 I'm here. Welcome, Bob. All right, the time is now 6.31 and the February 16, 2023 meeting of the Development Review Board for the City of Lewinowski has been called to order. The Development Review Board is a quasi-jugissel volunteer resident board that upholds standards and procedures as defined in the Lewinowski zoning ordinance. We review and make decisions on subdivisions, site plans, conditional uses, variances, and appeals of the zoning administrator's determinations. The DRB has authority through the State of Vermont Statute and ensures due process protects the rights of applicants and the rights of the public to participate in proposals for land development within the city. Appeals of our decisions are heard by the Vermont Superior Court, Environmental Division, and the Vermont Supreme Court. My name is Matt Basowitz. I am the Chair of the DRB. Harlan Miller is our Vice Chair. Elsie Goodrich is our Secretary. Our current members also consist of Erin Gayet, who might be here later, David Weisberger and Jordan Matt. Given the increased public response to our current agenda, I feel a bit more clarification might be helpful tonight. We are, as I said, a volunteer resident board appointed by a vote from City Council. We are your neighbors. And at a small city like Lewinowski, we are all keenly aware and sympathetic of your concerns. While deciphering and upholding the rules of the Lewinowski zoning ordinance, please know that we each carry the burden of setting aside our own emotions and opinions to remain as impartial as possible when making any decision. Votes and recommendations are always cast in closed, deliberative session that will take place as soon after the hearing as possible. We will ask anyone participating into tonight's hearings to swear or affirm that all testimony is entirely the truth under the pains and penalties of perjury. We will ask you to say, I affirm before testifying. Knowing that there is a large response to tonight's hearing, we will also be instituting a two-minute time limit on all parties who wish to speak. The time limit does not apply to the applicant, appellant or their representatives. We will also ask for applicants and appellants to stay close as they may be asked to respond to individual questions or concerns that are raised throughout the hearing. Please make an attempt to hold your response until the party has finished their testimony. Please stay civil. Please refrain from any personal attacks in an appropriate language. Online Zoom participants will be asked to testify after all in-person testimony is complete. First on our agenda is changes to our agenda. Do we have any changes that we require or desire? Hearing none, we will move on. Vermont's open meeting law grants an opportunity for public comments at every public meeting. If anyone would like to comment about anything that is not on our current agenda, this is your opportunity. And hearing no public comments, we will move on to the next agenda item which is approving the previous meeting minutes, which I did get to leave through a few weeks ago. I don't know if you all did. I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes. Any seconds? I wasn't here. Jordan seconds. All those in favor of approving the minutes, please say aye or raise your hand. Aye. One abstention. All right. The previous meeting minutes are approved. Next, the first substantive item on our agenda is a public hearing on an appeal of the decision of our zoning administrator about a property at 115 Barlow Street. And Eric, I was wondering if you might be able to give us a little bit of background before we move on to... Yes, thank you very much. So, I'll do a quick introduction. This is an appeal of a of the issuance of a or the intent to issue a zoning permit for property located at 115 Barlow Street, specifically St. Stephen's Church. This was an application that came in, was reviewed administratively, was appealed within the statutory 15-day appeal period as outlined. Because this is an appeal of the decision of the zoning administrator, which I am the zoning administrator, I will not be staffing you all tonight. That's why we have the city's attorney, Bob DePama, who is online to provide staff assistance. I will, however, be here to manage the Zoom. We have a significant number of people on the on the call remotely. So, I will be here for that purpose only and to moderate any documents to show if there are any for the screen. Otherwise, you can direct any questions or comments that you all have procedurally to attorney DePama and he can provide that guidance for you. Similarly, he will also be, he will provide support for you during your deliberative session, whether that occurs tonight or at a future date. I will not be involved in that deliberative session with you also. Thank you very much. So, first, we would like representatives of the current, the current owners of the property to please step forward and present to us. Oh, while they're coming up, if I could, anybody that's here that, please make sure you sign in up here at the front. So, we have a record of who is in attendance tonight. That will be helpful for our purposes. Thank you. Thank you. First things first, we do ask that you affirm that everything you say is the truth under the pains and penalties of purchase. Thank you. So, if I might explain, I'm Tom Kormick. I am an attorney but also a dean at St. Francis Church. To my right, it's Montenegro Valley. He is the long time pastor at St. Francis. He was pastor for 31 years. He's now a pastor of Marinus and he suffers from extreme macular degeneration. So, his eyesight is quite limited. He cannot see it all. He can't see anybody who's here. So, he hears extremely well. His mind is sharp. His eyesight is not so good. We can assure you we are the best looking board in the city. So, tell us a little bit about your project and why we're here. I think the reason we're here is because we want to talk about the demise of a very beautiful and a wonderful church. The thing I want to start with is for us, the church is more than simply a building. You know, it's sort of like a captain in his ship. You know, always referred to as her, is she. It's almost personalized. The love that we have for the building, it's a very sad thing that we're doing. We are watching a church close. That's a very difficult thing