 Hi Brad. Yeah thanks for sending me the email today. I saw that. So this is the Development Review Board of Burlington February 2nd Zoom meeting. We take up items that they are on in the agenda and when we call people we ask people who are going to participate in each agenda item to identify themselves either by raising their hand or some other way that Scott will identify them, bring them into the meeting. We ask that they provide Scott with mailing addresses and then people will get sworn in at each hearing as needed. Leave it there. Communications, oh additional communications, right? There are a couple of supplements that have been posted online but nothing beyond that. To see if I think I've, I think I'm current at the moment so. Awesome. Yeah. Possible. And then the first item on the agenda is the 180 North Street. That application has been withdrawn, is that right Scott? That's correct. It's only on the agenda because it was on the public hearing notice but yeah it's been withdrawn. Well so nobody is here for 180 North Street. The next item is 110 Summit Street application to for a setback variance request of removing a garage and constructing a new garage and accessory dwelling unit. Is the applicant here? I see Missa. Got some applicants that I will allow to talk. Members of the public is that what I'm assuming we have? So I see Missa and I see Charlie Smith. If anyone beyond Missa and Charlie want to speak raise your hand please and I can enable that if I get read. So Missa and Charlie Smith if you would swear to tell the truth and hold truth on the pain and penalty of perjury. I do. I do. And I'm also going to add myself Amy Mellon camp. I'm also Charlie's wife. I'll be speaking. Okay it's your project right? So you must be the applicant. So this is the big issue here is the setback. That you have a project that I believe is non-compliant setback now and you're proposing to make it more non-compliant. So arguably less non-compliant but still non-compliant. Yeah well okay that's your you can present your point of view on that. So this is Amy speaking and basically our application is to replace a garage which is currently starting to fall apart and replacing it basically in the same location which is sort of nestled back in the back left corner of our property. We'd like to replace it in that location with a 20-foot setback from the back lot. I just want to get a point of clarification. When you say it's in the same location it's not on the same footprint. It's a slightly larger footprint but it's in the same location in that back corner I guess is what it's in. Same area. Same area that thank you yeah same area. I think you know there are a couple of considerations that if we were to comply with the 45-foot setback that would basically move the project the garage almost right up to our the back of our house but basically a butt the back of our house and you know not only take away all the daylight that comes in from all the windows but it would sort of loom over our house. I sort of feel I just want to and correct me if I'm wrong Scott or AJ but I believe that we don't have the authority to give waivers on setback. We can look at interpretations as to what increases or the amount of set not conformity but if you if you're right now 23 feet from the back property line I don't believe we have the authority to have you get closer to that property line. Brad that's why they're requesting a variance. You're right you can't grant a waiver. They are seeking a variance which is a fairly high bar but they're seeking one. So that's the five state criteria of what allows a variance. Correct. It's possible to build in compliance. Okay. It's 24 VSA. Right. 40 469. There are there are a couple of considerations that I guess we'd love to have you just at least think about and consider. We share our driveway with our next door neighbor so access into the garage and all. Obviously we have it now but if we were to have to change it that would really affect our neighbors and so that you know that's been you know a certain consideration. We have both of our neighbors have currently have garages in with ADUs above them. Now they've been in existence for a long time but both of those garages and ADUs are set at the back end of their property and their back property line. So in a way if you're looking at the character of the neighborhood and the current way our neighborhood looks what we're asking for actually complies with the neighborhood because our both of our neighbors as I mentioned already have these ADUs and they're they're set back on the property. So that's one issue you know to be to continue the the look of our neighborhood and to not we would stick out tremendously it would change the character of our part of the street. Second thing would be is this garage access that I mentioned because we do share a driveway with our neighbors. The third is that we'd like you know we like having a backyard so the way you're we would have to reconstruct our garage would take away all of our backyard and that really would you know that's a lot of families live in our neighborhood and so to have a family house without a backyard and just have a garage instead of the backyard I think really impacts not only us or any future owners of the house but really how the neighborhood works and looks there's that feel to it and then you know just personally as I was mentioning having a 45 foot set book set back instead of a 20 foot set back or 23 foot set set back that just brings the the garage so it would look it would be right up to our house we lose our use of our windows basically in any daylight it would look. I'm just going to throw out that you're botching yourself in there is the middle ground of complying with the existing 23 foot set back. Well in fact I think what I think what our plan shows not withstanding what the narrative that Scott wrote says there's some misunderstanding in there I do believe what we were asking for was 20 feet rather than eight feet what's it is indicated in his narrative. I guess your plan. Our plan shows 20 feet but we would be happy with eight feet. No our plan our plan looks are you looking at the drives are you looking at the drives it's 20 feet. Yeah we've gone around we've grown around a couple times with the site plan the front of us to look at which I believe is at the eight feet we pushed it as pushed it back so the the ADU the front of the garage is in the same location as the front of the garage currently. You're looking at that drawing okay yeah whoops I'm showing the site plan that was submitted right it shows eight feet. So could you just in your in your staff report you don't reference the provision of CDO that I just lost my thing that addresses the two-story structure setback requirements that are at issue here