 Welcome everyone planning commission meeting. This is February 23rd, 2023 Quick roll call. Let's see Joshua Knox, John Schumacher, Tom Furlin, John Mengan They're all planning commissioners remotely connected and I'm present in the room The agenda this evening we have one Amendment to it and that is item three, which is to be a preliminary public and is being rescheduled It's the Allen French nine-unit residential subdivision a Colonel Page wrote is That to be a time to yet to be determined or do we have a target on that at this stage? I'm sorry Determined okay It's hard to run this and Participate so I'm Can you take a look at letting people in yes, okay? That's what I was just so as we get going for the folks that are online as we get into items If you need to if you want to be heard, please use the raise your hand option on the bottom, which is listed under reactions And if you can't find that you get frustrated just holler at us and maybe we'll let you in So before we get going into the main part of the meeting I do want to Just make it known that the first item or the item under a consent agenda Which is a union medical center item. Just want to make it just a statement that I am employed by the union medical center I'm not part of this Facility in any way shape or form, but I am Played by the parent organization If anyone commissioners or anybody in the audience has a Cern about that. This is the time to make mention Missioners are okay See heads raising and I don't see John, but I'm assuming he hasn't said anything so we're good Alright First item on the agenda actually before we do that for anybody who's going to be offering any testimony this evening either from the room Or online I would like you to just Would like to give you oath I'd like to just have you give me an acknowledgement that any testimony you present this evening will be truthful to the best of your abilities Would like just in a verbal acknowledgement online and new folks in the room give me a head nod So I'm assuming folks online since I'm not hearing anything that nobody's going to be speaking tonight Oh can give me a thumbs up. So Okay, I'll take that as an acknowledgement and Don check It's like Tracy gave me a check. I Think we are good to go And just for the note for the record to sharing Kelly staff members also remote tonight All right first item public comment folks This is where we talked to any item that you want to present to the planning commission This is the that are not on the agenda. This is the time you just talked to us This is also where we discussed the consent agenda if anybody has any questions about it staff Is any items they want to bring up or if command planning commissioners have any questions about the consent agenda item or items So we do have a consent agenda So public portion of the meeting is open public comment portion commissioners Questions anybody in the public want to offer any commentary or question on the consent agenda item, which is It's a site amendment for UVM Medical Center for the proposed Resided addition to the facility at 2sx way hearing none seeing none We'll move on to the consent agenda Since there was no discussion commissioners, I would look for a motion on the consent agenda item I move we approve the consent agenda Move by Josh seconded by Tom any discussion all those in favor aye Opposed motion carries 6-0. Okay Next item Five zero Dave's oh, you're right. Thank you. Thank you five zero correct. That's why he's a teacher All right, so we now are on the next item on our agenda, which is the town plan update Catherine Josh whoever who's gonna run with us for us Josh do you want to kick it off and I've got some visuals that I can pull up for us Okay. Yeah, I have some tabs open as well. So whoever whoever it's easier to do that. So where we are in the town plan update process all of our public visioning sessions whether in person or virtually or Just getting feedback that brought that Today we are at now did we're compiling the data the inputs the feedback and We as a working group have put together this super cool word cloud which represents in categorized form What sort of the most common thing said or the biggest inputs were in each sort of Category and Catherine, do you want to put that up or do you would you like me to um, which one do you hear? Um, I can do it Okay Yeah, so I was thinking we could take them through it This is very once you see it you don't need any explanation, but take them through them in order to record Asian infrastructure and so on Yeah Okay, I have this in alphabet. Oh, it's not sharing of it because I have to pull the Individual thing up. I'll come on just yourself for a minute This is very intuitive and self-explanatory the one thing that we sort of have to do as a working group is Determine sort of which things get in Which overarching category which for the most part was I get very self-explanatory There were a few Ken can jump in and correct me at any point, but there were I think a one or two orphans So we couldn't quite find a home for but most of them fit reasonably well In a given thing that that's the manner in which they were received we would say what what are your thoughts about? This subcategory that subcategory and then they gave their answers Josh Can I just can I up just for a second? We got a note from our from our recording work There's a name on the attendance record That's just listed as Pam's iPhone and if we could have a name to go with that that would help For the record of the of the meeting So whoever that is if you could just come off mute for a moment and just let us know who you are It was across this Pam's iPhone And if you want to put it in the chat instead you could do that go ahead and Josh and continue, please Sorry for the interruption Okay You're not familiar with we're in cloud the larger the The size of the word the more frequently it showed up in our input, but you see agriculture programs is Well, he's probably the largest and Oftentimes the state input simply