 I want to call a meeting for order at 631 or 531 on November 20th, 2023. And could the members of the commission introduce themselves? I'm Eric Gilbertson. I'm the vice chair, chairing. I'm Martha Smirsky, member. Benjamin Cheney, member. And Meredith Crandall, staff. Okay, we're all set. Meredith needs to review the remote meeting procedures. Go, Meredith. Yeah. All right. So I am going to be sharing my screen. There's a little fun little slideshow presentation. The presentation is mostly for people who are watching via Orca Media, but there will be some information for everybody, especially anyone who hasn't done this with us before. So for those viewing tonight's design review committee meeting via Orca Media, you can participate in tonight's meeting via the Zoom platform through either video or telephone access options. So your full Zoom meeting platform option is to put this link into your web browser, and it should bring you right into the waiting room for the meeting. And I would let you in. Alternatively, you can dial this phone number here and then put in this meeting ID. And again, I'll see that you're trying to get into the meeting and let you in. If you are having problems accessing the meeting, please email me at mcrandall at Montpelier-vt.org. I will be monitoring my email throughout the meeting. For those attending via Zoom, turning your video on is optional. For everyone attending, please keep your microphone on mute when you're not speaking. This will reduce background noise. Right now, we just have our applicants and our committee members and Orca on. If we start having general members of the public, I will probably set it up so that people have to ask to be unmuted, and that would apply to committee members as well. It just starts getting difficult to manage if we have lots of people on. For anyone who calls in over the phone, please know that unmuting yourself, you need to press star six, and that'll work within the Zoom platform. The Zoom chat function should only be used for troubleshooting or logistics questions. If anyone has a question or comment about an item on the agenda, please raise your hand. I know we only have one item of substance tonight, but who knows? Maybe someone will pop on. Please note that if the public is unable to access this meeting, and I would get notice of that via email, then it would need to be continued to a time, place, and certain because this is the only way for the public to access the meeting. All right, I'll now hand this over to the chair. Well, acting chair, vice chair for tonight. Thank you, Meredith. The vice chair has no comments, so let's take up the first application, 18 Downing Street. Approval of the agenda. Oh, excuse me. Yes, we need to approve the agenda. Do I hear a motion? Yeah, I'll move to approve the agenda. This is Martha. All second. All in favor. Martha. Ben. Eric. Thank you. And so the first application is 18 Downing Street, and I think I understand the project pretty well, but we do need a presentation. Hello. Meredith, is it easier if I share my screen or for you to share yours with the plan? Yeah, you go ahead if you want. If for some reason it's lagging, I can try it from here. And I would say show the newer one with the updated trees on it. Host has disabled participant screen sharing. Okay, so let me, yeah, we've had to change our settings. Hold on. Where is... Okay, I can't just do that just for you. Try it now. And yes, we are getting somewhere. All right, let me know what you can actually see. Yes, it has said started sharing. Yes, there we go. Okay, I'm trying to get it as big as I can here. Yeah, let's get it bigger. How does it look on yours? Can anybody see anything? Yeah, is it too small or can you see? Okay, perfect. So the proposed project is to increase the parking at, we've called it 18 Downing Street. So there's currently 22 parking spaces, 21 parking spaces I think and we add 10 parking spaces here in this back. So they're tandem spaces. There's no additional impervious or curb cut off of Downing Street. They're just tandem spaces. The apartments often need more than one parking space per unit and so they're trying to just create that availability. So they'll have to do their parking shuffle like any normal household has tandem spaces. So we've shown them as being, having wheel stops here, excuse me, to demarcate instead of having curving because I wanted to have, it's a lot easier to plow with snow to have those than formal curving. And then we're trying to limit earth disturbance, but when you add 10 parking spaces that happens. So we've minimized the disturbance at the north end of the site because that is much steeper and it's a hillside, it's a naturally wooded area. And down on this other end, the southern end to appease stormwater regulations of the City of Montpelier, we're not supposed to have pre-existing rates exceeded in the post-development conditions. So adding these parking spaces, we made a little serpentine to slow the water down as it comes off. So that's the craziness that's down there. The parking is all supposed to be paved because it needs to be a durable surface now that we have more than, I don't remember if it's 20 or more than 10 spaces, but either way we're above that now. And so originally I did submit, I was using aerial photography to establish the existing vegetation. And so I had Chelsea, a representative of Lucky Boardman, go and physically visit the site, take pictures for me, and confirmed that the trees on the northern end of the site are remaining and still on our property and very mature. However, the trees that I had originally on the plan were removed at some point since I had the