I just want to read that while we listen to that I because I I'm not recalling in my head the difference between the five yard five foot or whatever accessory structure setback and then the two-story two-story variance and not variance two-story standard that seems to be different well the exception the exception is for accessory structures 15 feet tall or less right the exception being five foot side and rear yeah what what what what what section is that in I just want to read it um I believe it's in article five under setback exemptions okay thanks I can try to find it look at the split I'll find it okay so um and Amy is there a different plan that you had intended to submit or something we we have had we we have talked about a plan plan whether it was eight feet or 20 feet the concern that really had come up was when we had interacted with your department is that they said it had to be 45 feet and so we're really disputing the 45 feet setback well well it's 45 unless we're in the existing footprint right I I think that we do have the ability to look at it and say the existing set rear yard setback right now is 23 foot four I believe that we do have the ability to you can extend the building maintaining that 23 foot four setback so you're not increasing the amount of nonconformity is that an accurate statement Scott um you said the word extend in there so I would say no so the existing structure can be replaced on the footprint within that envelope envelope meaning height as well but isn't the setback a measure to a point and if we don't increase that closeness to the proper line we're not because it's still I think I think what Scott's saying is it would still be anywhere between if it's a two-story structure anywhere between 45 feet and five feet would be nonconforming and expanding in that would be increasing the nonconformity am I getting that right Scott that is correct yeah right as a single-story structure they could basically move it anywhere or structure under 15 feet tall as measured could be anywhere within that backspace is that right Scott uh 15 feet or less it's got a five foot setback yep as it can be it can be two stories as long as it measures 15 feet at the midpoint of the slope roof right uh correct and we've seen some of those those are basically one and a half stories but it's doable yeah yeah okay yeah we're we are also trying to maximize the size of the adu so we are going for the 900 square feet which is allowed by the state with the garage underneath so in order to kind of consolidate the footprints on the site you know putting it on top of the garage makes the most sense in terms of feasibility and also preserving the open space the issue at hand is yes we are asking to you know requesting to get into a variance I believe the the city has done a lot of work over the past year about updating adu regulations in terms of parking and size and I and I truly believe that this this setback issue is an overlooked ordinance issue for adus I've I have about 10 adus on my plate right now and I would say three of them want to go in the back in the rear yard setback um and it in and also it makes sense to me um putting an adu right up against the house complicates you know the the yard and access and sharing the yard um if we weren't looking at setbacks alone as an architect the the the best location is sort of setting it back and it and it meets the provisions for life and safety it will have a sprinkler system attached to it it's got a a 10 foot separation between um neighboring properties um so it meets all those other requirements I you know we're just looking at this as a sort of an outdated um provision and I think a lot of other cities in my correspondence I'm showing a lot of other cities have sort of updated that provision about setbacks even regarding the height and if there's a garage underneath um so I I believe what we're asking for is not necessarily something new um it's happening across the country I just don't think we're caught up with it and so so we're sort of stuck in this in between space of this is the ordinance um we're meeting the character of the neighborhood um they're on the two the two adjacent properties both have ad's and they're both setback in the rear yard setback um so we're not asking for something that is not within the character of the neighborhood um but it it feels like an outdated provision to me I have a question on this you know the the character of the neighborhood because on the plan what Scott has up here those neighboring garages look significantly smaller than what we're looking at in this plan so I guess I'd like to hear more on your argument on that front and the and the drawing that you're you're looking at right now right at the top and to the right it says garage on our neighboring property I don't know if that's drawn to scale it's a two bedroom apartment upstairs so I don't know uh you know you're not see you don't see the whole thing it's not entirely all on there it it goes to the north quite a bit more and it's I would say it's approximately the same size as the one that we're doing it's if you um you know google that you'll see that it's a significant structure back there um and and the one to the south is also pretty uh sizable as well and even though even though this is a you know a sizable structure having a garage we're sort of trying to minimize the look of it on the site and it will look as an accessory structure to the main home it will be subservient to the the main structure this obviously wouldn't be the case in many many lots in burlington but I think in this particular law it works I wouldn't say that I disagree with any of your characterization of how this might be an appropriate planning approach to ad use in this neighborhood the issue is how it compares to our zoning regulations and there are five specific criteria for the variants um and one of them is the least um I forget what the uh least non-compliant solution um to the ordinance um and I wouldn't say that even though you don't like the other ones it's not necessarily the least complying one what I would say is a if you were to take the structure that we're contemplating and move it so that the back edge of it is 46 feet from the back line the front which which is the entrance to the garage would be within 15 feet of the back of our house you could yeah but that these are these are absurd kind of things you if you were to move you could rotate it 90 degrees and put it in compliance it would be okay so I mean that's true yeah I mean I don't know if there's an argument for just um extending our current footprint of the garage you know we could stick with the 23 feet from the back that as it currently is and just but we'd like to extend it out a little bit in order to be actually have a usable ad