can share the scope of work with you as well so what we what we landed on with the final scope so you can get a sense of what is what's going to be prepared but as far as examples of that i don't know if there's anything that's really i i get what sarah's saying is that just if we had a similar document before us so that we could kind of familiarize how to just kind of how to analyze language going to be comparing data or anything like that i i wonder if the rpc might have something that they could give us a um a link to probably rsg i mean i would just go their website they probably have tons of projects listed okay i would think i think i think we're all very well aware that when uski is pretty unique in chitin county this wouldn't apply but i i agree with sarah that it would be useful to just have something before us to kind of uh like like immerse us a little bit in this before we get the language it's really the yeah so we're not kind of broadsided by it and we like we know um how to how to look at it yeah so there was a there was a parking study done for the downtown core by a different entity back in 2016 i believe it was which is on our website so that is i mean i don't know how how comparable the two will be but there there has been a study done for the city previously okay in okay in the not too distant past uh and that's that's all i had okay mayor lot do you have anything you want to add in case you missed it uh a week or so ago vermont gas systems announced that they are funding the 10 local match for noise mitigation for at least the kickoff year to get us started which would so they're going to do a pilot year to like design the program and what the options are for homes and then in 22 actual homes in when uski could start receiving mitigation is that a 80 20 90 10 grant 90 10 so so they're picking up the entire match yes i don't know for how many years they're committed to but at least enough to get us off the ground nice and actually just to add on to that some of the information they were looking for i provided the consultants with a um a spreadsheet of all the so they provided me a list of all the properties and i provided them a list of the age of construction on those properties because that is a that's a kind of a key marker as far as eligibility so um it may not come as a big surprise that the majority of the the properties that are in the the the noise area are pretty old um from most of them are 1900s uh construction so like the actual 1900s not like the the century category of 1900 it's yeah 1905 1900 1910 a lot of pretty old structures so i'm sure there's been some upgrades to those buildings in the past 100 plus years but the eligibility requirements are are based off of the age of construction as well so i think for the most part pretty much everything in the city should qualify what is their mitigation entail like what are the what are the like uh improvements that they propose that would i think it's gonna i think it's gonna depend on each each structure um they're going to do as i understand it they'll do an initial analysis to determine what the interior noise levels are and they're gonna base the uh mitigation off of that whether that be just uh insulation adding additional installation into the into the structure or new windows or both i think it's going to depend on the the decibel level inside the home versus what the mitigation can accommodate and i want to add to that the reason one of the reasons vermont gas systems is putting the money up it's because they're going to marry up their weatherization work so they can you know they're jointly doing insulation they can do other energy efficiency upgrades to help with um emissions and like utility costs for for these folks yeah i figured there was a reason why they were partnering on this i mean that there's a kind of a dual purpose there that makes sense yeah exactly i just i bring i know i'm beating a dead horse here but i bring up the issue because witnessing the proceedings that um were the vermont division of historic preservations analysis of the historic mansion house on main street their justification for delisting that from the state historic register was the only thing that's changed on that building since it was put on the register was the windows and um you know if you could say like oh i changed the windows to like mitigate the sound of like the f-35s and out of like there's just things working against one another here um that's this is another argument of why i think we need our own preservation language because like you need to be able to like make improvements to your house and still you know whatever story yeah i think i have to get off this meeting now guys thanks sir anything else mayor nope have a good night everyone okay thanks so much good night thanks sir any any other business well there was one other item mike that you and i had discussed about our meeting schedule i don't know if you want to bring that up or that was so long ago i can't i forget about tonight's meeting for god's sake so that's well that's true so mike and i discussed um when we were setting the agenda for tonight's meeting we had discussed the potential of going back to two meetings a month just to be able to get through some of this work because it is a lot of you know there's a lot to cover and it seems like some of the discussions are a lot of recap of the previous meetings we can really dive into a lot of the meat of the the new discussions so we discussed um going back to two meetings a month uh so wanted to bring that up as a to kind of get a sense from you all if you're interested in doing that we wouldn't start but starting oh i'm sorry go ahead i was going to say we wouldn't start it until january at the earliest just because of the the kind of the holiday schedules in november and and december so um that's what we would look at is probably going back to the sec uh obviously we're we're on the second uh thursday but adding the fourth thursday back in um i don't know if people's schedules would accommodate that or not but just um you know in the short term that's something that mike and i had discussed potentially considering again just so that we can have more time to to try to get through some of this some of this information and not have to extend our meetings into the into the evenings like we have then the last few well and also to get things done so we feel like we're accomplishing something because like you said eric we spent a lot of time i think at these meetings because they're a month apart going back over things that we talked about the month before um just be fresher in our minds when we get to it i think and i do feel like like just as we get into the meat of the meeting we're like calling it short and then we're not calling it short but the meeting you know we're over time and we say okay we'll pick up here at the next meeting but then we have all this other stuff before we can pick it up at the next meeting and then we like and so on and so forth so i i think that makes sense and then as much as we can reduce anything on the agenda before these work items i think the better there's obviously a benefit to reviewing the master plan but every meeting there seems to be something before we get to like this technical piece and i think we're eager to dive in and not have like an interrupted conversation on the technical part so i would support having two meetings how many how long would the meetings be three hours each at least no hopefully an hour and a half mark it wants to meet twice a month now too so i'm like great well hopefully an hour and a half the you know 6 30 to 8 uh i would say i would be interested if we could keep it to an hour and a half and maybe if we just did it for three months or something so that we saw that there was a break and what sort of i don't know if that makes sense yeah how about if we do this if everyone's on board we will we will have a definite end time of eight o'clock at eight o'clock if if anyone wants to say time out it's eight o'clock okay and we can end and we can i wouldn't say let's put a three month thing on it but let's do it it won't be a permanent thing let's see where we are in three months and see if we need to keep going two meetings a month or if we can cut back to one right revisit it yeah so maybe that's a thing we'll revisit it in in a march second march meeting do we need to do two meetings in april i mean i would envision having two meetings a month as we you know mostly just to try to get through the meat of the the regulatory updates and then we can go back to to one a month or uh or keep going if you just enjoy getting together twice twice a month every week though i'm like i can't wait for planning this thursday i'm not i do like it but you know yeah okay so it sounds good we'll plan on on having two meetings a month starting in january going forward for some period of time to be determined any other any other other business i have nothing else then i'm looking for someone who wants to end this meeting to make a motion to adjourn i'll i'll move to adjourn okay it's our second that all those in favor please say aye anyone opposed thanks everyone our next meeting is december something tenth tenth december tenth december tenth okay we'll see you all then thanks very much can i ask you a question i have a happy thanksgiving thank you