was you know one or two words or it fell under something like this very easily And working landscape a priority community garden Working landscape does kind of do some some other zoning things Looks like we have a hand from Can go ahead if you're able to come off me you can please Josh is looking for help Maybe he was waving goodbye Yeah, he's off mute Why don't you continue Josh and then this can if you were able to get your video? There you go Go to the unless there are any questions about Oops, you know what I went one too far Oh, no, no, I didn't sorry Right Rather than outright saying Gals do this saying there's an incentive to do this and those are the two largest things that people said when thinking about Climate Education and biodiversity Largest year, although Keep regulations at the bottom conservation regulations climate regulations fell not the exact same thing obviously You can imagine an overlap we emphasize By diversity, I think want to save your personal data just a diversity, but it was clear that what was meant was five diversity diversity of Landscape species what have you which ties in of course, which gives you a wildlife force both well water Education that too next monthly obvious here that what people wanted most were Recreational opportunities whether that's that motion of things we'd already do have That's just a trail and sandhill for creation of new ones and this ties into Opportunities Does I do something like an activity infrastructure? I don't want to Get to that too evenly, but that was something that the idea of lots of trails connecting everything and there being a More connectivity. Yeah, something like cycling and walking rather than cars Next one this one has you do there's a lot that we're really really popular affordable housing. There's always a very popular one The impact does have Does have a force of connection things like climate and conservation, but that we viewed This context was meant more generally about Consider what the impact in all ways of something would be and you see aesthetics is pretty high up there and You know things floating around like mixed you can have center But you know the way given what we've been talking about would be be all can kind of work with with aesthetics and affordable housing I saw those as all all sort of a piece of Sort of the same Same thing like what was going like housing in so there are there are things that they were stated differently, but you can commonalities I believe without without forcing them And once that it again local businesses isn't variety the sort of overarching thing you can sort of see and see Stainable sustainable local Thanks resilient Things here opportunities here Density here as opposed to Somewhere else and then also ties into Beginning with agriculture. You saw that working working farm the working land was something That was viewed in at least the one that I have the one I went to I thought was connected to the idea of local business business pride For all seems sort of a working landscape keeping density in one spot preserving the rural character Okay, yeah, this is what I was mentioning earlier about The idea that bike and pedestrian connectivity for infrastructure was really really something to mention a lot And that does connect to As we saw from above you guys opportunities trail connectivity business these are the same kind of things The idea is to have These are the words resilience bridges that is that idea in terms of Want things Wanted that's where you wouldn't have to take a car everywhere that you see math friends address sir Things like that are all part of the deep Connectivity Emphasizing on activities and Because we've talked about I didn't do that to me. I didn't sort of laugh. I think address sir I Want to say that was And then the bottom one there it says address route it's supposed to be route 15 So that's more of the we've got a lot of traffic how I had to handle that again, that's more of the connectivity safety parking There's also pedestrian get pedestrian gas in the village, right speed speeds when once you get further out closer to Jericho Yeah Comments like that Connecting to density So I'm I'm I'm older and I've forgotten already what slides one through seven said on them But do we have one that focuses on economic liability? Okay, thank you So what do we see is the net what do we see is the next step with this Sort of show the town. Yes, we heard what you said here's what you said in the aggregate and then still on those executive summaries come up with them sort of a lack of a better term like the executive summary of what the 2024 town plan would be and then This is where captain would jump in onto what the timeline would be and our involvement as a commission as opposed to The working group but like if the art solicitation of inputs done It's just a matter of aggregating the data in a much more like a more useful executive summary way that would frame the town plan as a whole Comparing it with the 2016 town plan the next we can then see Exactly how much work we need to do in terms of reinventing the wheel or not There there are some things obviously we're calling it a city and not a village So there's there are changes in 2016, but there are some things that have remained the same that we wouldn't need to do Incredibly deep dive on their priorities that are still priorities Can you can do you have something you want to jump in your hands up? Yeah, did you hear him Josh? Yeah, I can Pull up Yeah, so I was gonna pull up Just our we have a spreadsheet that has our comments You know, it's a little bit longer form so 118 Yeah, although these so we have 118, but this is actually Some items are grouped All right, so I'll indeed the number of responses. Yes per Yeah, go ahead Ken Yeah, we have multiple spreadsheets. So maybe there is a ball. So you guys are mucking with the numbers PC okay PC members what I mean right now Josh Josh specifically are you is the more work that you want to do or is this what you're thinking of is