you above the garage um you know I don't know if there's some way we could work with that I think the what I'm hearing from Scott is that the any addition can't increase the can't be within that setback there that's what you're saying Scott yeah I mean the existing structure is non conforming on that I think it's a north side line so that footprint couldn't be lengthened in any way it's possible that the structure could be widened to the south and even get a little bit taller possibly with a pitch gala roof but it's got a 15 foot limit on the height to the midpoint of the rise as an accessory structure yeah and if you want and we couldn't expand to the south as a two-story structure right uh correct not in that footprint I just need to have to move up we have to be relocated once you get past 15 feet and making it bigger you need to adjust the location I'm trying to understand what why 45 feet which is what what the back um back uh setback would have to be according to your the rules right now what 45 feet accomplishes for the city I mean I mean why all that that yardage in the back that can't be used anymore really in a construction way behind the garage where you can't see kids where you can't you know you it's not like usable really because it it's all up against the the the house I mean the ad you would wind up having a decent yard between it and the back line basically be set in the middle of her backyard the house itself would have virtually zero usable backyard the primary residence I mean it's not to be snarky about it I think I understand that maybe your hands are tied by the by the ordinance as it's drafted but it's a very very poor solution to if the city has an ambition to have ad use built in properties of this kind that's a very poor solution to how you would do it in this instance uh hard to see what interest is being served by doing it that by you know by doing it within me you know the the strict boundaries of the ordinance and the simple fact is we're not going to do it on that basis but I guess the the question I would have for you is whether you would contemplate revisions to the ordinance that would make it more possible to have a result in a case like this where you get actually get a sensible solution to the to the to the problem well there may be I mean I know the state has enacted some law that alters what regulations ad use can be subject to but what that means and how that works through something that the planning commission of the city will have to address but that hasn't been you know those that's not really before us right now so that missa is there a different plan that we should have been looking at anyways not the eight foot setback but a 20 foot setback it's been drawn both ways yeah well we are only seeing one way that's right I just wanted to know we do have a plan and I'm happy to send that to you but missa you may want to weigh in but I do see I do have a plan here that shows a 20 feet instead of the eight feet so I'm going to see it tonight I'm not sure that solves the problem Brad I mean I'm happy to look at another one but I think we're really what we're coming to is the ordinance and the variance language statutory variance language doesn't give us a lot of option many options here I think the ball is going to be in our court to look at this as a variance request and see how we respond to it but it's not overly encouraging at the moment okay well we appreciate your time okay well we will probably deliberate at the end of tonight's meeting on it I will close what we're hearing okay thank you very much thank you thank you the next item is 110 Riverside Drive appeal of a notice of violation of a private vehicle being stored without a proper zoning approval is the applicant here I see Ted Miles with our with our enforcement staff he is our enforcement staff I'm looking for the pellet well let me put it this way if you're looking to testify on 110 Riverside Avenue raise your hand please and I can enable you to talk maybe I can't find the appellant Brad because nobody's raising their hand this is an appeal of the notice of violation so we don't want to do much we can move on to the next agenda item and then come back to this and see whether we open the item or not so I'm recused on the next item just FYI okay okay well Ted sorry about that we're going to skip over 110 Riverside at the moment and go to the next item which is 52 Institute Road which is the Bergen School Department application by Black River Design is the applicant here for that oh we have lots of applicants for this one so John Helmogarden and I saw Marty in here somewhere yeah and Scott I'd like to ask anybody on my team to raise their hand and then you would know who that is I've got a lot of people available to answer questions right I would like to swear in whoever is going to be speaking on your team or from the public okay so of course I have a few people that may not be here yet we were we were we were thinking we wouldn't be on before 530 which would have been the case we're quite efficient here yes you are um so anyway I would say anyone that's here I believe Mark Montminy is probably on the line Jesse Remick hopefully Bill Netty and Hannah Loop this this is Marty I'm I'm on okay good I'm glad you made it home Marty now is Jesse part of your team John yes he is okay sir are there any members of the public here on this Scott so another person who might be here is Tom Peterson or owner's project manager yeah all right I see Tom Peterson and is Kate Stein on your applicant team or is for now Kate Kate is part of our committee okay so everyone who's raised their hand has been enabled to speak okay so public public speaks after this will have to swear to me then so the team here and the applicant if you would all raise your hand and swear that you would tell the truth and hold truth under pain and penalty of perjury are you yeah okay so um this is a public project where our review is limited to certain criteria um with general site plan and circulation I believe and so if you want to I think it would be helpful to give an overview this is a project I'm sure many in the public are curious about and when you were here with the sketch plan I don't think you had the environmental issues that you are having to solve now too so maybe you can just touch on that as a point of interest sure so this is Marty Spaulding director of property service for the school district we are here to present the Burlington school district 73 million dollar renovation that was approved by the voters a couple years ago now for a 70 million dollar bond but we've since increased that budget with some additional internal funds as you're very well aware as part of our investigatory process for renovating the building we identified PCBs in the building in the in the