to do. What we want to do is we want to bury it. Let me give you the reasons why. First of all, number one, there's in canon law, when we build a church, when we consecrate a church, when we open a church, it's always for the worship of God. That's what it's about. That's what the money was paid for. The Catholic population of that was known as St. Stephen's Church, built that church for one purpose. That purpose was the worship of God. In canon law, after that building is consecrated for religious purposes, once that's done, and if we come to the point when we close it, there's certain things we have to do. We have to remove anything that has the worship value to it. In other words, if it's used exclusively, if it's something that we would call religious in nature, then we can't sell that. We have to use it properly. We have to give it to somewhere else that we've already taken care of. That's going to the nuns in Westfield, Vermont that we're doing it. That comes down to another thing that the church has asked us. It said, if you're going to get rid of the property, if you want to get rid of the church, it can be sold. But it can be only sold. It can be sold for secular things. In other words, for something that is non-religious. But it cannot be sold or used for something that is profane. What does that mean? Well, in essence, it would mean it would not be anything that could be used that in anything would be against the teachings of the Catholic Church. The other thing is to demolish the building itself to bury it. That's what we want to do. And the reason for that is there is a reason for it. And the reason is if we sold it to somebody and we say it can only be used for certain things or certain things that cannot be used for, that can be in effect only for as long as there's somebody to enforce it. It doesn't work. We've seen it happen with other churches. The reason it can't be used for secular profane, but we want to step further in our deliberation. In our deliberation is now the parish council that was St. Stephen's is now a member of St. Francis. We form one unit and the deciding group is both parishes together and performed one. We're together in the whole process. I've seen too many cases where if let's say somebody buys it and uses it for something that we would deem to be appropriate for the church. But then they sell it. Then there's no control there anymore. And we talk together as a group and we voted and we voted they we said the best thing to do is to bury her to bring it down. I don't think it's going to be a beautiful thing to see that building turned into something like has happened in the past. It could become a bar. It could become anything. I think the people love the parish have a memory of it. They want to remember it as she was. She was a church. That's what she is. She was created for a purpose. That purpose is no longer there. And we're looking for the permission to bury her. That's in essence what it is. Thank you for your time. Thank you time. Do you have anything that only a couple points. One is Michael Brian is a part of the council. The board that made the decision. He argued a number of times eloquently for the for the building stand. So he felt very badly and he kept bringing it up. And he's a very nice man, a very persuasive man, but he didn't carry the day on us. The other thing is the request is being made by the parish, not by the by the purchaser. So it's why the parish is here. Okay, thank you. Was there more contention in the decision that was made other than Mike? Were there? No. Okay. Any other questions from the board? So does the decision rest with each parish when this happens typically? It does with this parish. So other in other words, the property was given to St. Francis, not to the diocese. It belongs to St. Francis. Yes. Thank you. Certainly. And so also there have been different results by different parishes, you know, with different properties. So this parish made the decision under the guidance of Lansino the Valley. Anybody else? I have no further questions. What the decision have been different had the purely hypothetically, the building that placed on a historic register, just out of curiosity? I don't think so. I think to honestly, I think that we feel strongly enough about this, that I think we should stick to our guns as long as we could. All right, we thank you for your time. Thank you. Please stay close. We may have more questions. Matt, I'm going to apologize and interrupt briefly as I start my recording, since I forgot to, but that's okay. Recording in progress. So just wanted to have that brief interruption here quickly while we're transitioning. So I'm good to go now. Do you have it with? Yes. Yes. Town Meeting TV is streaming live and recording as well. I mean, this is this for my records as I make sure I get information correct. Up next, we would ask Bertha, who is the appellant to please join us. And again, we ask that you affirm that everything you say is the truth. I affirm. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Do I just get to speak and present my case? Okay, so what I do want to say is that there's been a lot of reasons put out there already, seven days newspaper yesterday, a lot of backgrounds about, you know, passionate people who want to save this church. It's one of Winooski's historical and architectural gems. And just understanding the opportunity that there is in a structure like this and the amazing uses we could have that could be respectful. And I will let others speak to that. But really what I want to say is very specific and relates exactly to the reason that the demolition application was approved administratively. And I think that's honestly probably the most important thing that we have here, because that is what ultimately is driving this, you know, this place that we're in right now. So I really just want to give some background and provide a rebuttal. And really specifically focused on the state register listing of the building. And I'm doing this speaking as a historic preservation consultant, trained and working professionally in the field right now. So in the staff memo, the zoning administrator stated as part of the rationale for granting this permit, administratively that quote, there is no formal listing of the church structure in the national or state registers, and therefore