The in-house discussion of the PC or do we want to then do you want to vet this more or? Socialize this more before the PC dives in and takes it, you know has a deeper discussion on it What's what's your vision on that your town meeting like I said to show that here's what you said of your Acknowledging that we heard you giving summary by category of what people said But after that am I my assumption anyone jump in Your assumptions my assumption is it would then be the PC Yeah, I would I would agree I think one of the Comments that we realize are things that we realize when we were looking at the word clouds Is that the word cloud is helpful as a bunch of terms, but it doesn't it really explain maybe? the detail that we would want the public to see about the top items especially so we'd have a Paragraph and I think our working group would be working on that the paragraphs for each of the the different topic areas By way of explaining sort of that that vision for that area And then after hearing at town meeting about you know, did we hear you? What do you think and I think we should put it up on our website as well Solicit feedback, you know as many ways as we can and then Then we need to I think consolidate a little bit more even and putting in everything together more into concise Dision statement, you know like we It doesn't have to be a sentence by any means but a paragraph or two that that's what it's been like in our town plans So that's that's what I see Now probably you know the planning commission having a role in that As well as you know, I think the working group could still be working on that I mean I I See the working group as the representatives for this initiative right because this is this is this has been a really big shift from any effort that we've done in the past and that we solicited the public input and Ken and Josh and in the entire group that worked on this. Thank you very much because this is This is what we've been aiming for for a while to try to reach out and be in front of things and get solicited input Not just to what we've put on the table in front of people, but actually to help us decide what goes on the table So this is I see this as the roadmap that so the working group I do feel that they should get the recognition during the town plan and For the same purpose that just Josh and Ken just did I mean the number of people that are there The the idea that they solicited this is a collated Report of the input from a lot of people and a lot of responses and this will help drive What the PC looks at? In addition to any of the regulatory requirements that we have to like we always have to But instead of us necessarily say well, there's this backlog of stuff that we want to do it's now Let's let's instead of looking backwards. I'll look forwards So I think this is a really neat neat I think this is a really very good very proactive and very solid way to approach this so Josh Ken Thank you very much for You know keeping this thing alive Oh It raises to the top of their priority then it puts Yeah, it puts public participation in the front instead of at the end, which is really We've been talking about this for what a couple years now Josh or whatever In Yeah, so this is this is a I think this is a really very positive output outcome so far and It's it's worth going Ken. Did you want to jump in you can stop raising your hand just jump in? Yes, yep, and we'll still be looking for input from energy and from conservation direct input You know as we go through but I think this is this is This is a this is a shift in reaching out to the public first instead of giving instead of putting a plan in front of people We're actually have asking people to help create the plan Which So I will note to that Should have introduced Kat Mon who is our UVM intern this semester She's working with us on the town plan And I've already tasked her to reaching out to department heads and the boards and committees just to say you know here Here are the relevant sections within the town plan the last town plan. We want you to take a look at that that We wanted to make you aware of here's what we think we've already accomplished as far as Action steps go and get any new actions from them and saying you know, but there's more coming as we're refining The vision so we you know, we'll we'll feed you that information But so she's being very specific for trails. This is your section. You should be looking at public works. This is your section So I really appreciate her help in that Good. Thank you ahead. We'll see if we say thank you at the end Excellent Josh is or can anything else that you'd like to add to this tonight I mean, it feels like the next step is is socialization with the through town town meeting. Yeah Yeah, I did want to do like just a quick little share of Sort of what I'm seeing as a tentative schedule and it might morph I think it probably will sort of is different different things become Available or you know different information becomes available before you go to that too much Does anyone online or or the gentleman here in the audience with us have any questions at this stage or anything that's it's up? Go ahead Tom Right as I as I said, there's a lot of things that actually overlap what we When we sort of made the the categories of the clouds and categorize them It was it was important But someone to me anyway what someone said something a different word or phrase a different way we did want to preserve that But you're right. There's a great deal overlap between things like design standards and regulations and say green incentives But there's a particular difference that would be if you could add some design standards Being somewhat different from I think before about building whereas regulations Maybe someone meant something more about like that back and how much did permeable services? And they did want to like keep that nuance in there, but yeah, absolutely a lot I'm just thinking in the context of fine They almost start the same So if you