 Good evening. Welcome to the South Burlington Development Review Board for December 5th, 2023. My name is Dawn Filiburd. I'm the chair of the board, and I'd like to welcome you and introduce other members of the board. At the end is Stephanie Wyman, Charlie Johnston, Frank Cokman, John Moscatelli, Quinn Mann, and me. And for staff, we have Marlekeen and Marty Gillis. This is being recorded tonight, and there are several ways of participating. One is to attend in person, or people can attend virtually online, and be recognized to provide public comment when that time is appropriate, just like if they were here in the audience, or people can also call in. And if you are attending virtually, please go into the chat box and provide your contact information to us. So we'll have that. If you're here, it's important that you sign in out back on the table. And if you're calling in, please submit your contact information to M-K-E-E-N-E at SouthBurlingtonVT.gov. And this is important if you ever want to be considered a participant in the future for any action you might want to take. Okay. Let's move to our agenda. The first item on the agenda is the emergency evacuation procedures. In the event of an emergency, there are doors in the back of each side of the auditorium. You would simply go out those doors and turn left or right, and you would be outside. Are there any additions, deletions, or changes in the order of agenda items? Hearing none, we'll move on to number three, announcements. I think I pretty much covered those. Any other announcements that folks have? Okay. Comments and questions from the public that are not related to the agenda. Hearing none, we'll move on to our first project to be reviewed. This is, oh, first, I'm sorry, number, you can go ahead and sit down. The first number five on the agenda is continued master plan sketch plan application SD 2312 of Eric Farrell for an existing approximately 105-acre lot development with two single-family homes and six unoccupied or accessory structures. The master plan consists of placing approximately 74 acres into permanent conservation, conveying approximately one acre to a butters, and constructing 124 additional homes and buildings ranging from single-family to 12 units on 28.25 acres at 1195 Shelburne Road. The applicant has requested that we continue this project review to another date. And I think, Marla, you were hoping to have that date. Yep, they requested January 3rd. Okay. I would entertain a motion to continue SD 2312 to January 3rd, 2024. So moved. Thank you, Quinn. Any second? Second. Thank you. Any discussion? All in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. Okay, it's carried. We will see that applicant back on January 3rd. And Don, just for the record, I'm abstaining because I'm recused from that item. Pardon me? I'm abstaining because I'm recused from that item. Okay. Thank you. Agenda item number six, sketch plan application SD 2315 of WGM associates to subdivide an existing approximately 10 acre lot developed with three homes into a general PUD consisting of 11 single-family home lots ranging from 0.38 acres to 1.14 acres in one one acre open space lot at 850 Hinesburg Road. Who's here for the applicant, please? Keith. Keith. Welcome, Keith. Thanks. Can I ask you both to press the button on your microphone? It'll turn from dull green to bright green and you might have to bring it closer to you. That better? Yes. Thank you. Is anyone else going to be testifying? There are other members of the family that may potentially testify. If you're planning to testify, well, this is sketch, so we don't need to swear or anything. So that's fine. But it would be good for people to introduce themselves. Okay. At the time that they speak, I guess. Okay. Sure. Sure. My wife, Nicole, right? Okay. And my sister, Nancy McGovern. Hi, Nancy. Okay. Thank you. So I, we haven't seen you before, I believe. No, you have not. I, I approached the planning commission about a year and a half ago and told them what I would like to do. And they instructed me to come see you guys first. Okay. I'm not very knowledgeable on how all this works. Because most people aren't very well. So maybe I should just start out by telling you what I would like to do. Well, let me, may I get a little introduction and then I was going to ask you to do that please. Sure. Because you're new to this, I just wanted to tell you a little bit about what you can expect. Okay. I'm going to go through the sketch plan, which is kind of a high level review of what you have in mind so that you can get some feedback from the board about your project. Okay. And then they'll, there will be other times when you'll be appearing before us, but this will help you to understand where our thinking is. Okay. So what, what I'd like to do is have you give a brief overview of your project. Okay. And then we have a staff report, which I'm sure you've seen and we go through the staff report item by item looking at the, the, the questions in red, which is what staff has highlighted as their questions at this stage and review. Okay. So why don't you go ahead and give us a little overview of what you have in mind. Okay. Well, this 10 acres is what's left of our family farm. My grandfather bought this property over 100 years ago. Wow. And when my father passed, there was three houses, two tenant houses in the main houses, and he left one to each one of us kids. And of course we're getting on with age and we would like to be able to put them in our wills for our children. So hence the subdivision of the 10 acres into three properties. I would also like to be able to let each of my children build a house on the property so they can come home and raise the fifth generation of rights there. Okay. So this is kind of what it's grown into. I don't know how elaborate or not elaborate we need to get, but we're just trying to follow the rules. Sure. It's going to be pretty simple and straightforward. We do not want to sell any lots. It's family only. Of course my sisters have a few children that they would like to be able to do the same thing with. They have no plans right now of what to do. But we were told that down the road if we had that plan, it would be a good idea to include it now. So that's what we're trying to do. But I do have children that are ready to build. Okay. I have a son that started a family and he would like to come home and raise his kids there where he was raised. So this is our whole thing of trying to do, you know, and stay within the guidelines of what the city would like. But I would like to keep it as small and private as possible. What do you mean private? Just, it's been our family farm for so many years. We're not looking to sell any lot. We're not looking to bring any just family. If you can understand what I mean. I do. I asked because one of the things that we're careful about is pardon me, not talking about projects while they're under review with members of the public. If I'm in the grocery store and somebody comes up to me and says, what do you think about the right farm proposal? I cannot talk about that. So I wondered if that's what you meant by private. No, no, no. Okay. I just met private as far as we're not looking to sell a lot. We're not looking to do anything like that. It's more or less just for our family. We've all lived there. I've lived there my whole life. I'm 66 years old. And you know, I would like to be able to live out my life there. Sure. And my kids would like to come back and live there. I don't know if you've ever driven by the place or not. Yes, many times. You know, we planted hedgerow around the whole property. It's very private. We love our neighbors. You know, nobody bothers each other. And it's really beautiful. It's nice to be on the place that your grandfather started. Sure. Sure. Lucky you. Absolutely. I feel very fortunate to be able to still be here. Okay. Do you want to give us a brief overview of what you have, what we're looking at? Yeah, I'll let Doug do it. And, you know, maybe you can give us some feedback on what we can, what we can't do. Oh, we will. You can count on that. I'm sure. And, you know, we're going to try to make it work for the best of everybody. But we would also like to try to keep it as small scope as possible so we can keep it affordable for everybody. Sure. Like I said, we're not looking to sell any lots down the road. If somebody wants to do something like that, then they need to come back and upgrade everything to what would be required for that. Okay. So no roller coasters probably? No. Okay. No, no roller coasters. Okay. So tell us a little bit about Doug, what you have in mind. Sure. So a little history lesson here. The rights came to T.C. early in 2023, pre-act 47 passage. And we talked about what they could do out here and we worked with staff. This is in the industrial open space zoning district. And at that time it still is three acres zoning for residential. So with 10 acres, we were looking at a simple three lot subdivision so that each, each lot would encompass one of the homes, each of each of the three homes in addition to requiring or providing the 10% civic space, which is one acre with this 10 acre lot. So we proceeded with various iterations of what that would look like, the three acres dividing it fairly equally among the three siblings with the civic space lot. Marla was great. We met with her a number of times to get her head around what that looked like and interpretation of the regulations. So that took a little time and then whenever it was mid-summer act 47 was enacted and we sort of went back to the drawing table as they say, which worked out well obviously because as Keith said, the three lots didn't really get them where they wanted to be. They wanted to be able to create lots for their kids. And with the standard zoning that wasn't really going to happen. So by chance act 47 was enacted. So we came back and looked at an alternative layout. Again met with staff and they were great to try to interpret what act 47 meant relative to this project. And we've landed on this 11 lot subdivision. So the plan you're looking at was the original submission just today over the past two days we've come up with an alternative layout which reflects some of the staff comments that we're going to be getting into in further detail. So we might as well play our cards right now and lay that plan out in front of you, which is what you see here. So this is the second iteration. This is the second iteration. The first iteration is all green and property lines are in brownish color, which is what you see there. And then the second one isn't as formal but all the cyan blue colors are what we'd like to talk about now, which is a slightly different lot layout. The big difference is that there is no house in the center area, which would be our acidic space. Looks like a big swimming pool. Choice of colors may not have been there. So that's the layout. We want to talk about both layouts, but those are the presented on top of one another. So there are 11 lots proposed and as far as utilities, we haven't gone very far obviously at sketch with design, but there's a municipal water main along the east side of Hinesburg Road. It could provide water service to the lots. The three existing lots are already connected to that water main and using it. There's also a sewer, municipal sewer main running along the east property line, the full length of that line, which we also have access to. So we certainly intend to do that is to provide municipal sewer and water to all the lots. Access, we're looking at a private road, fairly narrow road. We can talk a little bit more in detail later on about what that looks like. The regulations as you know, prohibit dead end roads greater than 