no protection for the building. This statement was informed by a survey form of the rectory and the church completed in 1979 and the property was listed in the state register in 1993. And I believe you've probably seen the survey form that was in your packet. So here's the problem that I see is that really, there is nothing in this survey form that clearly states that the church is not formally listed. And I say this with complete, honestly with complete confidence in my ability to understand this concept of state register listing. So, you know, in my professional career, I have written literally hundreds of these types of forms that the church was documented on and the rectory. I have written, you know, these forms to evaluate properties for their potential state or national register listing. I have used existing forms and interpreted them to help with regulatory reviews of projects. So I am very, very, I just say this to say I'm very, very well versed in how we document historic structures and list them in the state or national registers. So a few reasons why I question the whole surmise that the church is not formally listed. So I'm going to just touch on those briefly. So the survey form lists the rectory as the primary building on the property because the form, as you saw, only allows for one building to be recorded as such in the field of, you know, here's the building that we're talking about. But there is plenty of room in the form to include other buildings that are on the property. And this is in the related structure section of the form. And that's where the church was recorded. So what we have is the rectory, which sits to the south of the church was in, I believe, 1870s building. And it was built at the time that the original St. Stephen's church was built. So it was the rectory for the original church. That church was replaced by the current church in 1928. And the fact that the church is considered a related resource to the rectory really does not necessarily mean that it's less important or subpar to the rectory. We don't know why the person who wrote the form this was 43 years ago, why they decided to have just the rectory as the primary building and the church not, we can't read their mind and try to understand that. So I say that because we can't read their mind and, and think that they didn't want the church listed in the first place, just because it sits in that portion of the form and I'm getting very technical, but I think this is really important. So when we complete a survey methodology requires looking at a property holistically, that's how we approach a survey of a historic property. We don't chop up the property into different buildings and say, oh, we're only going to look at this building by itself. And especially when we have a case where a church and a rectory functionally complement each other, the rectory is significant because of the church that's next to it. It would be, you know, really incorrect to say that we don't want the church listed, but we want the rectory listed. That just really doesn't make any sense. And so we should not assume that the author considered the church less important and therefore not state register listed. So the second point I want to say is that the staff memo also states that quote, when the original survey was completed, it is believed that the church was not yet 50 years old and therefore not eligible for listing, hence the reason it was not included and only referenced in the rectory survey. So I can't really make sense of this claim because first of all it is included in the survey. It's not included. And the survey form clearly states that the church was built in 1928. So the author obviously knew that it was 51 years old. So to try to figure out why, you know, maybe they thought it wasn't 50 years old and that's why they didn't want to list it, I just, I don't feel comfortable and I don't think we should feel comfortable leaping to conclusions like that about maybe what was the author of this form thinking. So, and 51 years old is important because typically a building needs to be 50 years old to be considered for state register listing. So it meets that criterion. So again, nothing here points or really conveys clearly that the building is not listed. And the third thing I want to say is that there is standard historic preservation language that conveys that we use to convey that a building is not significant or should not be listed in a register. And this might be because the building is not 50 years old, or it's, you know, been so altered that it no longer looks historic. Or maybe it's just really insignificant. It's a shed or something like that. So this is for the purpose of providing clarity. And we don't have that clarity here. We don't have any of that language. The language you might see is like this building is ineligible due to age or ineligible due to lack of integrity or non contributing due to its loss of integrity. So none of this verbiage is actually used in the survey form to describe the church. So we just we don't have enough information to say that the church is not state register listed. And I'm saying this from someone who does the type of evaluations all the time. And I think really, I just I asked that you do not make such an important decision based on a surmise that can be really easily questioned by trained professionals in the field of historic preservation. And that's what this is all about. You know, is this building protected by Manuski's ordinance that it's sections one 4.1 and 4.4 that deal with the demolition and design review for historic structures that says it has to be listed on the state or national register. So I feel so uncomfortable with the fact that we would decide on this based on fuzzy information. The listing status of this building is not clear. And that is clear. We need more clarity. And what we could do is we could ask for more clarity on this. The building can be reevaluated, resurveyed, and then you would have a much better understanding of the building and how it really is listed in the state register. So that's what I want to say. I know a lot of other people are going to weigh in on other points and things that we wrote in our letter. But I just wanted to provide this really technical historic preservation perspective. So I'm happy to answer questions you might