 Call this to order, meeting of the Popular Planning Commission. The next thing on our agenda is to approve the agenda. Does anyone have anything they'd like to change? Okay. So, we're convening that approved. Next is comments from me. I don't have anything. We have a couple things tonight. We're going to have, hopefully, a new commissioner by the time we meet next time. That's going to be on the agenda at the City Council meeting this week. That's all I have to say. So, moving on. Do we have any comments from the public about something that's not on the agenda tonight? Is anyone here to make a comment? Okay. So, for the next item, we're trying something new. This was Erin's suggestion this week, was to bump up the approval of the minutes to earlier in the night, see if it's an administrative footnote, right, and go through. So, ask everyone to take a look at the minutes, if you haven't already. I looked at them earlier, they seem. So, we don't approve July 15th since it was not a full-on? Yeah, I don't think it needs to be. Okay. Is that right, Mike? It doesn't have to be. I put it out there in case somebody wanted to make a change if they could, but it doesn't have to be voted on. I was going to move to approve, but I wasn't at one of the first. Okay. All right, favor of approving the agenda for those two dates? Yes. Or the minutes for those two dates? Any opposed? Okay. Barb Segway. Yeah. See if it's done. It is done. All right. Now you can get up faster. I think part of the genius of it might be that we're not in our over-analytical mode yet. By the end of the meeting, we would be. That's the idea. It makes us read them in advance, too. All right. So, the next thing on the agenda is to hear a proposal from Kate Stevenson from the College of Fine Arts about a parcel on Berry Street. Okay. Please come up. Did you bring any copies? I brought one copy, but I didn't bring ones for everyone. All right. Do you want me to run down and throw them on a photocopier? That would be a helpful thing to do. It won't take me any time to do this. Sure. This is the best. Okay. Mike, there was also this. I don't know if this is going to be more accurate because it's got the setbacks and everything. Yeah. I didn't print that one because it. This is part of your, it was a PPI attachment. I know if this is more accurate or not. But the issue that we're talking about at this point is just. All right. So. Yeah. I felt like that one was a little easier to read. Got you. But yeah. Okay. So, okay, we don't. Should I dive in or wait for my. I think you could. Yeah, exactly. You can catch us up to where Mike is and assume that we don't know anything about what you're asking about. Great. So my name is Kate Stevenson. I'm on the team that is working on a design for a 18 acre parcel currently owned by VCFA adjacent to Savins pasture. So the team that we're working on is kind of in the conceptual design phase for the site, but we're looking at two development phases, one for a bathhouse and then another for affordable housing and retail commercial space along Berry street that would come later on. And the reason that we're here tonight is that in talking with the planning department staff, we were looking at the zoning sections of this parcel. And it's, it's unusual in that there are three zoning districts, you know, in that one parcel up at the top. It's kind of mixed use residential. The middle is residential 24,000. And the bottom is the riverfront district. So we're not looking at doing any development in the top part. It's going to be all in the riverfront district, but the place where we're interested in locating the bathhouse is kind of right on the boundary between residential 24,000. You'll see this when we get the map at the riverfront. And when we looked at the, this parcel and the Zorzi parcel, which is adjacent, you can see that that dividing line kind of jogs between these two parcels. So, yeah, in the conversation with staff that we said, you know, is this fixed? Is there the possibility that we could move the line to the basically the dotted line so that it would be matching up with the Zorzi parcel. And it would give us a little bit more flexibility in the site plan and the footprint for the proposed bathhouse. And my understanding from talking with Mike is that there, this isn't necessarily a planning commission decision, but that we're supposed to go to city council with it. We're on the agenda for Wednesday, but we wanted to come and kind of make sure that you all were in the loop on what we were asking for. And I believe that it would be kind of proposed as like one of the list of the zoning fixes that then go through the hearings in September. So, thanks for coming to us. So this is all riverfront right now? So the riverfront, you know, allows us to do pretty much anything that we want to do. But obviously we wouldn't be able to have any commercial use in the current residential 24,000 section. So what's the proposed use of the bathhouse? Why the bathhouse? So it's going to be open to the public. It's going to include treatment rooms for things like, you know, massage and different natural medicine, but like different pools, a saltwater pool, sauna, kind of a variety of different uses, but with the focus to be kind of public health. Medicinal. Medicinal. Right, it's not a spa. It's more of a bathhouse that's meant to serve the community on a regular basis. So how does that make it different than a spa? I'm just trying to understand. I think that the folks that are planning this are envisioning is it's not like a luxury one time a year you go to the spa, but it's more, you know, you might go on a weekly or bi-weekly basis as part of like a health routine. But these are not regular swimming pools. They're not swimming pools. They're two pools of different temperatures. Hydro therapy. Hydro therapy, yep. And so this bathhouse, I can't really tell the proportions here, but it's not able to be located, or what's the reason for having to fit this spot. We walked the site, kind of been doing a lot of site assessment, and felt like that was the best spot to keep it both kind of behind the existing tree line as much as possible because we're trying to keep it kind of protected from the viewshed. And there are some fairly steep slopes in there. And so this is very much of a, it's not a final footprint by any means. Like we're actually probably looking at a couple smaller buildings that are adjacent to each other, different building envelopes. But this is the general location. So yes, it could move in the process of the site design, but we figured it's worth asking if this change is possible. If they don't have the option, if the zoning line doesn't. What's the slope right there? Where is the slope? I don't think I have a slopes. This one. Do you guys want zoning consent? I just have some Topo lines on it that you can see. So it does start to get steep kind of further back in there. Are there ideas to align it with the Topo as it exists? Yes and no. I think because of the slopes, we're imagining that some part of it, there may be two story on the lower part, but maybe one story on the upper part. I mean, again, that's part of the site design that we haven't gotten into that level of detail yet. So it's somewhere in this tree line here? Yep. And just a quick question. 20% or 30% slope, do you have you guys calculated where the sighting is? What sort of drop off there is? Again, we don't know. There are 20% to 30% slopes in that area, but we, the exact footprints, this is just an initial concept. So what's the specific ask? The specific ask is, can we, to move the divider line between those two zoning districts up? It's about 100 feet on the right-hand side and maybe 70 feet on the other side. And the context here was when, a couple things, there aren't very many parcels where the zoning boundary actually goes through the parcel. So this is an exceptional case because of that. And there wasn't any, I don't think, planned reason for why the line is where it is. Is that for recollection, Mike? Yeah. So in 2017, when the city council was going through to adopt these, the Planning Commission recommendation was to have the entire VCFA piece be Residential 6000 and the entire Saban's Pasture piece be Residential 6000. And won't get into all the details for why we made that recommendation. We had our, the Planning Commission had its recommendations for why they felt that would be the best way to accomplish the goals. The city council wanted to be more prescriptive about saying this area should be high density and this area should be low density. And so they went through and started to make a couple of proposals. And the first one that came across was this, well I think initially there was one at like 300 or 350 and I think VCFA's at 450 right now. And that continued across into Saban's, either at the next meeting or something else. The owner of Saban's came in and made some pitches for why that was not good and things should be different. You know, he wanted the entire thing zoned one thing and the city council came back and chose a different line. They wanted to match it to approximately what was approved by the Trust for Public Lands project. The Trust for Public Lands development on Saban's fits within that, well you start to see the start of the box. But it goes across and then back down. So that was at like 550 feet. But they never went back and adjusted Saban's pastures or VCFA. What they wanted for VCFA was development down by the road. They wanted less development in the middle and then there's another zone up top which is more closely associated with the back of VCFA which they felt would be mixed use residential which is the same zoning district as VCFA. So the thought was to break them into three different sections but there isn't any magic to why that line was there other than it was a... 450 feet. Was that how it was established the first time? 450 feet from the edge of right away. That's where it is right now. Because originally back in November that center section was going to be called to be mixed residential 17,000. But in fact it ended up 24,000. Yeah because it's the same zoning district as Town Hill. So the Town Hill neighborhood went from 17 to 19 to 21 to 24. It just kept getting bigger to accommodate the requests of the neighborhood. So when that changed rather than having two different... Rather than creating a whole new zoning district for this one piece we just matched the 17,000 on that map to the Town Hill 24,000. So what are the options if let's say that this doesn't get changed but the project continues. Are you looking at needing a variance or what? For this to happen or is it just impossible? It wouldn't be possible because it would require a use variance which isn't allowed under state law. So there wouldn't be any variance option for them to develop that use. They could develop housing in that area but not the bath house. I have a question. Mike, if the line gets