200 feet. So Hinesburg Road into the project 200 feet kind of brings you to the back of lot one so it doesn't allow the number of lots that we want to create on that length of 200 feet of road obviously. Can I make sense to jump into the staff comments at this point? Well, I just wanted to talk about just access. We're doing a loop road, sewer water, storm water obviously we'll be dealing with at a later phase but storm water beyond site, treated on site before discharge. So that's my general overview. Frank, did I hear you starting to say something? I'm sorry, I said I think we have a threshold question that needs to be addressed pointed out in the staff notes and I think it's a serious question. Okay, before we do that I have a question that is much more general I think and maybe it's related to the threshold issue but in the context paragraph and maybe we've kind of answered this the minimum lot size in this zoning district is three acres. If that's true, you're not going to get the number of homes you want out of this property but is that are you applying to do this because Act 47 changed that? Okay, got it. Correct, Act 47 allows five units per acre density in an area that has the availability of sewer and water which this lot does in our opinion. And that's the issue right now, that's the threshold issue. That's red item number one. Right, pardon me. So item number one, right before the comment therefore staff is recommending the board consider this entire parcel as being an area served by municipal sewer and water. Maybe that's not relevant but the first comment is let me read it. Staff recommends the board review the analysis ask any necessary questions and determine whether they will accept staff's recommendation if the board finds that this lot does not qualify as being an area served by water and sewer. Staff recommends the board provide that direction up front. The application and the remainder of these staff notes become irrelevant if the provisions of Act 47 do not apply to the property. So that is the question before us. Frank, it sounds like you are prepared to speak to this. I am in two respects I think. One is that I have trouble with the staff's rationale for getting there at all but what troubles me particularly is later on I forget where it is. You try to reserve the right to make a different ruling in another area of the city. And that's my problem. I don't think your rationale is strong enough to say oh but the area where the houses are is different. We are going to preserve large lots in that area while construing Act 47 to supersede the regulation in this area. I think that's a regulatory and administrative inconsistency that is in the language of the court, arbitrary and capricious. Well, it's ultimately in the board's decision if such an application were to come before you. I'm telling you what I think. Let me put it this way. If the board were to accept your view then I think it would be setting itself up for reversal on appeal. Frank, what is the other property you're referring to? Whatever other property the staff was referring to you said well we don't want to make a general rule about this because there are large lots in residential areas that we want to preserve. That was essentially what I understood you say. Could you point to where that is in the report? Well, if it was in front of me. Do you know, Marlon? Maybe you could put it up on the screen again. It's the bottom of page two. Sorry about that. Could we see it on this large screen? The supposition is a very large lot that has water and sewer access at the front but the rear of the lot is half a mile away and say it's in the R1 or something and it would be inconsistent with city goals to allow development at these densities at the rear of the lot. That is not a specific lot that we're referring to it's sort of a mush together amalgamation of a couple different lots that we looked at and as we were looking at this lot and said well you know there's some other places where water and sewer aren't all together and how does that determination get made? All we're trying to say here is that we want the board to make the decision on a case by case basis until such time as the planning commission has updated the regulations. I'm saying is unless the board is prepared to say that Act 47 supersedes those broadly referred to lots as well then it ought not to allow it to supersede in this circumstance. I think it's a bit of a red herring to think about a hypothetical lot at this time. You raised the hypothetical lot. It's your red herring if it's a red herring and it was a cautionary red herring for me because I think the board is asking itself for trouble. I'd say something else that if anything Act 47 cuts the other way. I'm just trying to air the topic out. Act 47 if anything is directed at encroaching upon these large lot residences precisely much more than they are. I mean this would be an argument in favor of adopting the general rule is what I'm saying. They weren't after industrial sites. They were after luxurious residential lots in urban areas that they want to have frankly used on a more dense basis. That's sort of a not very hard intent to divine from the legislative act. So I don't have a problem allowing it so long as the board is comfortable with the idea that you're not going to have the privilege of letting Mr. Toppat come in and keep the large lots if it comes up. That's all. Thanks. Other comments? John, I see you nodding. No, I agree. I can't say I was able to get entirely through reading legislation. I guess if you're not a lawyer is really difficult. But I think it's pretty clear that their intent was to get more subdivision and higher density. Given the discussion around Act 47 at the time I'm not sure this is really what they had in mind but really they've authorized this property for like 50 units. In theory to solve the problem they're talking about solving they would love to see 50 high density units at a much lower price point on this plot which is what they were driving for. I agree. I think 47 to a large extent supersedes our regulations and I think ruling against that is not going to farewell in court but I'm not a lawyer. So I agree in this case I think it makes sense to say that this parcel is served by water and sewer because there's water and sewer on both sides. Okay. Other thoughts? I'll just echo that I concur with as far as this lot is concerned that it qualifies as the area served by municipal sewer and water as staff is outlined and we would look at case by case basis moving forward and I get what you're saying Frank but I think to also attack on what John said this is the type of area that Act 47 was getting at so it seems eligible to take advantage of this. One other caveat is that we seem to have an ordinance I think the staff was shall we say artful in stretching the language or stretching the non-language as far as it would go saying well we'll allow, you know we'll allow connections up to 200 feet but the staff says but it doesn't say we won't allow them at more than 200 feet in fact what's the practice? They're more than 200 feet is common. Yes. Alright. So any other comments? Are we in agreement that we should proceed to go through the staff report and that this proposal meets the criteria of being served by municipal sewer and water? Yeah. Okay. Any objections to that? Okay. Lucky you. You're going to go through the staff report with us. Thank you. Okay. Comment number two. This discusses act 47 and I think we've kind of resolved this. It supersedes the South Burlington LDRs. Any comment about that? Let's move on to number three. This is a request to delineate the wet lands. Can we go back to two? Pardon me. Can we go back to two? Sure. I guess I think somewhere in here we just wanted to make note that the reason we're proposing this as a PUD is that we were trying to bridge the current regulations that have 50 foot front yard setbacks and 35 foot side yard setbacks that act 47 doesn't necessarily specifically say you can abandon. They just say you can develop up to five units per acre, which the staff comments say is 0.2 acre lots, so we're proposing that small, but to get to even this density and to make these buildable lots, we're going to have to look at setbacks that are less than the current setbacks in this zoning district. Sorry. Doug, you said you're proposing this as a PUD. Our assumption was that you were not proposing it as a PUD. We didn't see any instances where PUD would be required. The board does have the authority to modify dimensional standards for the PUD process. We'll have a lot of PUD sketch plan. Okay. So that was one of the... I don't know... I don't remember exactly where it says it in the report, but I think we talked about... Yeah, so it's E. It's after comment number four. So this application is not required to apply as a PUD, but is permitted to apply as a PUD. A plan unit development has the benefit of allowing the board to permit alternative compliance to dimensional or design standards provided the alternative results in a better project. At this time, staff is not aware of any need for this project to apply as a PUD. So is there a reason you would like to apply as a PUD? It's simple or not to. But do we have the flex... Do we give them the flexibility and us the flexibility to modify things? Yeah, so outside of the PUD, the board now has the authority to modify some dimensional standards. It's not as broad as a PUD, but so far I haven't seen them ask for anything broader. I think the thing that might come up is if you said, we want to modify something that's not a dimensional standard. We want to modify the required civic space to be a different kind that doesn't... that doesn't quite fit into one of the boxes, or we want the road to be gravel or something like that. Maybe that's something to cut. We'll leave that open and we'll talk to you a little bit more, maybe not in this forum to decide what we're looking at and if we don't need to do whatever is most beneficial. I'm not quite following you on the dimension that the setbacks are binding on them at the moment. Are they not, unless we waive them? Right, but the board has waiver authority within a subdivision now. That's a new thing. All right, but what are the proposed setbacks now? We haven't really proposed setbacks at this point, but they'll be potentially less, likely less than what's regulated now. And that's 50 feet, right? 