window cock which then resulted in our need to do some air quality testing and we determined that there were PCBs in the air which resulted in us making the the decision to not occupy the building so we currently as you as you know are are not occupying most of the building we are occupying some portions of a building and we're intending to move our students from remote learning into the former Macy's building so this project we presented on September 1st which I looked up that day today and it seemed like it was it was not that long ago when we presented it at sketch plan review but we did present this at our schematic design stage we're now beyond our design development stage entering into the the CD stage and hoping hoping to break ground as soon as this coming summer this this construction season much of this is contingent upon the PCB removal so we are in the process of identifying the scope of the PCB contaminates and and the cost to do that removal the some of the the process for doing that is as a lengthy process because we're now having to do much more building material testing than we initially done which which we're we've just finished that process of taking those samples and we're awaiting those test results which will then result in the district having to do what we're calling this this pilot program project to determine if our renovations our proposed renovations are going to get those air levels down to the the required amount based on the EPA and the Department of Health in order to occupy the building so a little quick overview of what that looks like we intend to renovate some representative spaces in the building let's let's just say you know maybe it's four classrooms or three classrooms in an office or three classrooms in a lab we will do the the upgrades to those spaces as per what we're proposed to do for this project so we would remove the existing windows remove the existing PCBs remove all other building materials that are expected to be removed for the projects such as flooring ceiling tiles things of that nature and we would we would we would likely upgrade those building materials to the new proposed building materials similar to what is going to replicate the renovation and then we'd be do we do some additional air quality testing to determine if by removal of those building materials we were able to achieve the air levels that we're able to achieve and that will ultimately determine how we move forward with this project but simultaneously we are planning to have this project start on schedule which is that uh as I mentioned um to break ground the summer runs on much of this the site work and put portions of this project out to bid starting in the in the spring and phasing that bid process uh into next uh next fall so I will turn unless there's any questions specifically about those details I'll turn this over to John Hamilton from Black River Design to talk more specifically about the the proposed renovations I guess I would just ask one question to the um those four rooms the demo rooms so to speak are they happening prior to the summer start or are they happening when the project starts it'll be prior to the summer start but simultaneously almost to when the site work may begin okay thank you all right so thank you all this is John Hemmelgarn from Black River Design and as I mentioned earlier I've got most much of my team on on board to answer any of your questions um thank you all for your time this evening um and while I have the floor I would just like to thank Mary right off she's done a tremendous amount of work to go through this report and has been asking lots of good questions and making sure I've I've I think I've got everything in line here so anyway thank you very um the this project was undertaken as you know um actually Scott can I have um can you let Jesse put up some uh some pictures here sure sure thanks anyway well while he's doing that you know there were there were three or four major goals of this project um one of them was accessibility and and just general um circulation throughout the building we were trying to improve it was it's a very very large building currently um with lots of long paths through the building and for someone in a wheelchair or who is mobility impaired uh it was it was uh it was hell actually um so we're really looking to to fix that there was a lot of of aging infrastructure that needed to be fixed whether that was mechanical or electrical systems or finishes um and and perhaps even most importantly the building was out of date functionally it was built in the 1960s and uh it had had all the advantage of 1960s educational ideas uh and really did not address the needs of individualized learning or uh small group or collaborative learning spaces like we uh we put into school buildings now uh there was a definite lack of office space so this project was really looking to address that not uh not so much any kind of overcrowding from from too many students so Jesse if you could put the the site plan up that would be great so to what we've done here is we've eliminated e-building from use and we are going to actually demolish c-building which were two of the furthest flung pieces of this of this project or this building and we're going to be replacing that with three major additions the first one is is at the main entrance it's a multi-story addition it connects the main entrance level near the front door with the two uh levels of b building to the north it uh it also has as a component what we call the auxiliary gym which would be a community access point for the building right on the front at this point the project uh we are hoping to include that it does not necessarily include that but we are looking to get it permitted at this point the second addition you see to the north is what we call the the bd connector it connects building b with building d it's rid of the little what i call the gerbil tubes that are there uh and converts d building then along with spaces in that addition with the new science wing of the of the building you see a little arm of the of the addition that moves to the west that is just a essentially an on-grade connector with a ramp that connects the cafeteria in the building through to the lowest level of the f building which is the tech center what this does is allow us to come in the front door with all the students so the tech center students would also be entering at the same spot and go through the lobby along the courtyard through a public gallery type corridor into the cafeteria another public space and then through that connector directly to the tech center it makes a more direct route for the tech center students and finally you see a third smaller addition on the south side of the building that houses a new egress stair a new elevator