changed, does that change the density that's available on that section closest to values? Yes. Yeah whatever land was calculated before it, the old density would be now calculated at the new density. Are you asking the larger parcel, the riverfront parcel, that the density will be changed by this? No, I'm asking if the section closest to Mary Street would be available to have increased density as by virtue of the change in the zoning line. The section that's marked phase two on here? That's already riverfront. Correct. In other words, if the plan were to change at some point in the future would the zoning line change due to the available density of that entire parcel? Because the parcel gets larger? Yeah, because that percentage of the parcel gets larger. It always depends how the project moves forward. If phase two gets subdivided then the answer would be no. There wouldn't be any additional development. That density would be basically lost. But if it remains as a single parcel then yes, because you have increased the amount of land in the higher density you would be there for increasing the amount of possible development that could happen on the overall parcel. It's 3600 square feet larger, right? Yes. And then the entire section is going to be within the... No, the 3600 is the footprint of the building. Okay. Do we know, do we have any way to do some quick math to figure out how much it will affect the density? Boy, that's funky math. I know. Right? No, it's not a square. It's not a square. I was about to start to try to do it and then I backed up to say... Would someone else... I want to both here to try to perform that one. Because it's a good point, but also in the whole grand size of this parcel, it seems like... Yeah, I think this parcel... Not a huge amount of extra... Yeah, I think the amount of development... Do you have on yours... Do you have the rest of that? Which one? Report or just that one? This is the first your memo. Does the memo say how many units would be possible on the riverfront portion of VCFA? It's your memo. I look like you. Did you email that out? No, this was... This was what was sent November 1st to City Council. Okay. Anything with a map, I just stick in the map. When City Council had questions on which option they could choose, I gave them... I was like, the Planning Commission recommended this. Here's option one, here's option two, here's option three, here's option four. They chose one of them. If you guys want to keep... I'll see if I can find the number. It is in here. Can I just ask why site the building where it is as opposed to turning it? So that it's parallel to Berry Street, which would also make it somewhat parallel to Topo lines. Again, I would say this is not the footprint of the building. This is showing approximately the area of what 3,600 square feet would look like, but this does not represent the exact location or alignment. So if the expansion is not to allow for the alignment of the building, then what is the expansion for? To try and keep all of the building envelope kind of hidden behind the tree line. So it is generally in that location? Generally in that location, but just because this is long and skinny turning it this way doesn't necessarily mean... No, but if it was turned 90 degrees and aligned with Berry Street, then it would be within the existing parcel. So that's my question. So it looks like it's rotated so that it faces the ravine perhaps? Yeah, definitely trying to get the views towards Sabin's Pasture. Because that is the ravine that it's against. Oh, is it? Yeah, there's a drop-off. You can see the little squiggly that kind of goes off through Sabin's Pasture. This is a stream. So this is the low point. So as you're looking this way, it's dropping down to that stream. In the answer to the question, at its existing shape, there are 87 units possible in there. If it got bigger, there would be more potential. I haven't heard numbers being proposed that are in excess of what? You're talking about up to 40. Up to 40 units. So whether there's a potential of 87 or whether there's a potential of 94, it doesn't change the ability to ask for an application for 40 units. But at this point, yes, we are just looking at the boundary line. We don't have any applications. We're not reviewing any applications. The staff downstairs doesn't have a recommendation of approving or not approving the bathhouse because we don't have an application yet to compare it out of the rules. This is just whether we make this area available to place that potential structure. Well, I just had a side note thing, so go ahead. No, I'm just asking. It seems as if this whole premise to expand the district, which I don't necessarily have a problem with, but is prefaced by the orientation and location of the building and the general location. And I guess that's what I'm questioning, just that the further up we put it up the hill, makes it less walkable. And it also completely does not orient to Berry Street. So I'm just wondering if there was other rationale for why it's located where it is and, in fact, not oriented towards Berry Street. Yeah, I can say that it's mostly been the prospective buyer of the property who's been walking the site. They doused it. They have really been just... It's more about the feel of the location than a specific... And again, we're still trying to develop some different concepts for what that footprint looks like. This is why we're coming so early in this process, is just to find out if this is even an option for us as we look at all these different approaches of the driveway and road access, curb cut. There are a lot of different things in play, and so I'm not gonna say it couldn't be done lower down. We're just trying to see what all the possibilities are. I guess just from the standpoint of keeping it walkable to Berry Street, which I assume it would have a sidewalk or some way of walking from Berry Street that didn't require walking in the drive. Pedestrian access, for sure, and not just from Berry Street, but we're also looking at from like an upper part of the parcel in different locations. It just seems to me that... Well, this is just a personal observation that locating it closer to where the parking is actually located gives it more of a presence on Berry Street. Yeah, I think we're not looking for a presence on Berry Street. We're trying to have it be private. But the zone in the riverfront district is looking to have presence on Berry Street. So that's the question, yeah. Which the Phase 2 will definitely do, and part of it is also like leaving enough room along Berry Street to be able to really maximize the use of that. And how was that Phase 2 area determined? Or was there any kind of a layout that determined that was a spatial... Not yet, not yet. But you have a number of units. Yeah, general number of units at this point of a target. So just how we should think about it, concerned about spot zoning issues and about where I think our approach to this seems like it should be and I think that this small section makes more sense as riverfront, as in vision and the zoning. And this specific project and what we're saying, it's interesting to know what's going to happen, and it kind of informs just all of our planning, thinking, but I don't think the specifics of the project should lead what we recommend here. Yeah, I completely agree with that. That's sort of what I was thinking. We're looking at this, but this can change. It doesn't mean it's going to look like this. So the question is, what's the project? The question is, does it make sense that this parcel is in multiple zoning districts? It's also on the map, it's like this little tiny section of 24,000 that seems sort of out of place to me too, so I don't know what the... Did you explain that rationale and I missed it? It's like a little... It was... Yeah, it came down to... It's just this little piece here. Comments and input from neighbors and butters and members of the council who were concerned about having, when we recommended residential 6000 for the entire section, our thought was, it's low density all the way up. What would happen is a developer would look at this and go and say, I don't want to run roads and sewer all around here. I'm going to do a planned unit development and I'm going to cluster it by the river and the top would get left as open space. The city council felt that was leaving too much to risk. They really wanted to make sure that they couldn't say no development in that district. You always have to allow something. So they chose to go with the lowest zoning density possible, which was residential 24,000. I mean, other than rural, there is a rural zoning district, but the rural is supposed to be designated for areas that don't have access to sewer and water. Because it has access to sewer and water, if this got developed, the worst case scenario is it would be developed consistent with Town Hill in that type of manner. So I think the hope was that they would still not have much development, so the thought behind why this was the leg that's right behind Sabin Street and then this section here in the middle would be low density zoning. If it gets developed, it will be low density zoning and require riverfront and high density zoning right by the edge of the road. How many square feet does this change? Yeah, I don't think you figured it out. Yeah, I don't think anyone's done the math to figure that out. Yeah, that's what we were trying to figure out. It's 100 feet on this side. Do we know how long this side is? Roughly, it's called 200. It says, what's the 30 by 120? That's the white. Yeah, that's the box, yeah. It looks like maybe 300 by 150 or something. 200, so maybe 250. Yeah, it almost seems like you can't really look at this whole piece of land and say like, this fits in this district or not, but if most of the zoning correlates with property lines and this is doing that. It's not property lines, regardless of what we do or what was done before. It's not property lines. It's just zoning lines. This property is so big. Oh, so it's not correlating with property lines? No, I thought correlating with the zoning district line of the adjacent. No, so this parcel, that's Barry Street down there. This entire parcel is actually 18 acres in size. Oh, so the parcel is bigger than that. Yeah, it starts here, and it goes all the way up behind and goes all the way up to the back of McKinley Street. Oh, okay. And so they're just not developing anything up top. So is part of that in the rural district also? The 13A? Or it's all, it's in just 12-2? Right. This is the actual parcel. If you guys want to look at the survey, it's kind of small, but that's the actual survey of what the BCM family looks like. So is it in, you said it was in here, is it here, here, and up here? Oh yeah. The separate lines. Yeah, you can see it in here. So you can see, like, this is what we're looking at. So it keeps going up here this much. Yeah, I'm sorry for my mistakes. No, we should have been better about explaining the details. It's all right, Mike. I don't even know. You really stuck on this. I was just back of the envelope. Complete estimate. All qualifiers out there. If this is 100, then this is approximately 250 going this way. It's going to be less than 100 times 250, which should be 25,000. 