50 foot front, 35 foot sides, yeah. I don't think it looked like you were looking for anything crazy. It was more setbacks commensurate with the size of the lots that would be allowed. Right, we haven't gone that far with the sketch plan to look at setbacks at this point yet, but... What is the... I see three, is that... How many lots across the front? Is lot one, are those buildings going to stay there? Yes. All right, so those are pre-existing buildings so you don't have a setback problem there. Yes. Or do they? Well, front setbacks, we do. So has everything along Hinesburg Road already there? Yes. All those structures, and they're not changing? No. We've tried to draw the new division lines to meet current setbacks. Front yard, for instance, is obviously pre-existing and not in compliance with the 50 feet. Okay, anything else on number two before we move on to number three, delineating the wetland? Will you be doing that? If we can get access to the neighbor's property, we can do that. We've sent our wetland specialist to the site and she's determined that there are no wetlands on this property, but as you know, if there are wetlands on the adjacent property, that wetland buffer could encroach into ours. Do you expect your neighbor will be cooperative? I don't know why they wouldn't be. We haven't asked yet, but I can't imagine they would care. Okay. You're aware that we need that, or you need that? Yes. Okay. So I think we've covered the master plan review. Comment number four. This is in regard to proposed phases and timing. Can you tell us a little bit about your thinking regarding that? Well, I think we're looking at, I think Keith and I talked about at least a one to two year build out to where we want to start building the first new homes. I guess we would look to either you folks or staff as we move forward with this on the timing of the road construction in its entirety as it relates to lot build out. In other words, could we start building on two lots and have a substantial portion of the loop or a tee for emergency access, some sort of phased construction? The loop itself would be at least a three year build out, I would think. Okay. So I think that we need to dive into that a little bit. And sorry, there was some weird zoom thing happening, so I got a little distracted. You were saying that you want to do just the homes on the north first? Well, just to clarify, yes, on the property next to DR, that will be my slice of the property. My kids are ready to build some homes. As far as the other two, Nancy has two boys that live in Florida, maybe in four or five years, one might want to come home and build a house there. But for right now in the foreseeable future, the other two properties have no plans in the hopper to construct something. I'm the only one that has something, you know, kids are ready to go. But when we talked to Marla about it, she said if you have plans down the road, now would be the time to let you know so you could make the decision all in one. So you don't have to keep coming back and modifying or whatever. So we just, more or less, said, well, okay, so if we did this, that should cover all the bases. Whether it ever happens on those other two properties, I have no idea. So Keith, sorry, I just don't know who lives where. You said Nancy's lots would be in a five-year time frame. Is that the middle slice or the lower slice? No, I'm on a lot. You're the north slice. Yes. And that's pretty much immediate. Yes. And then the middle slice or the south slice would come next. Okay. Probably neither. They just, they, when you told us, you know, to project anything that might happen down the road, they said, oh, well, you know, Sharon has two children. Nancy has three, but one of the children already has their homestead built. So they just said, well, it might be nice if we wanted to do this. So that's why, hence the 11 lots. Whether it comes to be or not, I have no idea. And maybe we're going about this wrong. Maybe we shouldn't be proposing all 11 lots. This is why, you know, I wanted to talk to you because you'll give me the direction that you would like it to go. But I'm just trying to be very honest of what could happen down the road. But my children, like I said, I have my three children are ready to start building. So given that the lower lots, the middle, the middle lots and the lower lots are not contemplated for development right away, I assume the board would want to see some sort of phasing plan for the road as well. Yes, I would think so. So at the next stage of review, you know, make sure you get those phase lines on the plan and show what that interim condition would look like where the hammer had turned around for the road. Would that be something we would typically work with staff or public works or emergency services or all of the above? Yeah, depending on... We have, I think, a template that is our standard. I don't believe our DBW specs have actually made it to publication, but they are like inches away as soon as somebody gets some free time. So that would be where to go if it's available and if not, I can just send it to you. Any other questions about number four? All right, let's move on to number five. I have a question for you, Marla, about this. The last sentence of number five says, staff recommends the board discuss with the applicant how the purpose of contiguous open spaces can be met. What do you mean by that, the purpose? So the purpose of the industrial open space zoning district is to create areas for high quality, a large lot like industrial and research areas and areas of the city with access to arterials. It also includes providing large contiguous open spaces. So in the context of an industrial development, the idea would be that the buildings, the allowable lot coverage would sort of be taken out of the same slice of a bunch of lots so that the open space would be contiguous between several blocks. So the question here is how do you think the purpose of contiguous open spaces can be met by your project? This is probably a Doug question. It's a tough question. You know, I think that open space desire goes hand in hand with what's flanking this project on both sides, these big industrial uses. I'm not seeing how that really is applicable. I mean, we're providing open space in the form of civic space, meeting your requirements of 10% of the project area. This is only a 10-acre lot, so I think we're trying to extract a small portion of the regulation and apply it to a project that now isn't really conforming to the standard purpose of the I.O. district. It's now trying to conform to Act 47 in that this is a residential, a district that allows residential use and is flanked by sewer and water. This is the legislature. You know, this is sort of the, where the legislature wanted to go with this is we don't want three lots on here. We don't want 50 lots. Well, they're not going to get 50, but they're going to get 11 lots based on the desire of the applicant. Frank, go ahead. I agree with the developer's reading here. This is consistent with Act 47 and stepping back just from a practical perspective from an open space, you know, for 11 houses, that's a lot of nice open space. With a nice area in the middle. I don't think we have to, you know, turn summer solstice over it. It's good enough. Okay. Any other comments or thoughts? I would just jump in real quick and say, I think there's a difference between 50 units and 50 lots. You know, you could develop this in a way that consolidates all the units and protects open space. That's certainly a possibility. It's not the possibility of pursuing here and I don't mean to have any bearing on that, but I think it is technically possible probably to meet the intent of the IO. I'm not sure that Act 47 doesn't overrule that though. No, good point. You're right. Okay. Are we ready to move on? Number five, I'm going to read this. Without such dedication of a future right of way to the adjacent property, the proposed development would not meet the requirements of the land development regulations because dead-end streets are limited to 200 feet in length. And this restriction does not include a provision for looped dead-end streets. Staff recommends the board discuss this requirement with the applicant. What are your thoughts, board? I have a question. What are the adjacent properties? Are they already developed? No, Marty, can you go to... Yeah, that one. So to the north is Dyna Power. To the east is... Oh boy. DR Power. DR Power. And then to the rear of our property is Lane Press. And then the other side is Dyna Power. So the only adjacent properties are large commercial properties, right? Yes. Where Marty's cursor could potentially be developed in the same way or more densely than is proposed for this property. Okay. What could the adjacent properties? The one where Marty's cursor is now, to the south. That could be proposed for, you know, 40 units or something. So both our planned iterations do include a future, a possible future road right away to the Dyna Power property to the south. So, Frank, are you wanting to say something? What's our latitude on fooling around with that requirement? The LDRs require connectivity between lots and many places and prohibit dead-end streets in a couple other places. So I think that you'd have to modify like six different standards of the LDR in order to not have it. I think actually I'm noticing now for the first time that the way Doug has that road laid out is actually pretty neat because if you can pan down just a tiny bit, I don't know how much further the page goes, but that right-of-way actually would extend into the existing driveway rather than to a completely new road. Right. Can I ask a question? We have two major driveways, obviously the one that you have here and the other one is between house lot two and three, which is another major driveway. Would it be better if it was just a U that went down and came back up and went out there than it would not be a dead-end street? I mean, it's going to be a private road. You know, we don't want a city street running through our property, obviously. So it's going to be a private road. So basically the driveway is going to access a couple more houses. How far apart are those driveways? I'll tell you here, it is... I have the technology. I think they're about 200 feet apart in the 200 foot range. You're not bad, 240. How long have you lived out there? My whole life. I've been flying on that driveway my whole life. So where does that leave us, board? So what they have proposed is a future right-of-way. It's not a street connecting with the Jason Mott. I don't think it really hurts anything to put it there. I think Keith's current proposal is really interesting. I mean, I would rather... I'd have to look at the standards. It used to be something about roads have to be... entrance is to a subdivision have to be at least 250 feet apart. I mean, 240 is not so dramatic that I would advise against that. What are the board's thoughts on? Well, does that propose future right-of-way to satisfy the connectivity requirement as far as you're concerned? I think the board has to do a little bit of twisting to say that it's adequate, but I think that our recommendation was that twisting was appropriate in this case. I'm sold. You're sorry, did you say? I'm sold. The truth is I think the requirement in this context is awkward at the very best. Any other comments or questions about this? Yeah, let me ask one other question. The applicant said a couple of times you're keeping this within the family. Yes. And I understand that. And when I look at these things, my mind always goes to, but where could we end up? So at some point in the future, somebody could sell some of these parcels. It could become very public. Or were you planning on some sort of deed restrictions? I would be more than happy to have a clause put in there to say if it was developed even further, then they need to come back and get whatever restrictions or blessings you want to put on. Is that something that makes sense? I mean, I think if there's like some deed, some restriction to the deed that this is part of the family parcel and the whole family has to approve or whatever, then I'd be maybe a little more inclined to juggle some requirements than something that, hey, in 10 years, they could all be sold off to on market rate. Right. It's just a neighborhood. So I think that, you know, the board will have to decide, if you can flip back to the plan, if they can live with that future road not being built with all 10 homes existing. And if the board can and that land is just reserved and that doesn't have to be built until actually the adjoining parcel is responsible for building it to make that connection, then I think that that's the hoop that I was thinking the board would have to jump through. Like the board says these 10 homes are fine, but you start building, you know, the next, the next door neighbor, there's a condition that says like the next property shall connect unless they demonstrate better connectivity elsewhere or