which is uh stretcher compliant and along the front of the building is a corridor that makes the music rooms that are down on that level handicap accessible that's a summary of the new of the new additions the um there are also a number of site deficiencies that we're addressing with this project uh you know the parking lot as you know if you're at all familiar with that building has a fairly significant slope to it we are flattening that out essentially by raising the southwest corner of it and then there's a the exit drive comes down and around and out onto institute road that exit there from the parking lot is essentially where the current entrance is so the entire lot has been moved to the east with a new a new entrance closer to north avenue this provides for a very long drop-off lane for parents dropping off and picking up students when you get up to the north end of that there's a little island there that separates out an area for either a say a special needs a bus drop-off or more importantly a fire truck access to the um to the site the bus loop to the east remains as it is now but again students get off the buses and come up the existing sidewalk to a new walk directly into the front entrance and they are joined on that same route by the students that have been dropped off by by the cars by the parents you can see as well that this site is consumed to the south here by uh two three large gravel wetland installations this building or this site was identified by the state through uh of having more than three acres of of impervious surface surface and therefore uh it triggered some additional storm water treatment that we hadn't even dreamed of when we started planning for this project so as you can see we have now pretty much taken up the entire site here south of the building and actually east of it as well um the the last piece of what we were trying to accomplish for this project if jesse if you can move on to that elevation is really to give dhs kind of a new look something a little a little updated from 1964 and so that's what you're looking at here these are really the same view the one on top is a straight elevation view the joys and the advantages of our computer modeling allow us to actually show you that in a perspective view down below which i think is a little more of an accurate view of what the building would be the um the last thing i wanted to say here is as we get started is that we have been in front of both the conservation commission and the dab um both of them have passed this along to you with their endorsement the um we have looked at a couple things based on comments we received from those groups uh the dab had a couple of comments one that they asked us to look into putting in granite curves as opposed to concrete curves we are looking into that and included are looking at that as a as a bit alternate or at least during our current pricing uh check we're going to look and see what the cost is of that uh again granite curbing is more expensive and we'll have to be considering that along with all the other options that we have as we try to craft the budget on this project the second piece and just if you zoom in on this there's a ramp to an emergency exit from the auxiliary gym here and we have added we have changed the design of that a little um previously it was a kind of a freestanding ramp that you could kind of crawl underneath is what we were showing um and at the the dab's suggestion and i think it was a good one we've included a concrete wall there and essentially put that ramp on earth inside of that wall um i think it uh it actually improves the building quite a bit and we're glad to have made that change um otherwise i think the only other change that came about since our initial submission here was mary so uh accurately identified that this is in a recreation zone or district and therefore the lighting levels on sidewalks and walks is lower than we had uh we had originally designed and we have adjusted the lighting plans to to reflect those requirements and i think i will stop talking at this point um and let you guys um oh the last piece i would say sorry uh is that we are aware that the dpw submitted some comments over the weekend that we uh we saw on monday and uh we are if you have any questions about those um we are prepared to to address some of those questions that they raised um now i'll i'll shut up now i i think the other piece that was uh in the i guess the staff report on part of the project is the parking waiver being requested that's correct and i don't know if you want to talk about that and the um the dpw thing that one of the items they had was uh the addition of some bike lanes and bike circulation onto the onto the institute road yes i'll i'll start with the parking waiver john okay thank you yep so um as john mentioned we are not intending to increase student capacity or staff capacity for this building um therefore we're proposing to to basically keep the same number of parking that that we that we currently have i believe that we're actually proposed to reduce it by what is it seven six six parking spots um so not a very significant uh decrease and we already we currently have um capacity in our student lot usually that student lots about three quarters full on a daily daily basis so we felt we had the capacity to reduce by by those six spots um we are certainly incorporating into the design um additional a da parking as well as um um vehicle charging stations and um we've also increased the number of bike parking as well so we just we do not feel that there's a need for additional parking so we're requesting the waiver for that and then the comments on the bike access to the site yeah so jesse can you bring up our little root map so this is this is a slightly older plan but it has the little blue and red lines on it that i think will be uh that'll be useful um so currently our plan is is we we try to consider um by uh bicycles approaching the site both from the south and from the north um from the south uh i think that uh i mean as a parent i would encourage my child to use the bike path um and to come up institute road from the the direction of the campground at which point then we have got a uh a designated bike lane along the exit drive there that comes up and this plan is actually showing bike parking right next to the the front door there we're in front of where the auxiliary gym would go in essence the site plan we were just looking at has the the the bike parking we've moved it just to the other side of the of the entrance plaza there just to try to eliminate some of the congestion at the front door um then if you're headed out of town from to the south you would just reverse that path is the is the thinking we also have bike path parking down at the lower lot in front