imagery, which was I think a 2022 image. So at some point very recently, those trees have been removed to meet landscaping, the total site landscaping, because we're a minor site plan, not major. We don't have to have the street landscaping in all of the different categories, but we do still need to meet total because of the impervious. So we did need to add an additional red maple, well, it needed to be a medium sized tree. I chose red maple for the area. So I put that down the bottom corner just because now that those trees got removed, it'd be nice to add something back in that area. And then it'll have the post sunlight to really grow instead of being stuck underneath the existing trees. So that is what we're thinking of doing. Alicia, this whole project is behind the Washington County Mental Health Building. Is that correct? Yes, I believe that's the building here in the front. Okay, that's what I remembered. Okay, thank you. Have you considered a water garden instead of the serpentine ditch as the way I would just ditch as the way I would? See, I didn't evaluate a lot of different stormwater options. There's a lot of slope to this site. So to create what I'd call more ponded area is a lot harder to do effectively. And then also to create an outlet structure to keep that water slow before it releases, it's a big cost expenditure. So I was trying to be effective costly instead of having too much too many structures to do. And that's why we chose to do this way. And this would be open, correct, rather than underground where the swiggles are? This stormwater? Yes. Yes, that would be visible from the surface. Yes. It's just kind of a swale that goes runs through there. It does, yes. Yeah. And pardon me, I'm sorry. Just kind of a swale that runs through there? The way you've done it. Yes. Okay. And originally... It's not hard concrete with curvings or anything? No, it is not. It is just intended to be a grassed swale. And I originally, it's this shape and I had it squished up here because I thought that those existing mature trees were down along the fence line. So I was really trying to protect those trees and keep it away. I don't know if having a longer sweeping, more sweeping swale would be more aesthetically pleasing, but this one does the job, excuse me, for now. But that's why it's kind of shoved up in that corner. And you're not doing any more planting, correct, except for the... Right. Yeah, grass, established grass, and then the red, the one red maple is being proposed in that corner. Anybody else have any questions? There are trees on the north end. Is that correct over here? Where the slope is? Okay. How heavily forested is that? I may have an image that I can... So this was the Google car image. This is the hillside up above the site. Do you want me to show the picture? No, we have... Hold on, hold on. It's also... There's a Google image in your packet, Martha, but I don't know if Alisha has a different one. Yeah, and that one shows stuff a little old. Yeah. Right. So I'll point out... So these ones up here are the hillside that's the kind of naturally vegetated, it's not intended landscaping. It's great. And then the trees that are remaining are on the northern end of the site that are what we're calling landscapes, intended, planted trees. Excuse me. And then unfortunately, some of these at some point in time recently were cut down, the southern end of the site. And so that's why we're proposing that new red maple to come in this corner of the fencing. Well, that swale also catch the melting snow, or is that going to not work for that? The way I have the new parking spaces designed, yes, is the short answer, I believe. Sorry. Now it's probably not sharing anyway. Between the two tandem, the existing parking spaces and then the tandem spaces, I'm posing to have a graded toward each other. And it should drain into that start of the swale instead of I tried to see if I could do a ditch along the end of it. It was just not working with the steepness of that site. It was just flying right out. So excuse me, it should be catching all of the new parking spaces as well as the ones that are tandem there. And some of the flow from the existing faces just based on the existing grading, but I did not. I can't catch all of the water from that farther south pieces. Yeah. Anybody else? Yeah, I'll run down through the criteria. Yeah, there's not a whole lot that applied to this one because we have no buildings involved. You're muted, Eric. Eric, you're muted. There you go. Number one is we're ready to building. So staff suggest not applicable. Two, three, three is proposed landscaping should be compatible with the neighborhood and the site on which the project is located. I would say that's acceptable because it's really not any change of use in cleaning the site up in the drainage. A location and appearance of all utilities, mechanical equipment, trash storage, and fencing. And that's acceptable because there will be done. You're not doing any lighting, are you? That's acceptable. No, there's no proposed new lighting. Great. Alterations to buildings. That's five. Buildings is not applicable. Views of the state house dome, not applicable. River and street frontage, not applicable. Right. A building is not applicable. Proportion, a building is not applicable. Rhythm, building is not applicable. Roof shape and equipment, not applicable. Architectural features, not applicable. Roof drainage, not applicable. Sign removal, not applicable. No lighting, not applicable. Landscaping, screening, and site furnishings. And that includes fencing, seating, other types of furniture, landscaping, obscure any key architectural features, and