something. You know, as we saw at the last DRB meeting, we don't want to be in a situation where connect everybody agrees that a connection should happen, but there is no mechanism to make it happen. Right. So I guess we just looked at a sketch plan where we had them build a road to the end of their property that could be connected in the future. And now we're looking at sketch plan saying we're fine with them not doing that. It's a flip flopping, right? It's about like, when is the, when is the development happening? Right. If this adjoining parcel were developed, we would say you have to connect to it. So that it would be on the burden of the person developing the next lot to connect to this driveway. Instead of having the burden of the person developing this lot, at least get to their property line. That's the suggestion. You're talking about Peter Pollock's property. Done of power. Next to us. I mean, wouldn't be, I mean, this is just my opinion from being there. Once it be added and changes to him to come out onto that side road. So you don't have a lot of heavy traffic going on to Heinzburg road out of a private, right? Right. So our regulations require connectivity between neighborhoods. So if there were to be 40 homes developed on that lot, we wouldn't want to see it as a separate neighborhood. We want it to be connected. In other words, what you're saying is if they down the road, they want to develop this further, they would have to connect the two properties is what you're saying. I'm just trying to understand what you're saying. That's all. But along with that would be, you know, there would need to be some legal dedication to say that that quote private road would be. The city would accept it. Dynapower property would have the rights to use that road. The city would accept that road as a public road at such time as the adjoining law would propose for development. So that could be turned into a public road. Right. Charlie makes kind of a good point. I think. Which is. We can. Have them preserve the right of way. But if they don't build the road. Are we have we required in other circumstances that the, the connecting road actually be built out to the proper, to the next property line. We just did. This is pretty existing. Right. The difference there being that it's an already developed property next door. There's, there's several other instances. That we, the board has done a similar thing where they've said that adjoining property is developed. Therefore, you must make the connection. And then the opposite, the adjoining property isn't yet developed. So you must reserve the land for future connection. And that tends to be. And we have precedent for doing that. For both of those things. But, you know, I, I see your point and. I precedent is not binding. Well, it should be. I think our preference actually is Keith mentioned would be. One alternative is to abandon that. Future road connection to dine a power. And do a large loop. Yep. Just like Marty's drawing out there. I don't think that. Certainly not a dead end at that point. It's got two means. I don't think that works in the LDR, but I don't want to say for sure right off the top of my head. I think the LDR requires. Reservation of land for future connections. But, you know, our suggestion from the get go is that they, you don't require the rights to build that street. So. Where does that leave us? So the. I guess it sounds like the board's a little divided. Feedback they're providing my question is whether we have. I think precedent matters. You don't just. Sure. President matters. Let me put it that way. And the question is whether there is precedent. For. Allowing the, the, the right of way, the requirement. Imposing on them the duty of providing right of way. For their neighbor when the neighbor develops. Yes. That has happened before. Yes. More than once. Yes. All right. Even in my time. In that case, we have a practice that we can follow. If we departed from it last time. And required the build out. Well, there is a distinction between two, the existing development. I mean, that was. Just to serve a lively area where there was actual traffic. Right. You can make that distinction. But. If the. Other fellow feels he was poorly treated, he could appeal. Yeah. I guess. For me, right? Where the end of the right of way is, there is an active access to other properties, right? For them to meet the connectivity, they could just build a road that goes on to the next property. Like we were asking the other applicant to do and connect in with that. I understand it, but, but in practical terms, there was a purpose in the case of the other. In other words, there was a purpose in providing a through way. Here, there is no apparent purpose at the moment. There could be a through way here, right? Where they have the end of the right of way is within 50 feet of a driveway, right? That would connect great connectivity to other lots to, to whose benefit. The public. In the other case we had, I think a public benefit. Between commercial properties. In this case. There's no one to stand to benefit from building that thing now. And what we're trying to do is meet what we have apparently in the past already construed as the letter of the, of the other, of the regulations. So I would. Talking myself around to basically, I think what is the staff's position and also the developer's position. At the moment, which is to establish the right away. I'm just, I'm just working that through with you. Okay. That sketch plan that we just looked at, right? For another, I mean, it's going to come back and we can, we're going to have to go through it again. I'm comfortable with the distinction. While it's on that picture. Yeah. Okay, are we ready? Do you make the distinction though, when you're proposing or thinking about laying out future lots that. The, the Southern connection that we're talking about would be to a, a pre developed. Property and I don't know if some of your other projects are to pre developed sites. The likelihood of dyna power. Well, I guess who knows. But I don't know if typically you would say you have to provide. That future right away to a neighboring undeveloped lot, which. In this case, isn't the case on either north or south end. These are. These are fully developed plots. Yeah. I think the distinction we are making Doug, and I see your point about it being one lot is that it's sort of a. Area with some development potential, even though the lot itself has some development, I do have a no dyna powers recently bought by out of state firm and they're looking at sort of optimizing how they do things. So I wouldn't, I have literally never talked to them, but I wouldn't be surprised if they came in and looked at subdivision of some land that they're not using at some later future time. Can I ask a question? Sure. So who would be on the hook for developing that road in the future? Because we just said that. At the last meeting, we cannot force an applicant to construct on someone else's property when they don't have the rights to do so. So this would be reserving those rights. So this would be avoiding that situation in the future, because this would, this would be a dedicated right of way so that it could be built on. Whereas on the other lot, it seems to have been oversight of the board to not dedicate that right of way. So it would be the responsibility of the future applicant to pay for and permit something on someone else's property. No, it wouldn't be someone else's property because the city would take it. Yeah. All right. Are we ready to move on on this? Okay. Number seven. This is a question about whether the layout should be modified so the civic space is a neighborhood feature. Like reading a quote, whether the layout should be modified so that the civic space is located in the center of the development where a lot to two is currently proposed or whether the access to the civic space can be modified so that it is more obviously a neighborhood feature. Now your redesign accomplishes that. Correct? Yeah. Okay. That's the purpose of trying to satisfy that comment. Okay. Are we all good with that? Okay. If this is the neighborhood it works. Okay. Everybody has access. Yeah. I like redesign. And I roll back to that just to put clarity on the final right of way. So when we come in for plans, next phase of plans that will still have a future right of way either there or somewhere else potentially to the southern neighboring lot but not showing construction of that road. It would just be a Deaded right away. Deaded right away to the town or your vocal offer of dedication or whatever that. And if Dinah Power or whomever the current owner is decided they were going to do a development that needed that connectivity of be their responsibility to build within on this project but within the right of way. Okay. Number eight. I think we've resolved. One more question about the right way is the is the connective road required to be built the city standards or just or not. The connecting. The the that the right of way the right of way. Is that required to be built the city street standards? Yeah, it will be. All right. You clear about that. So the width of the right of way in other words has to conform to whatever the whatever the records of standards are. All right. Okay. Number eight. This is a question again about act 47. Pardon me. Does it supersede the LDRs? I think we've resolved that. Does everyone agree? Eight. So this is talking about how the redesign. Right. Right. Okay. So let's move on to number nine. Now is number nine. Okay. I think we have to reread it. Is that taken care of by the redesign? Yes. Okay. I mean lot one dash five in the old layout had a 22 feet of frontage to the roadway. So it did have some frontage. I think the staff comment wasn't 100% accurate. But the new design makes it more conforming. Okay. And what was there? So good. I think the point was taken. What street types are anticipated? So we're anticipating a based on article 11. Table 11. A narrow neighborhood street. A narrow what? Narrow neighborhood street. Okay. That's technical term. I can read out what that is if the board's interested. So a neighbor neighborhood narrow. Our special residential street type within the local street provides for greater intimacy and ambiance. Okay. Make this up for as well as traffic calming because of its limited with its application should be targeted to areas where through trips are undesirable or unlikely and where parallel alternative routes are accessible. Pavement with would be two lanes. And let's see what I have parking. There would not be parking on either side, but it seems consistent with the relatively large lots because there's ample parking for guests on the large lots. And sidewalks. One side of the road. One side, one five foot sidewalk on one side of the road. And that's what you're envisioning? Yes. Okay. The other potentially applicable would be a neighborhood street as opposed to a neighborhood narrow neighborhood street. Would have one side of parking, parking on one side would be the major difference. Parallel parking. Right. So you end up with a road that's probably eight feet wider than you. Right. Which I don't think in this case, we would need parallel parking for any reason with these lot sizes. I wouldn't think so. Okay. I mean, we'd revisit, I suppose, the connectivity issue. I mean, we really aren't thrilled to consider this, you know, having a future road for a short cut perhaps I'm not sure the value of connectivity other than for emergency services to Frank's point, it's, if we could make that go away, that would be great. But maybe that connecting road could be something to discourage through traffic, but allow emergency vehicles. And maybe that's a discussion