of the gym and they would be taking that same same route um from there if you're coming from the north you'd be coming down the bike path on north avenue we are suggesting that folks would cut across on this diagonal sidewalk that you see um which is currently in place and cut across to the sidewalk that is already existing and we have then a large bicycle parking area uh at the at the junction there um I think and again I I hope that someone from DPW is here just to because I want to make sure I understand what what is being suggested um is there's a concern for people who are coming down the exit drive and going left towards north um north avenue uh and that they really would want to encourage folks to come out along the sidewalk there by the bus loop and then down and I think there's a suggestion to widen the sidewalk that's along north avenue for this short stretch so that it's a multi-modal path there is that is that correct yeah so this is Laura Wheelock with the Department of Public Works um I can speak to those path comments um is Nicole Loesch also on here Nicole is yeah let me enable her okay that would be helpful I'm doing this can somebody also make comment if you're coming from the south on north avenue how does one access the site right so that was one of the concerns is that you know with the bike lanes added on north ave there's certainly more activity and a lot more attractive um places to be able to cycle that are more protected so our thought is that some of the people who might be coming from the south will cross at the signal and access that blue path which is currently a sidewalk that is actually on BHS property it's not a city sidewalk so to have the right amount of capacity for the anticipated bike traffic traffic coming from the south and to avoid a conflict at the exit driveway this path really needs to be appropriately sized for both pedestrians that are going to be getting off potential public buses here as well as anyone who's walking mixing with the bikes so so the district definitely recognizes the need for that and we're amenable to making that that change we were thinking one way to accommodate that is because we are not anticipating replacing that sidewalk though it's a six foot sidewalk there I believe possibly adding a a additional asphalt access for for bikes next to the concrete sidewalk as opposed to widening the concrete sidewalk would that be an option to consider Laura yeah I mean I think we're just looking for a wider facility the differentiation of materials could better designate you know who's supposed to be where certainly a a method that's used for mixed bike and ped facilities so the the balance there is also that we have to uh that increases our lock coverage though we we already we do have the approval on the uh based on the state statute that we're we're already over our lock coverage and we're and that's been approved by city council the the the bigger inconvenience and I don't want to even try to hint that this is is more important than the safety of the other people using the path is that this will increase the area of impervious surface on the site and will require then an amendment to the stormwater permit application and potentially even some some redesign there depending on where that water is going to flow it's a fairly complicated system as you can imagine with water that's being treated coming from multiple spots on the site to multiple different treatment areas so that's uh that's just something that we'll have to to deal with if we make this change and this is Nicole from from DPW as well I'll add on just a couple of things um just wanted to clarify that the for anybody headed south on north avenue the sidewalk that you've shown that kind of enters through the bus loop area there's no access from the road onto that sidewalk so for anybody who's actually biking on road their best way to access it would probably be using the actual driveway um so we'd want to think about you know a wide enough ramp at the driveway area there for them to be able to access the rest of this sidewalk or path um and I don't know if there were additional questions about the bike lane that's shown at the actual school um the parking lot exit I think Laura had some comments in the memo about this facility um before we get onto that can I go back to the access to the sidewalk um I was thinking that what you were saying is that there's no there's no way to get from the bike path in the road onto this this sidewalk here or the I'm sorry I'm pointing you can't see my cursor um the the diagonal sidewalk there and in that we were thinking that a curb cut at that location might actually keep students and bicyclists out of the driveway where the buses are entering which is certainly something that DPW can work with you on um but I think it's just acknowledging that in its existing state um it doesn't really have a good way to move between those modes of transportation and those facilities right um agreed we recognize that yeah we got onto google earth and looked and said oh no there is no curb cut up there yep all right it seems a lot some of those things might be and the conditions of approval to work with DPW right I think that's Marty I don't think you have a problem with that you no no we have no issue with that whatsoever so um I mean there there are enough different modes of transportation going on here that we're trying our best to make them as safe as possible and to keep the the crossings as as safe and and short and visible as possible so anyway you wanted to you had a question about the bike lane at the at the exit drive um just some concerns um I know that we looked at it and discussed it a lot at the technical review level um with your meeting with various city staff you know at that point in time we had a lot of questions about what turning radiuses look like um for pick up and drop off for some of the bus shuttles that we're going through here and fire truck access as well as you know how that overlaid with the bike lane that goes in um I feel Nicole and I have vague memories that there was mention of it being protected but I don't think that we saw it anywhere in the actual drawings where it was hard protected maybe just buffered so some clarification would be helpful okay um Scott is is Hannah loop able to speak um yep okay Hannah thank you hi I'm Hannah loop I'm the landscape architect with Wagner Hudson uh so Laura thanks for your comments um we are providing a uh a three-foot striped buffer and um a six sorry excuse me I think it's a five-foot um travel lane so the um the overall lane accommodation is eight feet um and uh so the anticipation was that in the morning students would be directed to go up the hill toward the front door near the front door to the bicycle parking and in the afternoon