25,000 square feet is, give or take, half an acre. Sorry, are you talking about the building? No. The change of part, the change of the amount of land is going, it may be shifting a half an acre. It's probably less than that, but we'll back the envelope, call it a half an acre from 24,000 to riverfront. Is this the Jason, the parcel next to it that's in riverfront that's within Savings Master? This corner here? Yes. Is there a reason that that's different? So that whole... Because of the development of potential in water? For anyone who can see the screen, the orange, you see there's a little orange piece, and then there's a green piece that has the 13-8. Right, so that's the pearl. Yep, if you add the 13.8 plus that little notch of orange, that is Savings Pasture. So Savings Pasture is about 100 acres. 85 acres going across is the green piece, which is all rural. The little orange piece is about 15 acres of riverfront. That 15 acres of riverfront is the piece that roughly outlines the Trust for Public Lands project that was approved in 2008 in Act 250. It was never built, never moved forward on, but it was approved and was agreed upon by the Trust for Public Lands in cooperation, trying to negotiate with the Savings Pasture group, whatever it is. So that's why that line has a little bit of basis to it. There was a reason why that was picked, just because it approximately allowed for that project to be recreated if somebody ever steps forward to recreate the Trust for Public Lands. That still sort of feels like spot zoning too. To just say, well, we have this project, which is sort of what we're contemplating now. We have this project, therefore, let's change the zoning. I think a legal way to frame it would be, there's no project that's being proposed, but there's a potential one and we're being asked to reconsider what our thinking is about the zoning and the future of this parcel and just thinking of it in the abstract and whether once we visit it. Does that include a recommendation to the City Council? Potentially, that's what we're trying to decide if we'll do that or not. I think that we don't seem to have strong opinions, so it's possible that we could... I think it's possible to inform City Council that we're neutral about it. Is there a place for public opinion or public comment? For here? Here or the City Council, yeah. Yeah, would you like to... I would. Okay, come on up. Introduce yourself. Sure. Yeah, again, we don't have a motion or anything on the table right now, so it's great to hear. I'm happy to do what I can to add to the conversation. My name is Jeff Rubin. I'm the property owner on Barry Street to the west of the subject property. Let's see, one of the houses just on the corner of the big map. Within Riverfront? Yes, he's within Riverfront. So, the... I would request that the Plain Board consider this perspective. The current way the zoning lines are drawn came about as a process, as I understand it. It started at 300 feet from the center line of Barry Street, and then the current or prior owner of the property petition for it to go to 450. The... I believe the same time that the zoning was being considered, the owners at Savings Pasture also had various reasons that they presented their case for 550. From the center line, 550 feet from the center line of Barry Street. So, I think that because we don't have a particular project in front of us, and because Kate actually stated that it would be a good idea to maximize Barry Street and they don't have a specific number of units, I would urge the Plain Board to recommend to the City Council that the zoning line should stay where it is. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Does anyone else have any thoughts? Erin, would you... I'm just trying to figure out what the context is because I'm not comfortable changing it without understanding why it's there and understanding all of the context, which is why I'm asking questions about all the... A lot of the zoning was done here with the Planning Commission, but this is one where the City Council kind of took over the decision-making and had a public hearing and it was a more sensitive area and it's something that we weren't as heavily involved in, which to me is a reason to defer to the City Council since the City Council had a vision here that was sort of, I guess it was different than what the Planning Commission had at the time because they may change it. I'd just like to make a quick public comment, too. Sure. If you already know me, my name is Joe Castellano. I live at Free Savings Street. If you look at the big blow-up, I am the second house in on Savings Street. I do want to thank Kate for showing up and I also want to thank... We had a preliminary meeting with both a developer and Kate and some other people early on and they've been very cooperative and very easy to work with. My main concern about changing the zoning is right now with the current setbacks or everything, it goes up just a little past my house and with the proposed zoning changes, you know, it looks to me like pretty much almost half of Savings Street or most of the butters on Savings Street have impacted as opposed to just two property loans at this point. So I kind of am concurring with Jeff Rubin that I would like to kind of keep it the same. Thank you. Yeah. Hopefully we have any other thoughts. So we don't have any motion. I was going to say the basis that we had was really in the memo that Barb had, which was really, I just gave them four options. Just because they didn't know what they wanted to do with it. So I gave them four options and they... But did the final option actually end up being one of your four? No, they didn't pick any of your four. They didn't pick any of them. Which is how we ended up with a map with the 550 on the one line and the 450 on the other. Originally it was 450 all the way across. Yes. And that's why the city council is much more familiar with what their logic and thinking was than what it was. But the city council is right. Or lack thereof. It was more sausage making than anything else, I think. It would be... Well, thanks for... I learned a lot. Mike, would you feel better with the motion since you're going to have to go to report? Nope. The only thing... So there were two... One was whether you guys wanted to put any support or opposition to the change. And the other one was whether you think this is a substantial change to the zoning. Or whether... I think it's about a half an acre. I don't feel strongly that it's substantial. I don't know, I mean... Would that finish in a ruler's statute? We pulled up the statute and... I'm trying to pull that back up. Yeah, and really the impact of... If it's substantial... I mean, there are two options. If it reaches a certain point, then there could be hearings. Well, there are going to be hearings. Whatever happens Wednesday, it's just making recommendations for what is in the city council's public hearing draft. And the public hearing is set for September 11th and 25th. And that would be our public hearing? Their public hearing. Their public hearing. So that would be there. If this is a substantial change, then it would have to come back. And if you guys are okay, Kirby and I can amend the required report to reflect this change. I think that's... A lot of this is like taking... Yeah, some of this is stuff that we would usually gloss over. But in certain cases, it makes sense to really get down to the nitty gritty of what specifically it says. 4442. So yeah, 24 VSA, 4442 sub B about an amendment of a proposal. It says the legislative body may make minor changes to the legislative body of the city, so city council, may make minor changes to the proposed bylaw amendment or repeal, in this case the regulation of the zoning regs, but shall not do so less than 14 days prior to the final public hearing. And this is the part that we're trying to understand here. It says if the legislative body at any time makes substantial changes in the concept meaning or extent of the proposed bylaw amendment or repeal, it shall warn a new public hearing. In this case, Mike though, isn't this about... It's just before a regulation. Yeah, so we haven't had a public hearing. So the first piece doesn't matter. It's the second piece of that clause. Because we haven't warned the public. We haven't had a public hearing yet. If we already had our first public hearing, it wouldn't necessitate us going back and re-warning another first public hearing, but we haven't had a first public hearing. So read the second half of the sentence. If the legislative body at any time makes substantial changes in the concept meaning or extent of the proposed bylaw amendment or repeal, it shall warn a new public hearing or hearings under subsection A of this section. So your question is, is the notice that it's already been given, is it good enough for this if we decide to throw this in halfway through? Isn't there another sentence after that? If any part of the proposal is changed, the legislative body at least 10 days prior to the hearing shall file a copy of the changed proposal with the clerk of the municipality and with the Planning Commission. Planning Commission? Planning Commission shall amend the report prepared pursuant to subsection 4441C of this title to reflect the changes made by the legislative body and shall submit that amended report to the legislative body at our prior to the public hearing. So yeah, it's... Identify what is the substantial change. It doesn't. But the fact that they've come in and talked to you, if you've got enough information given to Kirby, if the city council agrees on Wednesday to make this change, then it goes into the warned document, we have... comes back to us to rewrite the required report to reflect the fact that there's approximately a quarter acre change in the zoning district law. And then we have to refile that required report back to city council. So they're here two days early rather than 12 days afterwards, because if we waited 12 days for us to do the required report in this Planning Commission meeting, then we'd miss the deadlines and have to start warning... different warning schedules. So it just works better if we've got an idea of... and really all the required reports going to do is say, what's the impact? We're jumping through legal hurdles, but it was just to make sure you guys... if you guys think it's substantial, then we will definitely be coming back. So are we gonna have to vote on whether it's substantial or not? No. No, it's just a matter of what to do next. We can make two recommendations to the city council. It sounds like one, we can make a recommendation