at the next stage of this process. Marla shaking her head. Are you shaking? Yes or no? Oh, we've just seen how poorly that's gone in other neighborhoods. I would strongly advise against it. Okay. Losing our intimacy here with that. Well, but keep in mind, this is a connection. This is a connection that gets made if the residential, if the adjoining area is developed in a way that's compatible with this, right? So if it's another. Right. It's not a guarantee that it would happen. It's not a guarantee that it would happen. And the board, I would say it would be unlikely to require it if it were an industrial development. But if it were a compatible development, you know, that's when you'd see it. So it's more homes and it becomes more of a neighborhood. Okay. Number 11. This is about the rec path. And are you intending to have a rec path? Do you plan for that? Or is there a plan for that? Are you intending to have a rec path? Do you plan for that or to allow space for the rec, for a rec path? I have a question. Sure. So the common area or the is, um, is going to be for these lots, correct? The center part. Right. Yes. Okay. So, can, can members of the public use things? I mean, could I go and have a picnic there? Is there any. No, I couldn't. Okay. Well, so it depends on that. Oh, because they're private streets. I see. Okay. It depends on that type. Yeah. So if it were, um, some of them have requirements that it's being available to the public. Others don't. I mean, if we're not talking about on-street parking, it'd be pretty hard to remember the right to use it anyway. Right. Okay. Um, unless they walked. So, um, Let me back up the same thing. These are private streets. They're never going to be dedicated. Well, they're going to have to be dedicated with some agreement that we won't take it unless there's connectivity. I'm sorry. I didn't hear you. They're going to have to be dedicated with an written agreement that the city won't take them until it's connected to an adjoining lot. Okay. Because it's the connectivity that's inconsistent with a private street. Right. Okay. All right. So let's go back to the planned rec path or space for a rec path. We have no problem, you know, granting an easement along Heinsberg Road. Is there a room given the existing homes? Excuse me. Is there a room with the existing homes? Not much. There's 15 feet between the house at 850 and the edge of the road. The 850 is the middle one. The first one. That's the one on the corner. It's the northwest corner. Yeah, that is pretty close. We showed a sidewalk for pedestrian connectivity. But, you know, five foot path is different than a 10 foot bike path. Right. Again. Sorry, you said 15 feet between. Between the house and the road. The edge of pavement. Edge pavement. Yep. At the tightest corner. Okay. Though obviously, right, there's so little space between the property line and the house that you couldn't get anything built there. Doug, I think, sorry, I don't mean to overstep here, but I think that given that amount of space, I might want to have a conversation with DPW about, well, it's not our road. Heinsberg Road is V-Trans right of way. I have to have a conversation about like how that could possibly work. Is the pavement wider than it needs to be? You know, just thinking about what that should look like. So I think that staff needs to do a little more work on that, but we'll put that on our list and look at it for next time. So that brings us to the end of the staff report. And I'm going to ask if anyone from the public would like to make some comments, but before we do that, do you have any questions for us? Not really, I guess. Now, am I going to be able, now the driveway, or I guess you want to call it private drive, am I going to be able to keep that gravel? Keep that what? Gravel. I don't know the answer, Marla. I guess if it's private, you could. But obviously the base to it and everything will have to be constructed to city standards. Sure. I understand that. Yeah. But you would rather not pave it? I would rather not pave it. I just, it kind of goes back to the old farm setting that you don't have a bunch of pavement and cement all over it. Is that allowed? Let me look into it. That's a good question. I think it's a different conversation. If it's constructed to city standards and it's just not paved versus just gravel path. Okay. I'll write that down. Okay. Now, will you communicate back with them or? Okay. Marla, we'll get back to you. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Other than, I know you guys don't approve or disapprove sketch plans, but I'm assuming that you're generally accepting of it. I guess if I was misreading that, we would like to know that before we dive into preliminary design. If we had major problems, you would have heard about it. Okay. That's great. You're reading the room and I think that you've taken our feedback. So let's take a pause and ask if there are any members of the public who would like to comment, either online or in the audience. Yes, sir. Would you state your name, please? Hi. My name is Gary Winslet. I live at 11 Chelsea Circle. Okay. I just had a quick question because there was mention of the D-Districtions. I totally respect private property. This guy wants to build on this private property. I respect that. But when there would be rules placed by the DRB that like, I couldn't buy a house and one of these lots later. Is that what I'm hearing? So I'm just going to say it again because Gary didn't use the mic. Gary Winslet is asking about D-Districtions on the lots being private. I don't know if the board wants to answer that or if you want me to answer it. I'd like, well, unless, I'd say go for it Marla, unless someone on the board would like to comment. Go ahead. It was something John raised and I didn't say anything at the time, but I think it's a potentially vulnerable restriction. But that would be up to the law. I don't think we would want to impose the duty to create a D-Distriction. I wouldn't want to be in that position. He could try it to restrict it to family, whether it works in the long run. I don't know. Well, it's challengeable, I think. A question about that would be if anything more was to be done on this law, they would come, have to come before you and get your agreement. Correct? Yes. So, I mean, I just want to be fully transparent with the board that I'm not trying to develop lots to build houses and sell, that, you know, my plan is for my family. You know, I just want you to see exactly what I'm planning to do. And I have no plan, you know, down the road, I can't tell you what I'm planning to do. Sure. Something might come along that will better suit. I don't know that. Boy, the area has changed a lot in the 66 years that I've been there. But they would have to come get your graces for that, correct? No. No. No, no, no. No, not to sell the house, but if they wanted to develop any further. Develop anything physical. But if they wanted to sell the house, they would have to go up and further. Develop anything physical, but I think a sale to the general public. For example, some grandson of yours might say, hey, I'm getting a good offer here. I want to go to California. Absolutely. And I want to sell it to him. No. Cousin or no. Right. Right. And that very well could happen. And I think we understand that and we should be fine with it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I think the board appreciates kind of the, or I guess I won't speak to everyone, you know, outlining how you foresee this in the foreseeable future. Right. But I think we are reviewing it as if it would one day become a neighborhood that might not be inhabited fully by family. Absolutely. So that's why we're asking those questions around connectivity and all of these things, right? So to the gentleman's question, the board wouldn't put any restriction on that. And we are going to be looking at it, you know, understanding the vision that's in the short term, but also viewing this as a neighborhood that will exist in South Burlington, you know, maybe long after that's the situation at hand. So that's helpful. Does that answer your question? Okay. Any other comments from the public? Are there any online? No. Okay. Good. Well, that concludes the sketch plan hearing. We're pretty much right on time. So thank you very much. We'll see you again. Okay. Item number seven on the agenda is the sketch plan application SD 2316 of Kerry born to create it. Pardon me. A general plan planned unit development by re sub dividing existing lots into three new lots of point one, eight acres lot one, zero point one, four, and my printing ends. Oh, acres, let two and one point oh six acres lot three and constructing a 3350 square foot financial institution at lot one, a 6480 square foot two story mixed commercial and residential building on lot two containing two market rate and one inclusionary units and a three story 27 unit multifamily building on lot three of which nine units are proposed to be inclusionary at 760 Shelburne road. I have a question. Hello again. Hi. Hi. So where can we can we like have people swear in? Sure. Oh, I guess it's sketch. So no swearing but introduce themselves. No swearing. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and then I'll ask my question. Sure. My name is Jen does a tell I am an engineer and project manager with Trudeau consulting engineers. Thank you. And I'm Gary born and I'm the owner of the project. Anyone else who'll be testifying tonight. What's your first name? Greg. Thanks, Greg. So the you had a previous project that was denied. Correct. And where where is this a totally new plan that you're coming? I'm not totally clear. We were directed back to sketch with a different project. Okay. But same plot of land. Correct. Okay. All right. You know, kind of the deal. We've Why don't you give us a brief overview of what you're coming to us with. And then we'll go through the staff report as we've done before. Sure. So I think your description was pretty good, but I'll just give a brief overview. It is the same corner that you've seen before it is the redevelopment of an infill project on the corner of Swiss street and Shelburne road. Right now that property is as it stands. Is it former gas station service auto repair shop in the back and the kind of defunct graffiti pizza hut property. That's the parcels that we're talking about. And so we're here today to talk about a project that is similar to ones that you've seen in the past. And it includes many of the same elements that you've seen before. It includes the financial institution on the corner, the mixed use building with the first floor commercial and three residential units on the second floor. And then the multifamily residential unit in the back with 27 residential units proposed. The major difference from application. The application that you saw in the past is that there is no standalone ATM with this proposal. That's before you tonight for the sketch plan hearing. So you'll notice that difference in the corner there. It has been a slight reconfiguration of sidewalks and the access drive and some landscaping in that corner to accommodate that change. Okay. Thank you. So I have a kind of a general question and I'm not sure maybe this isn't appropriate, but why have you not demolished the buildings that are such eyesores? At one point we were actually blocked by act 250 for quite a period of time. They've now released the property. But the other, the project wasn't moving. So we weren't sure if it was going to continue to be, if this project was going to go or it was going to go. But you'd have to demolish those buildings anyways, wouldn't you? If the project goes forward, yes. Yes, that's definitely. In fact, the city has