have. Have you spoken to anybody at the State Historic Registry about this quandary or if you just observed the documents? Yes. And it's unclear. It's it's it really is. I mean, I've talked about it with a lot of people to bring it up and colleagues of mine and to try to figure this out. And the consensus has been that there's nothing that tells us that this is not a listed building here. You know, maybe the author didn't want it to be. We just don't know that though. There's nothing. He didn't state that in the form. Does this do these surveys constitute the register? There's no book. There's no actual list of buildings that I mean, there's a list. Typically, there's a list in the front of the documentation that is the register and a list of all the buildings are each assigned an inventory number, then there's a map. And they're mapped out. And then the individual forms just follow and consecutive or just organized by number. Typically, it's it's done somewhat geographically by address, how they're organized. So it's not there are some counties in the state that did create more of a book. We don't have that in shipment counties. There's just an individual compilation for each town. Is it is it common or does it happen that specific structures within a property, those will be listed, but other ones will not. So that does happen, right? It would happen only if if the author yes, it can happen. And that could be because of properties not 50 years old, that's on or a building that's on the property. Or it could be a building that you can't even see that it's historic anymore. In this case, obviously, the church is very intact. So to assume that it shouldn't be listed, I don't see how we can do that. And, you know, we look for a verbiage that says this specific building on the property is not contributing to the properties. Significance is not eligible to be listed. So is there a state official in charge of all the registries that could be asked? Is this building on the state register or would they give, in your opinion, ambiguous answer to that? I mean, is there someone state building historian in charge of this? There are. There are. They do keep there's a state architectural historian and state historic preservation officer. They are not really their position is not to be involved per se in local zoning matters. So what could happen to get a definitive response from them is to ask the property owner of the applicant to reevaluate the property. And that would be documenting it and to confirm that it would be listed in the state register and that could be submitted to the state historic preservation office and they could offer a definitive answer. Go about getting them to weigh in. Thank you. On record. Any other questions? Yeah, I have more. I know there's sometimes like zone historic. I forget what it's called like a district, right? And those typically list multiple buildings in the district, right? So if you had one of those and there was a building in the district that was not listed, would it be considered? Not on the register? That's a tough one. And I do encounter that sometimes in that case, if we are looking at this historic district and we are looking at this specific building and we're not seeing any documentation about it, we would do an evaluation of the building and we would fill in one of these survey forms to document the building's architecture and history and then make a recommendation for whether or not it should be listed in the district or not. So basically updating, you know, or creating a new evaluation of this building that was omitted. And does that process require the permission or request from the owner of the of the property? When it's a historic district, it does not. If you're looking at an individual property, which is the case here, it does require the owner. So we can't go ahead and just do a documentation of St. Stephen's Church separately on its own and then submit it to the State Historic Preservation Office for them to issue their finding as to whether or not it should be listed in the state register kind of on its own or maybe as the primary building or not. So unless we have the owner permission, we can't do that. However, it can be something if it's within the context of a regulatory process and it is required in order to sort of complete the regulatory process and that would be evaluating the building within various historic preservation regulations, then yes, an outside person can go in and evaluate the property and do that. This form, is this filled out by someone from the state or by it could be a consultant from the property owner? Either or. Either or. Back in 1979, when this survey was done, these forms were usually filled out by people who are working for the State Historic Preservation Office. Sometimes that happens, mostly now it's a consultant who does it. I think my last question. So when a building that's on the state register is demolished, like it looks like it's permitted, as long as there's a letter from the State Historic Division or a consultant saying its historical value has been compromised. Has that happened to your knowledge? Is there other buildings that are demolished without that letter? So that is really specific to a new ski and I'm not, I don't have such a strong handle on that. A lot of the times, and that will be the case here, is that a development of a property, if it has a historic building on it, but if it's got more than, I believe, 10 units, it's going to have to go through Act 250 review. And so demolition of a building, a historic building is tied to the Act 250 process and it's something that gets very, very carefully reviewed and considered. And in Winooski, being in an urban place, most of the Act 250 criteria projects are exempt except for historic preservation. So priority housing projects are exempt from most of it. So that's where I've seen it really come into play in Winooski is through the Act 250 process. And one thing I'm concerned about here and this brings up another point, and I'll wrap up, I guess I don't want to take up all the time, but I mean, unless you have more questions, but this concept of anticipatory demolition. And that is when a property owner knowingly demolishes a building on their property to clear the way for a project that will be subject to Act 250 before they submit the project of