as to whether or not this constitutes substantial change. Number two is we can... it sounds like the recommendation that we can make is whether we approve the city council placing this on its agenda for public hearing. Because that's the next step, right? That's what it's discussed. Technically, well, you would... So we wouldn't even... You would support it being on the change? Right, I'm just on the... at the public. I'd say it better be safe than sorry and treat it as a substantial change. Actually, it's my thinking. Why be vulnerable? We're talking about the section of the city that's controversial. So we've got substantial change and do you want to have a vote on being neutral, supporting... I'd like to make a motion as to whether... a motion to determine whether or not this is substantial change or not, and if we report whether or not it's a substantial change to the city council. It's not a good word for the motion, but... So your motion is... The motion is... Whether we consider it a substantial change. Correct. First. Could we phrase it as... we don't know but suggest treating it as a substantial change? That would be the motion. I would be in favor of that. The motion is... I don't think we're required to declare that it's a substantial change or not. It's just whether or not this... the procedure should be followed. It's a little bit of... Make a motion... to decide whether or not we are going to make a recommendation to the city council as to whether or not this is a substantial change or not. Motion is to decide. Is to decide whether to make a recommendation to the city council regarding the substantial change to the termination. Okay. So we can discuss that. Is there any discussion? It's a confusing process. Yeah. I think fundamentally what's determined is we can make a recommendation but we're not required to. So I mean, it's just sort of a threshold question as to whether or not we even want to make that recommendation to the city council. I don't know. I just, I guess... Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm probably inclined to what you said to follow the process to be meant for other things that may come up that we want to have flexibility about or I don't know. I don't feel great about making a legal interpretation when we haven't really researched any case law or like we haven't really given it the proper background. That's why. All right. How about we have a motion to recommend to council to treat this request as a substantial change and to move forward with the process of amending the required report. So we are determining then that it is a substantial change. Well, we're not saying it is. We're just recommending to council to treat this request as a substantial change. We're not saying it is a substantial change. We're just saying we don't know. So we might as well treat it as a worst-case scenario which is a substantial change. That's a different motion. And to move forward with the process of amending the required report. That is, that is different. That would be a different. Yeah, so what Aaron is asking is whether we're going to make any recommendation at all. This is just a question whether we're going to make a recommendation. Emphasis on recommendation. Not a determination. Does anyone have phosphorus? Do we want to vote on that? We have a second. We have a second. We have a second. I don't know if people are interested. It is enthusiasm. Thanks for making us have the discussion. You're welcome. I would move, I think, for you. So it was a motion to recommend to council to treat this request as a substantial change and to move forward with the process of amending the required report. So would they amend the, amending the report means that they would be doing that if they were agreeing to make this change? So does that... We would be amending the required report. Right. So does that motion say that we're saying, we're recommending they approve this change? Treat the request as a substantial change. Or just that we're considering it's substantial change? All right, so then what if there was treat this request as a substantial change and if approved Yes. Thank you. Good call. Because I don't want the... Yeah. I'm not comfortable making this change. I'm happy. I think that they should have the discussion. I don't... I have no problem with the proposed design specifically. I just don't know that that's the reason to make this change. So I think city council needs to discuss it. So I'm not comfortable telling them that they should or should not do it. So this would just be... This would just be a motion of almost a formality to let them know that our recommendation is to assume this is a substantial change. We'll move forward with that process and separate from that. It's... The planning commission doesn't have a recommendation one way or the other unless after we approve this or don't approve this we have a second motion. So... So I will move that motion as amended by Stephanie. I will second it. Okay. So all those in favor of the motion as recorded by Mike, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, well moving on the agenda then, we can get into the discussion of the boundary for a design review district. So last meeting we talked about what our suggestions would be to change what the historic preservation committee and also the design review committee. Did we skip number seven? Oh, we did skip number seven. Thanks Aaron. So there's an item on here to continue review of the proposed design review standards. My understanding is our plan was to wait to hear back from historic preservation about our suggestions and then we will kind of officially get the regs at that point. We get another bite at that apple and then we'll go to city council. So until we hear back from them, I don't think we have any more to discuss. Because we had made our recommendations for changes. Yeah, we had a vote last time, but if anyone has anything left over from that, I guess it's on the agenda, so can we have any comments about that? Okay, so I'll move on to you now. So the boundary, so the context of what we did last time, we need to decide what our initial preliminary kind of recommendation for a boundary will be. That's really important though to highlight that this is a preliminary thing because we're going to have public hearings, we're going to hear from people. So this is going to be a pretty input from here, but basically what do we want as our starting place for what this design review boundary is going to be? And with that, I can hand it to Mike with an intro of things to consider. So this was the, I had made a, just made a bunch of maps and some of them say the same thing in different ways. So there's another one. Oh, there is. Oh, I'm just going to. Thank you. I did ask for all the maps, so I did decide on the other ones. I think so. I'm going to just scoot over. Did you want to come sit up here and hear part of this? Yeah. I don't want to. Yeah, we've got the room. So, you know, I'll start with this one. So just by way of orienting everybody, this is probably the nice first one to start to look at the blue line, the light blue line that goes around is our existing design control district. What you see in red is our current historic district. Our historic district also includes the capital complex. So that white doughnut actually is part of the historic district as well. So is that for the historic district for the designated downtown? This is the historic district for the national register. The national register. Okay. This is the design control district and the third line, just because, as I said, nothing seems to line up a little. There was that one. There we go. So this one I printed out because of the dark blue. What you see here, the dark blue on the top and the bottom, which tends to blend into the river a little bit, but that's the designated downtown. So at a minimum, design review must cover this dark blue area. Now, I didn't have a map that had the dark blue and the national register and the design control, but it helps to give you an idea. This was the minimum that we have to cover, which is, why do we have to? Part of the designated downtown. Part of the adapted. Desconformed with the designated downtown. Part of it does. Yes. This nose that sticks out here does match the designated downtown. That's something it looks like we have to. But as it goes up, it gets different. Okay. So the current blue line, it has the entire designated downtown unit. Yes. But the unit does not line up with the national register. Yeah, and it doesn't really match the, it only matches the designated downtown on Berry Street. After it leaves Berry Street, it doesn't match anything. And then you can see the rest of these lines. And this is where we were talking, especially if you're talking about like Liberty Street and some of these other Loomis and Liberty. Some of these streets up here that are in the National Register Historic District, but are not in the design review right now. Those are the areas that we had issues when we proposed changes, because we were going to redraw the blue line to match the red, which is why this map exists. This map was created to make that argument that this blue line should match the red and we'll regulate the red as design control. And we got taken to task on that. And then if you look really carefully, there are a couple of spots where there are even some parcels that are not in the National Register, but are in the designated downtown or in the design control. So really where we're at now is where do we want to, you know, what do we want to think about? So the National Register, my understanding is anything we do about deciding what this design review boundary is going to be, doesn't directly impact the National Register. So the National Register is sort of more informative of what, of what's seen as historical from that one perspective, right? Like if ours doesn't line up, it's not going to hurt anything. Kind of. So just to keep things. I'll keep throwing things out. And at some point everybody will go and say, that's enough. I've got enough. I'm all full. So we are designated downtown, which means we have to enforce this. I've already mentioned that. We are also a certified local government, a CLG, which is for historic preservation. As a part of CLG, you are also expected to have regulations to protect historic structures in your community. We kind of do that in some places of our historic district, but not all of it. Now, I haven't heard from them that they will threaten to throw us out of CLG for not meeting all of the National Register. Because we don't right now. Because we don't right now, but I've heard comments from them. So we may at some point hear from somebody from Devin or somebody who says that we should be or we're expected to. Or you can be stripped of your CLG for not protecting all of these ones out here. I don't know what they're going to say, but that's just a piece of information