given us a city permit to demo the buildings. All right. Do you plan to do that in the near future? If we can achieve a permit, then we absolutely will. Okay. Okay. So let's walk through the staff report. You know the drill. So let's start with number one. And the question is, do the elevations that as presented, do they appear to be two stories? Which is the requirement? And I'm just wondering what board members think. Which is which, my eyes aren't telling me. Which one is facing Shelburne Road? The longer version is facing Shelburne Road. And what's the solid wall we're looking at there? Why is that a solid wall? Architect's choice would be the only thing I could. I wish Mark were here. Because it's a different color. Maybe we could ask Greg. To the best of my knowledge, there are function areas within the financial institution. Sorry, Greg. Could you use a mic? Thanks. I'm looking at the floor plans that were submitted in the pocket. They're bathrooms. It's not. Is it? Am I looking at it backwards? Oh, I am looking at it backwards. You're right. It's bathrooms. Try this again. The thought process is that not all the spaces in the bank require the exterior windows. And that it gives them something to compose the design around to have some solid panels to juxtapose against all the glass. But there are some back areas in the bank that don't get windows. Such as the bathroom area. That's correct. Are those areas at the second floor level? Well, there's no true second floor there. This is the architect's gesture to make it look like there's a second floor. I think as far as the question of the appearance of second floor, something that I recall coming up at past hearings when we saw this project previously was, I think, a similar thing we saw out of the first redesign was that main gray, main entryway component of the building that front Shelburne Road. There's that set of windows that bleed into the first floor set of windows. And that that kind of reads as an oddity if that was a true second floor because then your windows would kind of be at your feet. And so it seems like some of the sections, you know, have windows that do appear more like what would be there if that was a true second floor. So that's, I'm not sure how other board members feel, but that still reads a little bit like an oddity to me. And I was just wondering if you could speak to that kind of choice. Well, Chase has their own bank. The bank has their own architects. So they're not supporting it. So either they're doing their own thing. I think the punched openings and the number of punched openings that you see at the second floor, those were intended to read as second story. It's not unusual for two-story houses to have a two-story volume somewhere. And around the entry would be one of those kinds of places. They have to go back to Chase every time we, you know, we suggest a change like this because Chase has a very definite image they're trying to project and we're monkeying with it. But I say go ahead and push them back. I mean, this is South Burlington. We don't need to worry about that. But I do think this final iteration or the most recent one we've gotten from them does make a strong gesture towards the second floor. That's all I could say. Thank you. What do other board members think? You know, the blank, I mean, frankly, let me, let me, let me make one thing clear. Greg, my architectural comments will all be taken with a grain of salt. If I was, this is an aside. I really like what you did on the corner of the Palace Nye, whatever that project. I think that was, was that a Larkin project? That with the tower, you know, that was nice. I, I give you a hard time about it when you're in front of us, but worked out nice. So I'm, I'm, I'm hesitant when I, when I, therefore, when I attempt an architectural critique, but I feel a little freer because you're telling me that that blank wall is coming from, from the bank and not from you necessarily. I want to ask you to commit yourself to what you'd prefer to do in that case, since it's, as a business matter, maybe not a good idea. But I, I don't like the blank wall. And it's, it's very hard to, it strikes me as extremely unattractive facade for Shelburne Road. I don't know how anybody else feels. Yeah, I agree. Actually, I do agree. I don't want to bog down on it at sketch. I'm happy to take this to Chase and say, you still have work to do, and that's perfectly appropriate at this level of review. If you want to suggest we have that conversation, I'm happy to do that. Well, I'm glad to know it's Chase, because I don't want to be in the business of criticizing your architectural taste. Wait, I suppose the permit will say, hey bank. So I'm not an architect, but when I look at this, there's no connection aesthetically between that blank wall and the other part of the building. It's just, it's a different color. There are no windows. And I understand that's intentional, but I think it's pretty ugly with just that blank wall. Okay, well, I don't think the whole building is ugly, but I think it's like, what's that about? I can't take offense. I mean, it's not my design. I will take those thoughts back. Now I do want to reiterate there are, there are things like vaults and bathrooms and stuff. It's not unusual to have some portion of a facade blank. The vast majority of this first floor, really the building, it's got quite a bit of open glass in it. There are going to be some program areas that want to be closed in, but we can talk to them about your concerns about the composition. But couldn't it match in color? I mean, there's several other colors being used here. Couldn't it somehow match that? I mean, I don't, again, I'm not an architect. Right. And I don't want to sort of pick up their pencil for them if you understand what I'm saying. As you drive around Chattanooga County, or as you drive around the region, you can see that this is a kind of a look that's going on right now. I'm not sure. I'm sort of on your side of the ledger as far as whether or not I love the look, but it is a trend in design to have these kind of compositions of volumes and the way they're done with the materials. But like I said earlier, this is South Burlington. We have every right to ask them for more or better if we want. I'll just take it back to them and express these concerns to them. Okay. Thank you. So other folks, what do you think about the appearance of a second floor? Yeah, I agree with what you're saying. I'm looking down in the drawing package where they have the four elevations. You know, while certainly the whole building gives an appearance of four boxes stacked together, the part at the end really does look like they just took a box. There's nothing on it besides electrical panels and a couple of doors, which if that's where the back of the lot and nobody is ever going to see it, would be perfectly appropriate because why spend money making the back of the building nobody is ever going to see look good. But it's not. It's right on. So I would agree. I would love to see them to see them to find a way to deemphasize it. The other sections of the building, I think, compared to other iterations that we've seen, definitely give more of an appearance of a secondary space. And I do kind of agree with your assessment that the center portion telegraphs a two-story volume. Yeah. You know, an open foyer sort of thing. So I can, you know, I think the comment with the windows makes sense. It's meant to be a continuous space. So I'm fairly happy with the rest of the building, but I would love them to find a way to deemphasize the big flat gray wall. Any other comments? I have one question before we move on. I think even though we're here tonight under a new application and we're back at sketch, we have talked about this building for maybe, I think this is the fourth or fifth hearing now that we've talked about the architecture of the Chase Bank building. And I, I definitely understand those concerns. What would be helpful to me to get a building in front of you that you'd like would be to have some very specific feedback about exactly what needs to be changed in order for this group to feel comfortable with that. I mean, I would say the board is providing some pretty specific feedback that they don't like the blank section. And they would like to see it either better compliment or have some windows in it. So we're kind of focused now. There's an agreement on the rest of the building being acceptable. Generally, it's just the kind of box on the end that needs some attention, color or, you know, and I think my experience is that a good architect may find that they want to make some tweaks to the other parts of the building in order to accommodate changes that the board is suggesting for the portion that they don't like. So I wouldn't say that, like, don't touch anything about the rest of the building. If that's not a good design. I don't think the board is, has ever said, like we're architectural experts do exactly this. They're saying, you know, we want to see some improvements in this section of the building and, you know, generally follow best practices otherwise. Right. But in terms of the appearance of a second floor, are we in agreement that with the exception of that blank wall, it has that appearance. Okay. And we're moving in the right direction. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That's helpful to me. I think I just really want to make sure that when we come back, there's a better chance that we have a building that you like. Okay. Thank you. So I have a question about the next one. I know what a setback is and I know what coverage is, but what is setback coverage? Yeah, taken out of context. You're right. It doesn't make a lot of sense. So that is the coverage of the area of the required setback. Said that again, please. So it's how much of the required setback is covered with drive-wise and parking. Impervious. Specifically drive-wise and parking actually. Okay. So we kind of, we kind of say impervious. And I think we're all guilty of this. That's not actually what the rules say. The rules specifically limited to 30% drive-wise and parking. Okay. So I'm going to read the question or the comment on swift street. The proposed front setback coverage is 53.1%. Front setback coverage consisting of drive-wise and parking is limited to 30%. As submitted, the swift street entrance drive is 24 feet with no parking. So I think that's something that we've talked about in the past. And I can say that the reason that we've talked about this is that the standard driveway width of 20 feet. Staff considers this to be far greater than the standard driveway width of 20 feet. And. Recommends the board direct the applicant to reduce that reduce the driveway width to 20 feet and then reevaluate whether the requested modification meets the tests for modification of standards above. I can speak to that. Okay. Thank you. I can say that the reason that the driveway width is what it is, is following conversations with the fire chief in order to make those big truck turning radii work. I think we at one point were showing a narrower driveway and had to make it wider in order to accommodate that fire truck. So. You're getting mixed messages. We're trying to meet all of the various requirements and come before you with something that meets those requirements. We are. We did take out one of the access points on. On both switch tree and Shelburne road. So we're. Reducing the overall access points. But I think as far as the fire chief is concerned, he would prefer us to keep the width as is. I'll, I'll run it up the flagpole with the fire department. Because I wonder, you know, road widths are only 20 feet. So I'm surprised that they would say they require 