um the preferred direction would be away from the school to points south and of course uh students could also choose to to walk their bikes up the ramp and across that would be parallel to the bus drop off and pick up area um is the concern that um there are no hard barriers within the bike lane itself Laura yep sorry I just want to unmute myself again um yeah it's just making sure that there's truly enough space that you know there's not going to be encroachments um and you know a contra for a contra flow lane in the morning um wouldn't there you have different markings than a directional flow for bikes as well so uh I would love Nicole to to add more of her experience here um but it was certainly something that we just noted for something to be looked at a little closer yeah thank you I think um some of our concerns were yes it isn't protected and I do you know how wide the actual travel lane is next to this bike lane the driveway I believe it's 16 feet okay so the overall profile is 24 okay and it narrows a bit at the at Institute Road itself it doesn't uh and I uh we did go through the exercise of shifting the the exit lane itself to provide as much of a 90 degree intersection between that exit drive and institute road we changed the angle of the exit which made it both safer from a from a traffic standpoint um and we reran all of the emergency vehicle turning and the bus turning in and there was no encroachment into the the bike lane okay um so yeah I think that area was definitely the point of most concern for us and you know it's just natural driver behavior that if there's a turn they're going to try to cut it as close as they can so they will in all likelihood end up driving in the bike lane as they come up the hill and then try to exit onto institute and so the morning access is where we started to think that that could be a bit challenging you know how are how are people on bikes going to be able to get from Institute Road into this bike lane if a vehicle is encroaching in the bike lane so if there's any opportunity to add a protected element in that three foot space I think that would be necessary to really make this a safe facility um you know the other option is if you are going to widen this sidewalk at the very eastern edge of your property I'm not sure if you'll need this lane you know or if that other facility is enough that would also line up people on bikes to take that path directly to the bike parking area and avoid some of that congestion near the entrance that you referenced earlier um but the potential conflict points right at the throat of the driveway were the area of our biggest concern there hey brad yes um this is a great dialogue I I know what you're thinking yeah a little uncommon for a hearing so I'm kind of getting lost here I guess we're gonna be hard to track this in our deliberation this lovely dialogue that kind of seems like it should be happening outside of a hearing yeah I I think it's it's where we asked the applicant to resolve these issues with DPW and that's one of the conditions of our approval so uh or I would say to the applicant if this is a dialogue they'd like to have with DPW before we take it under deliberative um we could continue it so because there's some interesting discussions here but if we close the hearing we kind of have to deliberate on it and I just seems like maybe they want some more time to chat so I will just point out that we just received these comments over the weekend right mr spaulding I'm not I it's okay I it's okay that you just receive them I understand that that happens all the time because of that that's sort of why this dialogue is going on in our public hearing which is great but it's not really how we do hearings so the question is is this something the applicant wants to have a little bit more time to chat with DPW about before we have to uh because we don't render partial decisions before we have to sort of act on this understand the question we were we were hoping for deliberation this evening we obviously went through the TRC process I followed up with a meeting with DPW we assumed we we addressed all the the points and we're we're prepared to bring this to the the DRB finalized tonight so your your pleasure I'm just asking I think we'd like to pursue that knowing that we are amenable to make these changes and we'll be making the changes anyway it leaves us to contemplate how we deal with that yeah that will be our core so I I think we'll there's a lot of stuff that we get the gist of from DPW and that's very helpful so we're gonna um we'll see if the board has any other questions for the applicant at this point any other members of the board I can't see anybody Scott so it's up to you to uh I thought you asked for the board are you seeking public comment no I was asking questions for the board right now yeah I don't see anyone okay are there members of the public here who wanted to comment I see some folks in the public if you'd like to uh comment raise your hand and I'll let you speak I should get sworn in before they speak swearing into yeah all right well no one's raising their hand they're here for Riverside I do see the appellant now for Riverside too good okay um I think we have most of the issues at least put before us for um the school district and it's nothing that any of the board members want to ask John or any of your members of the team do you want to add anything else at this point no no I think we you know we tried hard to put it together as complete of an application as we could so I don't have anything more I do okay this is Tom Peterson I'm the owner's project manager I just wanted to reference that there had been some references and some communications to to phasing of the project and I think that might imply that various parts of the project would be completed before other parts and that when we might be occupying um various parts of project before other parts are finished and that's that's not the case when we're when when we're talking about phasing at the stage we're talking in terms of of seasons uh years sequencing for construction the plan now is to keep the building unoccupied uh throughout construction and not occupy until we have our certificate of occupancy with the exception of limited spaces within a building that have been approved by the Vermont Department of Health we're working around uh the the construction uh you know keeping that occupied for construction uh during construction but um we're we're not talking about a phased occupancy I just want to make that really clear and what what do you anticipate for the duration of construction we expect uh we we've applied and requested an extension of the permit to be a five-year permit lifetime as opposed to the standard three-year um we we won't use up the whole five