that's still floating out there. Because they'll come in and tell us, well, you can't make the designated downtown. You can't make the design review smaller because then you're not protecting the historic structures and we're going to throw you out. I'm like, but we already aren't. So I don't know. So we don't know if we should be. We don't know. They haven't. But that's going to be part of the process. That will be part of the process. But it is one of these ones that, I mean, part of the Uber philosophical thing is, well, one of the best ways to protect your historic resources is by regulations. And we should match the design control boundary to match our historic so that way we've got an inventory of the historic resource. We should protect those items that are on the historic resource. But once you reach the political realities of these are a lot of single family homes and we're starting to get in on people who are commercial have access to tax credits. People who are single family residential do not have access to tax credits. And therefore it's a different burden for them than for the commercial people when we say you have to maintain the historic integrity of this building. You have to maintain the slate roof that needs to be replaced. Next, take a step back. Just let's start with the easy parts that are currently included in the design control district that we can't actually justify, for example, the area around the college. Currently, it's in the design control district. Do we actually have any say as a city? Small amounts. Yes. And it's a matter of discussion between different things. Meredith is my zoning administrator. Our zoning administrator is much more of the opinion that we can be regulating more. The limitations on zoning, the 4413 limitations that are in there are really a set of things that we can and can't regulate and we can regulate more than, you know, I'm typically saying that we can't regulate the college. She's of an opinion we can regulate more than... Some of the college. Yeah, we can regulate some of the college. They get some leniency, not full leniency. How's that? So it could make sense, but at the same time, I think it's a policy thing. It's kind of strange to have the island sitting out here. But, you know, CCB is not on this map. It's also CCB way out in Elm Street. It's also a parcel. If you want to talk about spot zoning, there it is. Because it has different zoning districts. Well, they put both colleges when it was Woodbury College and then they put them both in. Who made that decision? Planning Commission and the City Council, a long time ago. So we could change it? Yeah, yeah, we could go and recommend that CCB should no longer be in a design review district. It's not historic. CCB certainly isn't. In national life. In national life. And that's where it comes back to the discussion of, okay, well, we've got those, you know, those written purpose statements of what we're trying to do. And where does it make sense for us to draw that line? Well, the new language is very historic. Focus, not just a design control. It's a heavier weight. Heavier weight put on historic. And as currently drawn, the design control district includes the parcel we were just discussing. This is an old map at that same city council public hearing where they made those lines. They also adjusted, they took this piece out of design review. But the top part of that parcel is still in design review because at the time VCFA was thinking we're going to subdivide the parcel, we'll keep that upper piece and we'll sell this bottom piece. After that, they went through and just put the entire piece on the market without subdividing. And the people who came in tonight have a purchase and sale for the entire parcel. So that is not, so that currently is not in. It's not in design review. But the top part still is. The top, the top little piece is, yeah. I'm confused by the changing zoning because someone's planning to do something that they don't actually do. Let's go up a couple of times tonight. That's another example of we change something. It draws, but it makes a difference between what's possible and what's not possible. I mean, so, I mean, in some cases it's, you know. And in the case when the proposals came in, there weren't proposals for either one of these parcels when city council was debating them. They just made a decision on November 1st about both of these parcels. And then two weeks later on November 15th, they came back in and Doug Zorzi came in and made a big argument for savings. So they changed savings again. And so then they didn't match. It's arbitrary and arbitrary. We recommended something different. Yeah. So what are our thoughts on a starting place? The obvious one, of course, is the downtown. I'm going to start getting these different designations. The designated downtown is where we could start. One option would be to put over top of that the red on this one, right? The National Register boundary. Put the designated downtown on that one. One on top of the other, so that everything in each one is included. And I mean, that's one. I don't see a reason for us to go with the design control as it is now. But I mean, that is an option. The other option, there was another set of maps that went around the zoning map, which is really kind of small. But I kind of sent it out just because in all of this hodge podge of stuff, you can see the black outline of the design control district. So you have something to start to reference. We can also use, we've got this, but we also have neighborhoods identified on this map. And we also have zoning districts on this map. So we could go through and start to add in to go through and say, well, if we're going to stop it, let's stop this one. We'll take the mixed use and the urban and the river front, and we'll make those that type of thing, where we pick certain things to go through and say, these neighborhoods should be part of design review, and kind of add them in. That's just another option. That could be then expanding beyond the historic district because some of the neighborhoods. It could be smaller than. It could be larger than. It depends really where you pick and choose. It could end up being a reason why Liberty and Loomis don't end up in because we say neighborhood, you can see on this map, you have a little green 8.3, and then you have a little 9-3. If we say 8-3 is going to be regulated as part of design control, 9-3 is not that neighborhood then. Right now, 9-3 is part of the historic district. 9-3 is not. Up to Graham Terrace? No. 9-3 is not. Part of 8-3 is. Part of the historic district. Well, you can see the black line is on the map. No, I'm talking about the historic district. Oh, the historic district? Yes, they are both in the historic. So if you were to look at this map, 8-3 and 9-3 are both in the historic district, as well as a big chunk of 10-2. It's also in the historic district. Well, 8-chunk. Maybe not 8-big chunk. Relatively small chunk of 10-2. No, because those are actually part of 7-1, aren't they? Or 7-6. So I think 10-2 is outside. But it gives us another thing. If we want to not be arbitrary, we can go through and say, pick this neighborhood, pick this neighborhood, pick this neighborhood. In the neighborhood description, they would probably say they're historic, and we can just go through and say, well. Does it? You want to make an overlay then to show that? Well, you can give me some ideas. I can go back, draw some lines, and then maybe have the RPC put together a map that says, here are the neighborhoods that you told me to pick. Here's the existing designated downtown, and here's the existing historic district. Basically, take this map, and put some other information on it for you. Does the current designated downtown split any of our zoning neighborhoods right now? I think it does. That's one idea. To go along with what Mike's trying to say is to make sure our neighborhoods stick together and retrieve its units, is to take the designated downtown, but then expand it a little bit to make sure that every neighborhood that it touches is fully included. Well, it's just like we had at least. Yeah, I don't think it would expand it a lot, but. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. My desire would just be designated downtown, which are other people have different opinions. And I just wonder how cohesive people feel. I mean, people are going to feel it's possible that people feel kissed. At some point, you're going to draw a line between neighbors, and I don't know how cohesive it is. Depends what's going on. Yeah. Nobody wants it until somebody proposes something, and then people want it because they want to beat up their neighbors with it. I mean, it still seems sort of crazy to have this historic design district, but not have it reviewed. So we've got a significant amount of historic district, not in design control, but design review. And we can certainly put together a couple of maps, because I think the sense was we were going to come up with an idea or some ideas that we can go to the public to start putting out feelers for to see what, you know, and your thought might be, well, let's go bigger. Let's try to include more of the historic. We're trying to protect the historic resources. Let's include more of the historic resources. Ariane might be like, well, let's keep it smaller and really focus on the downtown core and what's important and what we have to protect. And we can hear from the public on where they want. I mean, there are advantages and disadvantages both ways. So what's the point of having some areas designated in the historic district if they're not under design review? If they're residential? It's part of the national register. It's just a survey of what's out there. And it's purely information. Here's the information, do with it what you want, and you might choose a subset of those to protect. You might protect them all. It's just information at this point. One thing is that residential could become commercial. So just because it's currently residential doesn't mean that it's useless to be in the district. No, but it's mostly syncing. We can look at, and the zoning districts will give you what the possible uses are. Won't tell you what is on the ground, but in a lot of cases we did try to match them. So you do have some mixed use residential, MUR, seven dash seven, but these eight dash two and eight dash three are residential 1500. So those are just residential. There's no commercial in those other than commercial apartments, but there's no commercial development in those. I'm thinking about apartments. I feel like apartments make use of the credits a lot, right? Yeah, in some cases they do. So I mean, we could just start looking at these, the greens, the oranges, and the reds really kind of make up a core of, and this blue two dash one, which is its own unique piece, kind of make up their own. Yeah, I mean, I think if we outlined most of our, a lot of our