24. I think it has to do with the, the swing of the truck on the turn of the entrance. So I, I did go meet with him in person about a year ago. I think it was less winter. Yeah. But I certainly would be open to hearing any new feedback he has, but I think that's exactly why it is this width right now. Okay. Great. Um, number, any questions, comments? Number three, I'm going to read the last Senate staff recommends the board asked the applicant to confirm this review. And if it is in fact over the allowable 30% describe why they believe the modification to be necessary and how it meets the test for modification of standards. Um, I think this was a good catch by Marla or Marty. I'm not sure which one Marla. Um, we did go back and double check that, um, coverage on Shelburne road. And, um, the, the number is actually 36.1%. So we are slightly more than the 30% allowable. Um, but not 40%. Okay. Any comments, questions? Well, the, but the rest of the comment stands. What is the justification? I think the justification that we're looking for is, you know, we worked really hard to, um, you know, come up with this particular layout so that the different uses on the parcel fit together with connectivity access points to the buildings and, um, provide some visual interests with, um, providing the little bit of open space that we have to work with. And, you know, this is the layout and the impervious coverage that we feel, um, works best at this location. And I think this is something that we had kind of hashed out in the, in the past, but are you sure it's 30% of that whole, of that whole street? I think that it is. It's only parking and driveways. It's not total coverage. Maybe, maybe it's not just the parking and. Yeah, I can double check just because eyeballing it. There's no parking in the setback because you have the setback line shown there. Right. And doesn't seem it possible that 30% is maybe it is. I thought you said 30. Did you say 36%? Yeah, just slightly, just slightly over. It just doesn't seem possible. Yeah. It doesn't count. So maybe the heartscape is included in that. Okay. Could you check that? Okay. Great. I'll check. Cause this sidewalk, I mean, what you're getting is like the sidewalks and things when it. Sidewalks and they're chaining walls don't count. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We'll double check. Okay. Thank you. Number four, um, this is about widening the walkways to meet the eight foot width standard. Um, I can speak to that one as well. Um, I think this is something we had talked about previously. And I think in this area, I was really hoping that we could keep the, um, the sidewalk out to Swiss street at this, um, width that we're proposing just because there's, um, a stonewater treatment feature there. Um, and on the site with it being so tight and so much impervious area that we're really trying to hang on to the little bit of area that we have for stormwater treatment. It actually is a nice, um, kind of doubles as a nice landscape green space area as well. Um, and those dots are the seagull sculptures that we came up with last time that replaced the pergola. So there is sort of an overall concept of trying to really, um, highlight a little bit of the little bit of green space that we have here and, and find areas that we can treat stormwater, um, it's pretty tight. I'm kind of with the applicant on this one. I mean, that's just going out to Swiss street, right? What you're talking about. I see that as a pretty light usage area, hardly need for thoroughfare. There's nothing, I mean, there's very little to the left or right. If you want to go to North country bank, that would be the only regime to go out and turn right. I would disagree, Frank. I think that this is proposed for 27 homes and there's a there's a rec path along swift street and there's, um, major connectivity north along Farrell street and through, um, Farrell park for bike and pet connectivity to other parts of the city. I'm sorry. I walk around there all the time. It's very lightly used. There's hardly, you know, when I'm a pedestrian there, I'm usually the only pedestrian and I'm there frequently. I guess I was thinking about the people who live in this building, wanting to go up to Farrell park or walk to the shawls. I don't think that burdens it materially. I don't know why they need eight feet of width. And the argument that it's aesthetically at least a little nicer at four feet. I kind of agree with other people. Um, so this comment is not just about swift street. This comments also about Shelburne road. Yes. Yeah. And I think for me, the same comment applies. I mean, this site is very much pavement and concrete and buildings and any little bit of, um, you know, green belt that we can get. I'd love to find a way to keep. I don't think we're going to, you know, I think we're going to have a huge fight about a couple of feet, but I think we're really, you know, but have such precious little open space and green space to deal with that we'd like to keep a little bit that we have. Marla, could you, um, speak to, this is a dimensional standard potential. Could you speak to kind of the, isn't there some language about, oh, sorry. Yeah. So that's what I wanted to bring up. Yeah. Um, 15 C07 a specifically limits the board's authority to modify standards. Um, there's very few. This is standard of the urban design overlay are one of the things that are prohibited from being modified by the board. So you're, you're saying that they have to do eight feet. Yeah. So if I go out of 15 C07 a, I'm just going to do that quickly to confirm that the details of that language 15 C07 a, uh, let's see. The development of your board has the authority, um, to approve with modifications, um, limitations on DRB authority apply. In no case shall the DRB vary requirements of the urban design overlay and transit overlay district as applicable. This is under the general PUD standards. And this is applicable. Correct. So it sounds like. Yeah. I'm wondering how, how come the last time we discussed it, it was an option to leave it. I think that the answer is everyone makes mistakes. Okay. Understood. So, but, so there's a walk on Swift street by the driveway answers. There's another walk that goes to Swift street, which is also not E foot wise, five foot. Which is also what, Charlie? There's two walks that go to Swift, Swift street, sorry for my pronunciation, but there's no one and that's only five feet wide. So. Yeah. So the standard of the urban design overlay is for the direct separate walkway to the building entrances. Okay. So we need a separate for the. So not every. So I guess there's sort of two on Swift and three on Shelburne, four on Shelburne, only the ones that go to the building entrances are required to be eight feet. The other ones can stay as they are, be modified if you needed to adjust things to make up for that impervious. Right. And would just the center access or would be just the direct. The ones that are directed to the building. Direct to the building. Okay. And not necessarily the sidewalk to the south side of the mixed use building. Okay. That's helpful. That's the one that I was concerned about getting wider. As you can see, it's pretty tight right there. I think if we have to, we have to. So. Thanks for the clarification. Okay. Number five. Staff recommends the board asked the applicant to describe the proposed glazing transparency and determine whether to apply the standard to the street facing facades or the entire building. It appears from the provided elevations that some of the glazing is not proposed to be transparent. Though the elevations are unlabeled and no calculation is provided. So. Are we talking about those? The second story windows, Marla. Yeah, specifically where Marty and this cursor where it's a gray, the question is, is that proposed to be. Not transparent. I think what we did on the previous iteration of this project, it would be our habit to do it again as we come forward for final approval or whatever. There'd be a chart on each elevation. Explaining these percentages. I know for the sell the secondary retail building. And the other, the other residential billing that we did in our office, that we had a little table and we met that requirement. I think we just need to have make sure that the bank includes that same information in their portion of the application. But we do plan on complying. I do believe we are compliant. There will be some opaque class, but, but the percentages will meet the requirement. Okay. Any questions? Board. Thank you. Number. Can't read through six. This relates to the criteria for inclusionary units. Question is, how will the inclusionary units meet the criteria above. Under inclusionary units. So how, how could you please describe. How you'll meet these criteria. If I understand item six, it's, it's. How are inclusionary units integrated into the project? It's not a question of how many, right? So. What we have done by design is that the inclusionary units are, there are two bedroom units in the residential building. There are two bedroom, two bath units. Those are our market rate units. The inclusionary units are two bedroom, one bath. They run about a hundred square feet smaller. Than the other ones. And that gives us the leverage point. We need to produce the rents. To what? To, to bring the rents within the compliant range. Um, does that meet the criteria? So, sorry. I can, um, the inclusionary units. Are they all two bedrooms? Did you say? Right now in the 27 unit building, they're all two bedroom units. One bathroom for the inclusionary. That's the primary difference between an inclusionary and a market rate unit is the inclusionary unit is got one fewer bathroom and it's a hundred square feet smaller. Okay. So, um, just kind of running. Um, even though they're smaller than the market rate, they'll be above the minimum size that's required. Absolutely. That's outlined in the LDRs. And then the other piece is that they're a mixture of bedroom counts. So it sounds like right now, um, they're all only two bedroom counts. So Marla, is that right that that would not meet that requirement? Well, it's actually okay for the inclusionary units to be a similar mix of bedroom counts as the market rate units. Um, so it's not really a problem about the inclusionary units themselves, but staff comment number eight when we get to it talks about mixture of bedroom counts on an overall basis. That might be what you're thinking of, but they're all two bedroom. So yeah, we'll get to that. Yeah. Okay. So, so in terms of inclusionary, it's fine. Okay. Okay. Okay. It sounds like that. Okay. But I think that, yeah, well, yeah, have to revisit it when we get to number eight. Number seven. Um, I can't read my writing. I think I'm just going to read it. Okay. Um, so in terms of the instruction phases. Oh, are you, are you interested in waving master plan review? No. So I think when we talked about this the last time we had started to work with staff on a, um, a master plan that showed phasing because of the requirement of if we weren't going to do all of it at the exact same time, we would have trouble getting a CEO for just one of the buildings. Okay. Okay. Okay. So in terms of the sketch plan application, we had hoped to work out some of these other kinks, um, through the sketch plan process and then go to that, um, kind of phasing plan. So we will be doing that as part of future applications because we don't want to build all of them at the exact same time, even though we think they'll have been very close together. We don't feel it's actually physically possible to get the front two done and the multi-story building in the first phase that we had looked at upon as a one, two phasing. Two phases. Will all