years we we realized when we looked at the calendar and looked at the whole schedule that we our final completion in terms of wrapping things up would would get into the fifth year by several weeks or a month or so but um so I think we're looking at just over uh I think completion within three and a half to four years substantial completion but not total completion that makes sense this is Jeff hand I've got a question on that timeline the um maybe this is for Mary Mary your um comments have it looks like the timeline set out in them by year in terms of what's anticipated at the bottom though there's a note that says the fifth year allows for completion of the auxiliary gem the main parking lot and the main gravel wetland below the parking lot it's it's not clear if that means that's happening after the summer of 2025 and presumably if that's the case then the Tom do your point the whole facility wouldn't really be ready to use until sometime after 2025 yes Jeff this is um this is Mary this timeline um and as Tom Peterson reflected this isn't intended to be phasing it's to extend the permit life um since the project was not subject to major impact or conditional use I had to find a place where to add this request into the into the staff report which is typically under article three anyways the language here for the construction seasons came directly from the design team um the construction does go up through 2025 but there was concern about the amount of time it may take to do the site remediation and if the budget allows to complete the auxiliary gem and perhaps John or Tom might want to further articulate that but that was the reason for asking for the full five years to have the project complete under this schedule I understand and I've got one other one on the auxiliary dream gem what happens if that can't be included you all come back for an amended permit to revise the plan to exclude that that that is that is our assumption correct okay thank you we wanted to be optimist here not pessimists sure we like optimists yeah well we're all optimistic this project is going to move ahead soon this project is due some optimism so let's uh stay in the brain of mind optimistically um there's something that somebody wants to add at this point we'll close the public hearing um sorry this is Laura with DPW you know it's hard to see people's hands um uh in DPW's communication and thank you for taking our discussion earlier it's hardware our authority is in the right away but we're hoping to provide comments on the parcel in our communication we do ask that some of the conditions that are listed for the right away and the commentary on the bike parking waiver um we were late getting it into mary's staff report by two days but we hope that you would amend the staff report to include those conditions as part of your review and approval um I I guess I would I would add that there there is no request for a bicycle parking waiver correct I thought I thought you actually matter exceeded the number of parking uh bike parking spaces that EPW recommended so the bikes the bike parking standards are not implicated in this review because what the benchmark is a net increase of more than 25 percent in gross floor area burlington school district has not tipped that percentage so the bike parking standards um for bicycle parking count is not applicable although the applicant has made a great effort to include increase the number of bicycle parking spaces and to enhance the infrastructure and the redevelopment and we're designing it around our chip's collaborative high performance school requirements right which is a which is a one bicycle parking spot I think for every 10 10 people in the building yeah it's a 10 percent of the student population requirement which differs substantially from our bike standards right right it's actually a 10 percent of the of the building occupancy which includes both the staff and the and the students which we have a count of approximately 1200 right now of course that changes on a daily or weekly basis so that's why we're proposing 120 spaces there chips does require us to identify if we want to get those points to identify an additional 50 percent increase of that amount which if we if we choose to pursue those points with chips we will um we will need to do that at that time how much bike parking is currently provided at the site and what's the experience been with the usage level yeah I it's it's a hodgepodge of what we have have there but way less than what we're proposing more like 60 compared to the 120 so we're we're less yeah if doubling yeah the majority of the bicycle parking is underneath the connector between the lobby and b building I think and this is Kate Stein if I could just say as a person who works in the building and travels there by bike sometimes there's a lot less need for it during the winter months than there is in the spring and fall and summer we will close the public hearing and we'll see we will deliberate we'll see what we get to at the end of tonight's meeting well thank you everybody for your time tonight thank you Brad thank you thank you very much thank you all okay so then we have um the applicant here for the item we skipped over which is 110 Riverside Avenue is that right Scott uh funny should ask that Brad that was that was right uh yeah so the the oppose attorney Brian Hare was in the attendees list and then he wasn't so I sent him a email saying gee where'd you go in response or his response was he and the owner Joe Handy are having difficulty logging on so I sent him the phone numbers to call because that's a pretty easy way to do it but I don't see him I see a phone I think it's the other one what's that the applicant here for 110 Riverside it appears that we no longer have the appealant here Scott what does our next meeting look like uh it's February 16th we've got uh four items I believe does that sound right Mary we have four items two or city place to clean up um old permits oh yeah so those will be procedural yeah so there's probably around on the 16th do we have an 802 now Brian two six five eight three six zero four I think that's Sharon busher well that's Sharon yeah all right so we we have four applications on the 16th two are the procedural ones for city place and two are short term rentals so that's all we have on the 16th so I'd like to move to continue this to the 16th just because the applicant can't sign on and I don't want to hear uh I know Mr. Miles is raising his hand I just don't want to hear an appeal of a violation without the applicant second that further discussion on this all in favor I opposed no no seven zero so that is um the end of our agenda we have two items to deliberate on uh if everybody okay during that tonight yep okay then we are closing the public hearing