guys feel the same the other thing I'll mention is that in terms of just the design of it It'd be good to have different Yeah, it sounds like from what Kent said there Ken said there's the ability to Change up colors and fonts and so we'll make sure that it's more clear Yeah, so I just pulled up this spreadsheet that So on the the right side we see the word summary and then the left side has topic and it's within the different category area and So there's there's a lot and if we go to even another spreadsheet where we have all the comments There's a lot more nuance to some of these comments than what is showing in a one word So we want to make sure we preserve that and make that a Part of our discussion when we're working on that vision So we don't want to just say oh we it's education is important, but we want to say well, we want to involve schools and Have weather alerts. I'm not just saying we'll do that. That's necessarily a bit of an example So it's just something something to keep in mind that word cloud is helpful But it doesn't get to all the nuances that we saw Like yeah, I think we were all on board with that Commissioners any any additional John John John John Josh, you know you just sure you already talked too much Mr. Mangan timeline though, right? I think you brought that up for a second and then Yeah, I Interrupted her Okay, sorry, this is weird on my screen Okay, so just you know sort of generally I threw this together looking at really our end date of I guess I should have put that on but it's town meeting in March of 2024 And so in order to meet that date at the end of our process here We need to have a warning for that that town meeting We need to have public hearings with a select board and then before that from the planning commission and Typically we've done two public hearings each and so working backwards, you know, you know, I think our End dates are a little bit flexible I think the select board doesn't necessarily need to warn on January 16th But I do believe it's like at the end of January so that that could be pushed back a little bit But it fits in With the second public hearing being on that date and in the meantime They are also working on budget and also town meeting agenda items. So You know, this this is subject to change a bit But it is an in line of what it has looked like in the past for for other town plan updates question, yes Given that we're doing we've already every every portion of what we're doing is is public aspect we've got time to think this through but I'd I'd maybe like to introduce the idea of of Doing the public hearings Like last two work sessions and so forth. It's not just a work session, but also make them public hearings as well So have more than two public hearings. No, no, I have the I mean, I'm looking at we've got October on this schedule October 19th and November 9th, you know, I would be looking to actually move them up and have them be public hearing I'm just the idea the toying with the idea of having the public hearing with the work session conjoined so that it's We're hearing from the public, but we're also making changes on the fly So that when we get to say November It's a done document that goes to the select board that's had public hearings All the public meeting the work sessions and so forth. So I'm just I'd like to float the idea of Doing the public meetings in August and September or September October instead of October November and have them be Conjoined with a work session so public input adjustments on the fly public, you know, and so forth It's just an idea to think about Sure, I think the more opportunity that we're working with the public along the way the better and and in a public hearing setting I think that's kind of a fun idea actually to think of that more as a working session Even though it's a public here and my thinking on that is to potentially be able to deliver this to the select board prior to a little earlier The the deep dive they've got to start focusing on their budget and so forth. So and it would also As we've done with this, I think it should there should be messaging or they should understand. Hopefully that The amount of public input to get to that point has been more than has been in the past So maybe the workload they have is less for review and so forth So toy with that idea see how it fits Scheduling wise and what the working group feels or actually that it'll be in the PCs hand by that point, but That's maybe toy with the idea of having the public meeting be a work session as well For at least one of those. Yep. Can I jump in for a second? Who's that? Yeah, go ahead Kelly for the record. I Like that idea a lot. I do caution a little bit that maybe that happens for only one public hearing because I think once you Finalize your second public hearing it should be the final document that you're going to send up To the select board and everybody would have you know seen it and have their comments And they will still have an opportunity if those comments didn't get in there to bring them up at the select board table Otherwise, does that otherwise are we going for a third public hearing so that there's no input? And this is what we've got. I don't know some some That right and I'm I my thought was not that that Public input would happen and then changes would go away. My thought was that in these sessions. We might be able to Put the enter the public input and then to make the changes that we've got a lot of work sessions You know scheduled through and the idea would be that if the first Hey, the details could be worked out if this is something that sounds like it might be doable Then we can work on the fine-tuning of it and how to do it. I wouldn't anticipate a third Public hearing I'm actually trying to reduce the number of sessions so that we could accelerate the delivery to the select board So something to think about yeah, that makes sense to me So also, you know somewhere in here I think it's the first weekend in October is going to be the next Explorer