district boundaries already do match the historic. I see, yeah, they're fairly close, you know. I mean, nine dash three, seven dash. I mean, one advantage is that the new map, this was a revised map in 2016. So this revised map follows parcel lines. Our zoning districts follow parcel lines. So if they look kind of close, chances are good, they're actually the same. So. Are you saying that this is not the one that this is not the full historic? That is the full historic. It is, yeah. Okay, all right, clues, close street. Yes, you will see the squigglies up here for, yes, close street. This blue line is actually, you know, you're mentioning it, yes. The blue line here is actually wrong for this because they asked to get cut out. So if you were to look at this map here, you'd follow them. When they went to city council, they got that cut out, but it is in the National Register District. To get cut out of design. And they got cut out of design review at the request of the property owners. But it was open to reinterpretation by the council. The council did say they were open to putting it back in. Yeah, you pick your battles carefully. Pick your battles, exactly, yeah. This will, we will be opening up those walls and filling it with Cliffs Street residents. But again, that could, if we were looking at, you know, where the neighborhoods are, that's a light blue neighborhood, which is just residential. That was cut out already. Earlier, previously, when we did propose that the design review should match the historic district, other than Cliffs Street, was there objection from other neighborhoods? Yes, there was quite a lot from, I always mix up my liberties in Loomis. I think it's Loomis. Sandy Vitzume, spoke very, didn't want to be part of it. Did not want to be in it. And I imagine we're gonna get some strong feelings from anyone, likely to face some sort of. Yeah, I mean, I think if there was a subtle push that went through and said, look, half of this neighborhood is currently design review, we're gonna make the whole thing design review. And you know, I think there may be some grousing and grumbling, but I think at a certain point. That's more of a fairness thing. That's more of a fairness thing to go through and say, we don't want an arbitrary line. We decided to match it to the neighborhoods, either your whole neighborhood is in or your whole neighborhood is not gonna be in. So right now, Cliffs, 11-1, all of that is out right now. So that already now with that cutout matches. Yes, with a teeny tiny exception, but we don't need to get into it. That's because of this little one parcel. They had requested back when the designated downtown was made, these guys wanted access to historic tax credits so they could renovate one Cliffs Street, whatever, the first house on Cliffs Street. Because it's on the designated downtown. And because it was in designated downtown, they were able to get access. So they petitioned and they ran the designated downtown up to loop them in, even though they're really not a designated downtown. That's just, yeah. So that was a little. I think we could think about this strategically in that if we're gonna put something out there for people to think about and give us an opinion on, if we first are at a small area, people might think that they're not included so we might not hear from them. So then if we expand it later, that could lead to trouble. We can also throw out something bigger just to get all of the feedback possible and then trim it down. I mean, I'm not saying proposing anything. I think we have to have a rationale for whatever we propose. It's gonna determine our future, which of those two we use. It would really help to maybe have those neighborhoods identified as an overlay mic so that we have some rationale or what we might choose. So is it possible to overlay those? Yeah, I can, I just kind of gave you a scatter shot of ideas and then I can go back and try to pull in some additional maps that go and say, boy, I kind of like that idea of matching our design control to neighborhoods. And if that's the thing that I can go through and match it up to neighborhoods and say these are all the commercial and or mixed use neighborhoods in the downtown, and then put an outline of where here's the current design review, here's the designated downtown, and here's the National Register line, kind of have an idea of, oh, all right. It's leaving out this neighborhood and it's leaving out this neighborhood and leaving out this neighborhood, but it's captured the core of who we really would want to regulate in design review. Mike, can you tell me what the criteria are for National Registering? Registration, designation, Mike? I am not an expert. I will give you a general understanding of it. So there are two sets. There is the individual structures and then there are districts. This is Montpelier's Historic District, which includes a couple hundred buildings. Individual things can also be added in, but you have to be a minimum of 50 years old. I mean, at the time it was passed, it was passed in 76, maybe? So it was like basically 50 years was getting us back to the anything before the 20s, yeah. So those buildings built in the 20s are all historic. Well, now my prairie ranch built in 1971 is coming into being a historic structure because they never, they didn't make anything more than 50 years old. So it qualifies as historic and then it depends whether it has continues to have its defining features. All structures are historic in it. Somebody just creates a line, but not all structures. They're evaluated though. Yeah, within the Historic District, they're evaluated as either contributing or... Contributing or non-contributing. Or non-contributing. And who makes that decision? That was done by the professional. I was done by the consultant who did the register. Now the register is designed for the city. For the city, yeah. No, it's just distinguishing. It's not a federal decision. No, yeah, we make, yeah. They put together the documentation to get sent to the feds, the feds approve it. So they do have a review process for it. But what the district, how the district's kind of differs from the individual is the district is intended to capture a whole bunch of things of a certain period. So most communities will have, within an area this size might have, I live in Hardwick. I think the village of Hardwick has four historic districts. Because this group was built in the 1840s. This was the 1860s to 1890s. These were all the ones built in 1910. And these were the ones that were built. And they were separate historic districts because they followed different architectural styles. Most of downtown Montpelier, according to this survey, falls into the same development pattern. I'm guessing maybe because we had a big habit of burning down our downtown on a periodic basis. And so therefore we don't have 1840s buildings in our downtown because they were burned down in 1860, which were then burned down in 1880, which were then burned down in 1910. So that's my guess why we have a big historic district. Yeah, I mean, we never had a big single historic district. That's what he talked about is that it could have been broken up into separate districts, which is more typical. Yeah, more typical of that, but I think it hasn't been. If we go through the process of breaking out design review from historic preservation review, we could have two different districts with two different rules applied, something stopping us, right? So that was zoning rules with the national start district. That's just, you know. I think just because the, you were just saying, because the current update to the regulations that you guys have done at the last meeting, I mean this, but that's very specific to historic. So there are other things in here that might not be a design review. What we looked at had, it had subsections on, it had some sections that were on general design review and some that were sort of specific. So we could break those out and have two sets of regs that apply to, and we get two maps, one set of regs apply to one, one set of regs apply to the other. If we want either historic or design review, one or the other to be larger than the other. So like the design review would be a larger line and the historic would be within, like as a subset of that larger, I guess I just, or there could be, or you could do one which has slightly less strict standards. You could have a very much stricter set of rules that apply to the commercial district and have a softer set of standards or less, or not all of the standard. Standards one through 10 apply in the downtown and one through four apply in this other district. If we, I should throw that out there. If we get to a place where there's not a lot of agreement about how the boundaries should be set out and we could go down a lot. That's a process question. You mentioned if we did the downtown designation and people thought they were left out and then they got added back, might be upset, but would people get notified if they're added back in later at all or? The point I was making is if we throw something out there for the public to look at and to come comment on, if we then expand it later, people will say, hey, I didn't get a chance. Yeah, that's trouble. You know, so that's. Yeah, I guess my question was, yeah, exactly that. If we expand it later, when would that happen? Like how quickly would that happen? And would it be kind of like, I guess people wouldn't get notified. I'm just not understanding the process of how that. They wouldn't get notified. They wouldn't get notified. But in time they'll make a comment. Yeah, with the bigger one and then if that process. So then I guess my next question, DLG process. Is the division of historic preservation the one who determines, ultimately, who approves that? Yeah, they will see whatever map we draw. So again, like I said, I look at this and go and say, we're already not regulating a bunch of these, but I'm waiting to hear what their comment will be based on whatever we draw for a line. And then we just have to respond to that. So we will get their comments before we take it to the public. Yeah. I'm not too concerned about that. And I think it would be really problematic if they did tell us that we had to stick with this because that's letting this kind of third party take over some of the sovereignty of the city of Montpelier. I don't know. I don't think that they'll make us stick with what's on the register when it says, which doesn't seem like. So their problem again is that we have historic properties outside of the district. So they would want the district to match. I think that's where CLG would come down, where the Division of Historic Preservation would come down. But I think sometimes we've got a call to question on them maybe to see, are we calling their bluff or are they really gonna go and write a letter to the National Park Service and have us thrown out of the CLG program because