your demolition happen before any of this starts? I would think so. Some of that might depend on the general contractor, but we would be the driveways curbing, paving, all of that in the arrangement that we had worked out earlier would be done before occupancy of the first phase. Okay. Questions? Are you saying you don't want to do a master plan because you don't think you do a simultaneous construction of a single phase or you can't do it all within three years? I think we were saying we do want to do a master plan that shows phasing because we found out through the last round of hearings that it was going to be problematic for us to get a CO for individual buildings. So you still can do phases as long as it's, oh, right? I think there was, I think they had me a way of this requirement for a PUD of less than four acres check to be developed in a single phase of no more than three years. So there's a difference between a construction phase and an approval phase. So if you get final plot approval for everything all at once, I think Marty correct me if I'm way off base here, but I think they can still phase the development because it's all approved and that doesn't require a master plan. I want to say that with 100% confidence. Okay. Yeah, we can talk about that more offline. I think you can do it without a master plan, but let's, yeah, let's catch up about that. Yeah, we just want to. And the board is okay if they don't do a master plan. Okay. That was the question here. We good. Okay. And that brings us to number eight. The mix, which relates to the mix of bedrooms, multifamily structures are provided. Staff recommends the board asked the applicant how they proposed to mix the number of bedrooms. An acceptable mix was not provided as part of the denied preliminary and final plan application. SD 2305. We were a little confused about how that vision of the regs applies to a single building. But let me say this from the outset that the residential building, the 27 unit building, we use a kind of modular design that would allow us to take a pair of two bedrooms and turn it into a one bedroom and a three bedroom. But I don't have any guidance from the reference ordinance about what an acceptable mix would be or even if it's required in this particular instance. I need a little more guidance on that. Okay. If we work out a deal where we somehow have to change the mix of the units, the size and shape of the building would not change. The site design would not change. This would be kind of an internal. The footprint would stay the same. It would be an internal organization thing. Sort of moving the door down the hallway, 12 feet kind of thing. So, however that gets untangled, the design as presented would stay the same. So, I think that the question Greg is asking for the board here is what is an acceptable mix? So, this is something I think the board, I don't know if board members recall this conversation. It sort of was missed or it was assumed into another comment at the last time this project came before the board. And the board kind of said, oh darn, we missed it. We don't want to backtrack on what we said before. But we wish we had caught it. So, it says within multifamily structures with more than four dwelling units, types of dwelling units are differentiated by number of bedrooms per unit. So, Greg is asking, okay, how much differentiation do we need here in order to comply with the standard? Because they're proposing all two bedrooms. What would be an acceptable mix? I mean, I think if two bedrooms seems to be the preferred from, you know, the market or what folks want, I assume that's why it's being presented as that now. I think it's fine if the majority of them remain as two bedrooms, but right now we're seeing no mix. So, I guess my general feedback is that it's fine if the majority remain two bedrooms, but we need to see some mix. And then I'll also just note my understanding of the inclusionary requirement is that that mix would be similar in the inclusionary units as they are in the market rate. So, if that impacts how things are looked at as well. But I'll let others chime in too. I think it says a mix. It doesn't in any way prescribe what proportion. So, you're turning two twos into a one and a three. Sounds like it works for me. You do it one time in each type, but an inclusionary of your good. I'll talk about that with Gary. And when we come back, we'll have an answer for you on that. But I appreciate you giving me that bit of guidance understanding the magnitude of it matters. I think there's some broad market demand for one bedrooms as well. What landowners, apartment owners worry about is the three bedroom units. The bigger the units, the more likelihood you'll get a lot of unrelated adults living in one apartment, which is not necessarily desirable. So, so there's a preference to not build threes, but if we'll work it out and come back with a reasonable proposal. Okay. Did you have any thoughts on that? Well, I serve on the board of Habitat for Humanity and I chair the family selection committee. And we've had a lot of applicants, single household applicants, looking for one, ideally one bedroom, possibly two bedrooms, but we are reluctant to not fill all the bedrooms. In other words, we've been building three bedroom units and many board members are opposed to picking a one household family or one person household for three bedroom units. My point is, I think there's a lot of demand for one one bedroom units. Thank you. So that brings us to the end of the comments. And let us now turn to see if there's any public comment. Yes, please identify yourself again. Thanks. Sure, sure. There we go. Hi, my name is Gary Winslet. I live at 11 Chelsea Circle right off of Kennedy Drive. I would like to talk to you about the born project, but also the first project. I don't think we can take comment now on the previous. Correct. Okay. Okay. I mean, I thought I thought I was being polite waiting until. Thank you. I think we can go back to the next slide. I think we can come back the next time they're here. Okay. Or you could submit written comments. Okay. Sorry about that. Next time I'll make sure to not wait all the way. How would you have known? Um, so I want to be quick. And I really want to try to persuade you to think a little bit differently about the way the posture is being done here. We have a housing shortage in South Burlington. We have an orthopedic physician assistant. We'd like to live here. We can't find anything we can afford to buy. Um, you know, there are, there are costs to being this deliberate about housing supply increase. Um, and I think it comes from a good place, but, but there are costs to that. Um, it's, you know, as I said, if it's in orthopedics as physician assistant, if you're signing up, if you have a new orthopedic problem now and you call their office, you get your first appointment in June because they're short staffed. Um, if we leave because we can't find an affordable place that's that much longer and it's not the only business only establishment that can't find workers. Um, and so what I would just ask you to do is to recognize that South Burlington is arguably the most development appropriate town in Vermont. Um, it's where we have a lot of our businesses. Um, sort of a weird factoid that may interest only me is there are two working sets of escalators in Vermont and both of them are in South Burlington. One is at the airport. The other is at Barnes and Noble. Um, this is like the commercial episode of Chittenden County. Um, this is where people want to live. Um, and, and I think sometimes this board is prioritizing aesthetics and open space as good as those are perhaps a little too much. Um, and I, I, I don't think that comes from a bad place, but so for like the Bourne project, you know, I'm hearing like, well, what's that solid wall there? I don't like the blank wall. It's a different color. There are no windows. I think it's pretty ugly. Have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? How are you going to mix the units? Well, it's like, what's there now is a blighted pizza hut. Um, and instead of sort of making these guys go through this guessing game of like, guess what we want to hear. You figure it out, but you keep coming back to us and then they're back to the sketch plan. Like that's a lot of houses, places for people to live that still aren't places for people to live. Um, and so, you know, Mr. Bourne is trying to, to build housing in an area that's housing scarce. Um, I, I think he should get a thank you and a medal. That's my view. Um, I think that the developers that come before boards like this, I think should be treated slightly less skeptically. Um, I think they're to housing what grocers are to food. Um, and so I would just like to ask you not to make the perfect the enemy of the good. And, you know, earlier, I think I heard, um, Miss Keene say for the, the second project, um, something along the lines of well, twisting is appropriate in this case, which is great. I'm just here to ask you to maybe do a little more twisting on a little more projects, a little more quickly and like open spaces. I, I, you know, I'm not the one slur. I don't hate all open space, but this is where we need housing. And so, you know, maybe it doesn't make sense to always prioritize open space to like people like us, you just want to buy a house. Like we were just, we're middle class people who want to live in a neighborhood. And I think sometimes the way that this board is doing things is slowing down housing supply growth. So that's, that's just what I came here to say and thank you for your time. If I may respond to that. Um, you're not the first person we've heard this from. There's a lot of, um, news coverage nationally about the effect of regulations on limiting housing development. And we, you know, we hear from people who want more open space and want to preserve open space. We hear from people who want to be able to afford to live in South Burlington. Um, it's really about balance. And it, we do not develop the land regulations. Um, they are done by the planning commission and our job is to be quasi judicial in, um, in looking at how projects and adjudicating the land development regulations. So we understand, we understand fully what you're saying. Um, but it's not just us who develops the regulations. And I think act 47 is a good example on a statewide basis of an attempt to, um, allow more density and development where it previously wasn't, um, allowed. And I think probably in the future you're going to see, um, changes made at the local level. Um, but at this point it's our job to adjudicate the existing land development regulations. And just because the project as submitted is much better than what's there, anything would be better than what's there. But because it's better, doesn't meet, mean that it meets the land development regulations. So I appreciate your comments. I understand them. Um, please understand our position too. Okay. Our role. Thank you for your time. Good luck. Any other public comments? Nope. Hearing none. I think we can conclude this and we will see you back here. Do you have any final questions for us? Okay. That was helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Board, I don't think we have minutes. And is there any other business? I will send you a note, um, no later than Thursday morning about whether there will be a meeting on December 21st. Okay. Thank you. Or 20, whatever it is. 19. I will send you a note no later than Thursday morning about there, whether there will be a second December meeting. And if we don't have a second to some meeting, I hope everyone in whatever way you celebrate the winter holidays has great holidays and safe holidays. So I guess.