Essex Festival and we're planning on doing some sort of big community event on I think it's Saturday the 7th of October Where that would be another spot to have this before people and we'll have hopefully a big turnout there So you know families and you know everyone through through all age ranges and so You know that yeah, we at that point will be Pretty close or maybe we're all we already would have had a first public hearing with your Suggested schedule, but I think it still works as another opportunity to get some input I If we're doing that with look for solicitation input, we just have to I think to Sharon's point our final plan We either have to make changes that night during the meeting Or we have to have something if we make changes it has to be you know warned again sort of thing But anyways, that's that's all detail I think they if if you feel as you're going through the scheduling and workflow that this looks like it could work Let's see if what we can do to Push it up so that it's not it doesn't land on the select board when they're looking in their budget session Yeah, I Rather have them being a good mood when they look at this and then in a gnarly mode And I know we got a couple Select board members sitting on the meeting tonight, so Do we need do you need anything from the PC at this point the PC is a body to to support this or is This simply a report out Josh Catherine you want us to say please keep going you I mean is this I Mean I think I think the sense is pretty clear that you want us to keep going. I don't think we need anything official official I Haven't heard any any strong objections either the timeline or the manner in which we're doing this I Don't I don't feel like we need an official anything an official anything would be great you want to we want to vote to say yay, but I think I think we're the sense is pretty clear and we know we're going to be doing so if we're gonna and This is another thought process you since you and Ken are both on the line For the town plan or the town meeting if we're gonna do any sort of a presentation I'd really like representation from the working group to make that presentation So whether it's Josh or whether it's Josh and Ken or or whomever I think it's it's worth recognizing that the public has been getting us to this point This isn't the PC delivering stuff. It's members of the public So it's another thought process Anything else on this subject that we want to bring up? Okay Let's move on the next item on our agenda this evening is approval minutes from February 9th. I Would change Dustin I neglected to add John Mangan and I added Tom Ferlin twice So I have fixed that behind the scenes Tom had a lot of input Right Okay The speaking of small changes the copy that I'm looking at has me as virtual and I was I was here So let's let's let's let's offer a motion to put the minutes on the table And we can do we can just make the notes of those things officially so I take a motion for the minutes of February 9th 2023 Move the minutes Move by John, okay second by Tom move by mr. Mangan seconded by mr. Ferlin Corrections to the attendance as noted As noted by Sharon and by Josh are there any other Adjustments that folks won't bring to the table Hearing none seeing none all those in favor of the minutes as amended signified by saying aye opposed Minutes carry five zero five zero five five The okay, we're moving along screaming on here So we have no David and no shoe. Is that correct? Nope Choose here Sorry So we have another business we have a DRB update in an arc GIS urban grant update Is that how you pronounce it? It is. Yeah, we usually call it something different than that So that's why it probably looks looks odd. Okay, so there's not really much on the way of the DRB update I kind of forget what where we left it, but the you probably all know that as part of the town charter update there is a change in there saying that the Current model of PC ZBA will change to PC DRB and there's a date certain for that So once it's so it needs to go be approved by Voters and then it goes to the legislature for approval and once it gets through all that approval then it will be a Predict that whole charters approved and then so if that's the case then the switch will be January 1st 2025 to the DRB so just to give you that heads up that will be in the future Discussing that more, you know some at the planning commission level some that staff level We want to make sure the deer earlier The zoning board is involved in those discussions as well and the select board too, so So we have theoretically less than two years To manage a transition and manage the town plan update and so forth So that's another factor in getting the town plan update to the select board ahead of that January 1st Give us more time on well I think if we don't then it's dead in the water because which board is you know, which which it's going to be Lost in the transition Well, it's 2025 Right It would be the end of this legislative session so this year Okay, any other business we need so the ArcGIS our Arc Urban grant is That's our bylaw modernization grant. That's how we've been referring to it. And so they are using ArcGIS Urban, which is a ArcGIS mode where they're envisioning density in Different parts of town and it was outside of ETC next to a within the sewer core There's Been kind of slow. So there's actually really not much to update since we last presented this back in When was that like maybe November? December So just wanted you to know it's still in progress. It's just a sort of a little slow right now. Okay Commissioners anything Okay, and with that we're at the point where we include the meeting and I would I would welcome and a motion from the from the Commission and move we adjourn second Moved and seconded by move by shoes seconded by John all those in favor. I Hi Opposed we are adjourned at 1847 Sharon did you get that? Yeah, so that was that that was a move to adjourn that was a Five and a half or is that five and a quarter nope