we're protecting 500 of our 800 buildings in the historic district or whatever the numbers are. I think if that does happen, I would love for them to put it in writing and to actually analyze what their rationale would be for that. Well, that was brought up before by the Historic Preservation Commission that could be in trouble with our CLG. Yeah, they've made comments before on our proposals. So I'm gonna digest this and bring it back next time. With you have a specific request of what, do you have something you'd like me to start putting together? I would love to see the map that actually has the structures on it. Yeah, which one would you like to put it on? That's, yeah, you guys have that one somewhere? Yeah, and I'd like to see neighborhoods overlaid somehow, maybe it's be better in the big map, the red and blue map, but. Yeah, I'll try to print bigger maps. Cause we kind of know the peripheral area if we're just focusing on this. So we're looking at neighborhoods and designated downtown and. Neighborhoods meaning zoning. Yes. Yes. The National Register of Boundary. Register of Boundary. Thinking if it's all the same work, I think it would be helpful to have two different ones. Two different maps? One that's neighborhood zoning with designated downtown and one that's neighborhood zoning with the National Register. Okay. So that we could compare those two. Sorry, what was your second one? Your second one was? One that has neighborhood zoning and national register only, there's those two things. Yeah. With overlays. Another one that has neighborhood zoning with a designated downtown overlays. And then we could compare those two maps with one another and we'll see. Sure. Can the current boundary be on there too? So we can see, like with the, I want to see the current boundary with the zoning. So I know if there's like a little section or two that don't quite match that we could just say, oh well if we add that then we're actually. Yeah, it's probably just going to be a black line so it won't interfere too much in it. So. At least we can start to look at some rationales for whatever we might recommend. Well, this one is, is this one current? Yeah, I just, I couldn't zoom into this basically really kind of zoom right into this block and then have them print out a bigger map of the zoomed in area. But this is the, this is the existing zoning. Plus design control. Plus design control. Yeah, so we have, we have that already. Oh well. I think it's, it's hard to read. It would be helpful to see with, with these other outlines, I think. So that we can see how close this one's at the strike, distract. Seems like a plan. We could do that first thing next meeting, but we should be able to vote the rest of this meeting for a quick discussion about planning, planning our planning. Do we, do we, besides the boundary next week? I mean, I think we were planning to go back to the city plan. Is everyone wanting to do that? Yeah. Discuss that. Basically, next meeting, we're not, we're not going to, in this meeting, we're not going to conclude, have a vote on the boundary. So we'll have to pick that up at next meeting. Is there anything else that we should do before getting back to the city plan? I mean, my, my thoughts are that once we get back to the city plan, let's get back into it, you know, deeply and start being focused entirely on that. So I guess if there's anything related to this stuff that we want to do before we get back to the city plan. This is sort of insular, this map-making thing. I'm a little concerned that, I mean, we can stare at these maps all day. And I think what might be beneficial is to have like a real focused discussion on what we want to achieve through design review authority. Because I, I mean, it's a little unclear to me what the policy action held for determining what these boundaries are right now, after that discussion. I don't know that we can have it right now, but. We had a bunch of that in this. This is, these are kind of the rules and they had laid out there. Yeah. Is this a design plan? Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, I- But there's kind of looking at both and rereading this with an eye toward that. Yeah, I think we really need to sort of, I understand that. And I see that more as a kind of more of a process document that maybe that's just binding, fine. Well, they inserted at the start a bunch of policy things. Yeah. Which are the wise, I mean, things I don't necessarily think I would have inserted in this document, but it was fine because it added context to what they were trying to do. I think I know what you're getting at. And that's, and that's as a group, what are we trying to achieve with the boundary? I think that this informs it in that, well, we know about how rigorous these regulations are gonna be because we went, we comb through them now. And so with that in mind, how much of the residents of Montpelier do we expect to comply with these? Weighted against how we want neighborhoods to look. Well, and hopefully with the new regulations that have been written or proposed that the public would have more confidence in the design review process than they have in the past. So we would have less concern about people, neighborhoods being included because they would feel like they knew what was gonna be done. And I think that's for discussion. How does everyone feel about where the regulations are right now? My impression of them is that they're more detailed now. There's more of them to have to follow. There's some of the administrative processes now streamlined. And so it's easier in some ways for the small stuff. But in some way, you could definitely look at this as an expansion of what's being regulated. Right, I just, yeah, I mean, that's the thing is, I think we've got to have a serious, this pretty focused discussion because I take your point, Barbara, but I'm assuming there's gonna be some property owners who say, oh, don't worry, it's okay. It's a 17 page document that explains this all now. And then it's gonna create, I know it's like confidence in the process, but it might do the opposite. So I don't know, that's just sort of what's spinning around. I'm trying to grapple with what it is ultimately. And I guess a little bit of what I would throw out for chewing on is, we're working on all these things to come up with an idea that we're really, this is just gonna be an idea we're gonna float to the public. And so in a certain sense, we have some rules. We've got a good idea, they're not cast in stone, and let's put together a map. It's not cast in stone, and let's start to, we're not sure if this is exactly what we want, but let's start to get some feelings from the public. Because if we get, which was happened last time, 65 people in this room, and 60 of them come up and speak against it, that's what we got hit with. And we pretty much came out and said, we can't do this. I mean, we'd be killing the entire zoning process if we try to pass design review changes, because everybody except for, I could probably name the five people who came out in support of the design control. Part of the argument was that they, looking at past evaluations, they felt that it was capricious. So now the commissions come forward with this, this document for us to look at and say, okay, there are more defined regulations now. So then as a result of that, perhaps the negative comments would not be extreme. As long as people understood it, as they understood that this was gonna be much more clear, just like the rest of the zoning is clear. That was the general concern last time, it was just. Oh yeah. And it was people who had passed determinations by various design view committees. And yeah, so very consistent, very consistent, yeah. So going for consistency here. Which is why we had emphasized so much in the previous draft, very specific outcomes to go through and say, yes, you can replace your old windows with modern equivalents as long as you're meeting and matching, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's kind of the right shape, it's got the right number of panels, but you can upgrade to modern windows because what they had in the past was this person would come in and they'd be told, you gotta take out your 38 windows and send them off to a specialist to have them reconstructed and put it back together again and put it back in. And then the next guy comes in and they're like, no, you can take your windows out. Replace them there. And so they were like, well, this isn't fair. My building's no different than everyone else's historic building. Why did I have to spend all the extra money to save my... And a couple of the discussions were based on what we were talking about earlier that somebody was saying, well, I'm in the design review district and so therefore I have to follow this. But my neighbor next door, who is also in the historic district but be not designing review, does not have to follow these, what's fair about that. So that's when it started to make more sense for those two districts to actually manage. Yeah, or to have some line, and that was really all my opinion has been on this, is that we have some justification for whatever the line is. It's just, it follows neighborhood lines or it follows the historic district or it follows the designate downtown. It's something that when somebody comes in to say, why am I in and my neighbor's not? Because you're in the designate downtown and they're not. And we can also look at the zoning descriptions of the neighborhoods too, to use that to some extent as a rationale, because some of the neighborhoods are identified as being particularly historic. Historic, yeah. Wanting to. How does the size is compared with the national register map, historic districts and the current, well, the current design review's quite big, right? It's big in different places. I mean, this blue map is actually exactly what it is. Yeah, I'm just thinking about Barb's comments now about people who said that their neighbor wasn't, was in the national register, but not, like they were in the red, but not the blue. We had some up here and up in Cliff Street. So we had some people that were up here. So this guy was in, this guy was out. They're both, they're both in the blue. Yeah, actually in this case, this had them, this had people that were in the blue. I'm not even in the national register. They're not even in the national register. Some people in St. Paul were in, some were not, so yeah. Yeah, St. Paul was one, because yours comes up. Goes right down the center of the street. Goes down the center of the street. So I'm in, but the person across the street is not. Or, excuse me, the person next door to me is not, yeah. I think people have a good gripe when they say that I'm not even in the national register area that you're making me follow historic preservation. No, just design review. Just design review. As being proposed right now, if you're under design review, then you're under historic preservation