mechanical equipment, so I would say that's not applicable as well. And there'll be no recommendations for any changes as far as the vice chair is concerned. So now do I hear a motion to approve this project? I'll move to approve it. This is Martha. I'll second it. Move to second. All in favor. This is Martha, yes. Ben, yes. Eric, yes. Okay. Thank you. Good luck with your project, all of that stuff. Thank you. Meredith, can you give me just a, perfect. You'll let me know. Yeah, I will, yeah, I will. We'll see you in two weeks. So December 4th is when this goes before the development review board for the slopes impact. And I really, I don't, I don't see it being a big issue, but we got to go through the DRB. So I'll get, I'll fold the recommendation form for DRC into that packet, along with all the updated plan we just reviewed. That'll all go to the DRB with my staff report. And so you should get an email the Thursday, hopefully, hopefully Wednesday, but as late as Friday, if I have to, but usually even for Thursday with the staff report and the link and all that stuff. Well, thank you very much, everybody. Appreciate it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chelsea. Have a good night. You too. Meredith, I'll drop the form off tomorrow. Awesome. I don't know if it'll be first thing in the morning or no worries. Now we have the minutes of November 6th. Anybody ready to move those? Can we do them? Yes, you can. I guess we can. Yeah. Yeah. I'll make a motion to accept them as written. Right here. A second. Second. Okay. All in favor. Yes. The minutes are approved. Any other business to come before this? Good. I have just a little update for everybody who's here on membership of the design review committee. We actually have two applicants for two vacant seats, one alternate, one regular seat. Those should be going before the city council on the 13th. I think it's the 13th. That's the next time the city council meets. They just couldn't fit it in last week. Too much other stuff going on. So we've got Rebecca Owens. Sorry, I've got this in the wrong place. She actually lives in Williamstown. She's a property manager. And so I'm going to have to double check the requirements for living within Montpelier. But she's, you know, a bunch of just formal education and design management, home repair stuff. So might be an interesting addition. And we need members. And then William Russell, he's an architect, lives in Montpelier. And he also used to serve, he says non voting members. So I'm assuming that's advice, you know, an alternate maybe served on the design review committee from in 2002 to 2004. So he's been on before and has been working as an architect, I think since 2007 now. So maybe he was on as a student member. I don't know if the design review committee used to have student members. I'm not sure. But so I, you know, I expect we'll have at least one, if not two more design review committee members by the time we get to our second DRC meeting in December. Great. Thank you. Good. Thank you. You're welcome. I've been on design review since 99, I think. And I don't recall him, but there's a lot that I don't remember over those 24 years. Uh, next regular meeting is December 4th. Same time, same place, same zoom. Yes. Any, are there any updates about city hall and when we might get off zoom? Um, I don't have anything. I mean, they only just selected the consultant to come up with the, you know, alternative proposals for what to do with a combination of city hall fire department and police department. Um, for, you know, the, the needs of the city as well as what can be done with those buildings. Um, because I mean the, the basement of the police department flooded and the fire department flooded pretty badly. So, um, they've got to do figure out how to, how to flood proof or renovate all of those spaces. Um, so, you know, if we have an application coming in where I anticipate it's going to have a large group of people who want to comment, um, then I will probably reserve a space in the senior center, um, for the meeting because they have the ability to, um, at least that would be my first choice. We'll see if they'd be available. Um, but they often don't have evenings activities over there and or they have the, all the technology set up so the worker would be able to do the, um, live stream as well as manage the zoom interaction. Um, and it's ADA accessible. So, that's really what we have to do for that as for when we'll have a regular meeting space again. Oops. Got that back in. As for when we'll have a regular meeting space again, I really don't know. Um, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's tough to even just, you know, find a room these days to, to have a private phone call. I've had some meetings out in my car on my cell phones and my cell phone is not a work phone. Hold on one second. Yep. Oh, and I'll be off in about a minute and a half. Do we, uh, do I hear a motion for adjournment? So moved. And I'll second it. All in favor. Chair, vice chair says aye. Martha says yes. Ben says yes. Thank you, everybody. Have a good thanks for having everybody. Yes, you too. And we do have an at least one application for the fourth. So we will have a meeting on the fourth. Do give me a heads up as soon as you can. If you are know that you won't be available on the 20th because that's the week of Christmas. Um, and I know some people take the whole week off. So if you can't be available, December 20th, give me heads up because if we can't meet then I don't want to schedule any applications for that day. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. Thanks, Meredith. Take care. Bye. Bye. Bye. Night.