design review. Well, it's more than just historic preservation. But, yeah, I mean, I think that was what Mike was saying before. You could separate it into two sections, but I don't know if that gets more complicated. We can do design or we can do historic and they chose to do design and historic together. Historic together, right. Which doesn't make, in certain cases, makes it easier if they choose one or the other, but when they choose both, then you're kind of like, all right, well, it didn't really help us, but I still think the rules, these new rules are more heavily weighted towards historic than the old rules. So it makes less sense to have national life and it's not like it went the other direction where it used to be really strict, historic, and now it went more design review. If it was going in that direction, then maybe, but it's... I mean, the reason that national life was included in the first place. It's because it was in the Gateway District. It was that there was a whole section on design review and then they had these special sections for Riverfront and Western Gateway, which at the time was called Office Park. And so they were included, even though it still comes up, why does GMP have to go through design review? Well, it is part of the Gateway. It is part of the Gateway, but... As we come into the city. Yes. So I suppose, yeah. So Barbara, you inclined to be supportive of a design review control district that's the same, more or less, as the Red, the National District in general. That would be a shrinking of what we're currently regulating. Well, but it's more properties. It's less area. And it's more properties close to the downtown, but that's also where we're more concerned about it than we are with the National Life's Hillside. So, or with the college, which is the college, but a question comes up about how much we can actually have to save. I mean, it's like the capital complex. You know, we don't really, we can't really make designations about capital complex. No, that's why it's in white on this map. So it's in there, but it's really nothing. None of our business. It's a donut. Yeah, we can't do anything. So, yeah. And there we can't do, there's like 0% that we can do. 0%, right, yes. Because they have their own regulations. They have the capital complex commission. Who reviews for design? But I think we need a rationale if we're going to do that. You know, if we're going to say that it makes more sense for the design review district to follow the historic district. And here's why we think that. And, you know, based on our neighborhoods that are currently excluded or our streets that are split, you know, that kind of rationale. And you might notice when we put the neighborhoods on there that, you know, East state comes up like that. And then there's a separate neighborhood for the college. So we may, it may be one that, like I said, we'd look at, it's not in the national register, but there is a neighborhood up and around the college that is mixed use residential. Yeah. So. Yeah, so I think it would help to see that. Yeah, and like I said, we can always come up. We don't have to come up with one. We are going to go to the public. It would be nice if we came up with a couple of alternatives and said, here are the, you know, we broke it into four different options. And, you know, we looked at all four options. You know, a majority of the planning commission liked this option, but there were also members of the commission that liked this option. And now you at the public, we'd love to hear what your thoughts are. And they'll probably ask for something completely irrational, but. Much different. But as long as we can give them some criteria that we follow in order to make either one of those recommendations. And again, what's the benefits of doing it? I think if Kim Cheney was here, what he would say is that the issue that came up last time was that there really wasn't a strong voice from historic preservation or HPC to advocate for design control and the value of protecting our historic structures. The HPC had kind of dissolved and hadn't really been operating for a number of years. And they kind of came back after this. Right. And to the public. As a result of this, they reformed, they got new members and they started working on stuff. So maybe this time when we go to the public, we'll have a group of people from HPC who might be able to go out and advocate for it. Well, they punted the decision to us. They did punt on the boundary, but at least they would be there to talk about the value of what they put together and why they felt this is a better way to go and this is why it's approved and this is the value it adds to the community. I do take their punt to mean that they're ready to defer to the decision that we make. You know what I mean? Like if they felt strongly, then... But it will be going to the public and if they want to get this part passed, then they're going to need to have some, they'll have to take some comments on the map itself too. And they may punt at the public hearing on the map too and say, we don't care as long as whatever ends up being the boundary, we just want you to support the new rules for that area. And maybe they punt, maybe they don't punt. I imagine if we had some sort of proposed change, they might have thoughts. Even though they punted on it, but does it mean they wouldn't comment on it? I think they would still comment on what we said. Who changed it? Maybe not even with a unified voice. I think that they have different opinions. Yeah, I think if they had a unified voice they probably would have, they just probably reached a point of figuring out, we're not going to be able to within our HPC have a recommended option. So let's move forward what we all agree on and leave this to the professionals. And probably they felt it was more in the purview of planning permission than theirs anyway. Yeah, so because we were kind of dealing with some other business, two pieces of information that are on mind. One is I'm actually going to be on vacation at the next meeting, but I can get you guys all the maps. I think I've said everything. Let you guys work on the map part. If you guys are okay with that, otherwise we'd have to reschedule for a different week. The 26th. You'll test them out for us. Yeah, I'll print them all up, make sure they're up here. I'll have Meredith drop them off. And maybe I'll see if she wants to attend just to. Okay. Yeah, I think in light of that, maybe we can talk offline that it's possible. Maybe we can have a shorter meeting and just handle the band boundary issue and leaves the city plan to connect back up with that. And we have that mic again. So is it likely that we'll have public comment though at that next meeting? On the boundary? I wouldn't think so. I would think we would want to decide on a couple of pieces. I mean, obviously if anyone from the public shows up, they're always welcome to speak. But I think at least according to our discussions, and maybe you weren't here when we had the discussions a few meetings ago, we were gonna make a decision on the boundary. We were gonna make some changes here, which Meredith and I have got to sit down and go over and go back to HPC. And then sometime later, October, early November, we would put everything together and have a public input meeting. Because there's not going to be an adoption of these rules quite yet, because they need to have some design guidebooks made. And HPC is willing to do that. Before that's even adopted. Well, yeah, it's kind of a chicken and egg. They really kind of need the guidebooks to go with the rules, but I shouldn't make the guidebook for the rules until I know they're actually something people support. So they're kind of in, let's move this forward. Let's have some public hearings. Let's go to city council. Let's get some public input. If we know this is, people are comfortable with this, we can work on getting some more grants to do the guide. My impression was I didn't think they were gonna go forward and adopt. Although, maybe they do. I don't know how you would enforce some of these rules to kind of leave some stuff vague. Less vague than it is now. Right. Yeah, definitely less vague than it is now. So maybe they could just adopt them and then start to use them and then see where it goes. There's no regulation that says they couldn't. Yeah, there's no regulation that says they couldn't, but I think the idea I think was that we would make a decision here and have some public input in late October, November, gauge the public, see what they think, and then kind of move forward. But I won't be here on the 26th. The second thing I have before we run out of time is, so municipal planning grants, kind of the bread and butter of the grants that we usually get for working on stuff, those are due at the end of September, which is actually surprising me right around the corner. So there's usually a lot of interest in using this money for things. The city council in last year's budget discussions, they were going to have a discussion about doing a facilities and kind of basically doing an energy plan around the facilities pieces. I'll have to get the rest of the details from them what specifically they wanted. And they decided not to fund it through the general fund. And they said, but I think we'll just use the municipal planning grant to do that. So I just wanted to go and say, that's what I was gonna move forward with writing the municipal planning grant on. You guys will have to approve that at some point. If there's a push to do something else to find a different topic, but usually the immutable planning grants for updating zoning, updating plans would have been great to do the guide book, but they'll have to CLG grant the guide book. But we'll do this energy planning unless something else comes up and if it does, we'll talk about it. But I just always need a window of time so I can write the grant so I can get the stuff approved. So I just want to give you guys a heads up that that is coming up, but that I'm gonna expect that we're doing energy plan. So it's our plan? Just reminding me of that. So CVRPC just received a grant for our housing mitigation plan update. Is that something that, how does this group relate to that process? Historically, I haven't seen it come through here, but that's. I'm the state reviewer of the plan. Yes, yeah. We advised them that ours was going to be expiring, I think next March or April. Early next year. Early next year was supposed to expire, so it was on our to do for this fiscal year work plan, but usually they're working more directly with Bob Gowens. Yeah, I always appreciate when they do those for us because, oh yeah, we forgot to put on the one. Remind me to put on the RPC appointment. Yeah, okay. Just so we put that on the agenda for next time. All right, so do we have a, do we wish a new term? So time is up. So moved, my barb. Seconded by Aaron. Okay. Hi. Hi. And we are adjourned.