petition to the, or however the application for Act 250. And it really sounds like that is the case here. And that is very problematic. If you have a project that relies on the demolition of the church, but the church is demolished before Act 250 starts, then we have what's called anticipatory demolition. There are fines associated with that, based upon the extent to which the property owner knows that they are violating a potential regulatory process. The idea being that the State Historic Preservation Officer is not going, an office is not going to be given the chance to fully evaluate the project, which includes the demolition of the church. So that is a whole other thing. And it's sticky. And I just, I don't wish that upon the developer who wants to have a project going for it, because they're going to have some serious, serious issues and hoops to jump through to deal with the loss of this building. And there will be retroactive reviews or could be fines. So that's another consideration here. And of course, that's not Winooski regulation. That's the state land use law. So Do we know if Act 250 would apply to this project? It's, I would think so. You know, it involves a historic building. And it will be more than 10 units, I assume, whatever development will happen on the property. In which case, yes. And possibly even federal, state, historic preservation processes, depending on how the project might get funded. It's possible that there will be federal level review. Thank you so much. Play that out. Yes. Got very technical. Thank you for listening. A bit of a writing it out. Yeah. That's good. We like technical. Yeah. That's I'd like to invite Tom. And if you're able, so sorry, I forgot your name, my senior to come back up. I do have a couple of follow up questions for you real quick, just so I can get a better idea of the scope of the project and the scope of the demolition. So something that was not brought up when you guys were here a few minutes ago, were the other structures on the property, the senior center currently stands on that property, the rectory currently stands on that property. I think there's a garage that may be attached to the rectory. Not entirely sure. The demolition permit that you have requested, what structures does that involve? What's the church building? Just the church building. Okay. And I should point out that the senior citizen's center, the senior center is, you know, it's under lease. It's got 20 or 20 plus years remaining on that lease. So that's that stays. Okay. Really, that was that was that was actually my follow up question is how how was that relationship? So you own you own the structure currently? Or you know, honestly, I think it's leased land. Leased land? Okay. But I'm not certain about that. I didn't pay attention to that. As I recall, it's a dollar a year lease. Okay. And that it expires sometime in the two thousand forties. Okay. So a few points if I might to respond to the prior witness. It's an odd situation. This building is not on any registry. So to come here and say, Well, this was intended or in her very experience view, it would have been done differently. The plain fact is it's not on a registry. Also, it seemed to me that the to reassess it would require the owner's consent. I heard what he was saying properly. And that's not going to happen. And finally, I want I thought I made it clear. But the request to have the building taken down is not by the buyer. It was by us. So it's not a Trojan horse to get around at two fifty. That simply is not the case. It was done at our last. So were you aware of the historic significance of the rectory building and the fact that it is on a registry or that it seems to be on a registry? No, I didn't pay attention to that. Okay. My concern is the church building. The rectory, you know, it's if it's in good enough shape, it will be used, I assume, for housing. Whether it meets code or not, I don't know. Do you have any concerns about that building being put to a use that you would not approve of, that the congregation would not approve of? The church is not a concern. I asked if they would have any concerns with the rectory being put to a use they didn't approve of. No, it's only the church. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you again. And we will now open the floor to the public, and I think we'll probably have if you've got the list of people. Yeah, so there was I have eight people that signed up to speak. I believe four of them are in the room tonight, and I know four of them are online. So in the order that they signed up, I'll just call them and invite them up if that's okay with you. That works. Okay, so Sierra Maccarus and Arthur Maccarus as well. Are you I don't know if you're related? Are you related or? Yes. Okay, you can. Oh, then then we'll take you on into time. Yes. So just a reminder where we are going to be running a timer. Yes, I have time my my statements. Okay, should be understood. And we will ask that you do affirm that you are telling the truth under the pains of perjury. I do. Okay, thank you. Actually, that's a good idea. At this point, if you are in the room and you intend to untestifying tonight, we can take care of all of that right now. If you intend on testifying tonight, please raise your right hand and say I affirm that you are telling the truth and you understand the consequences. Thank you. Sierra, thank you so much. Go ahead. All right, so good evening. My name is Sierra Macarrus, and I live across the street from the property in question. As a historian, I can say that the nearby presence of such a beautiful piece of history was a factor in my decision to purchase my home, and I would be quite disappointed to see it demolished. The letter signed by Britta and others includes most of my thoughts on this issue, but I would also like to address St. Francis Xavier Parish's science statement that, quote, uses that seem innocuous to non-believers may nonetheless be perceived as inappropriate or even disrespectful to believe in Catholics. With all due respect, our country's commitment to separating church and state means that religious sensibilities cannot dictate public policy. Allowing them to do so would undermine Winooski's character as a diverse and pluralistic city where all manner of spiritual beliefs can coexist. Either St. Stephens is sufficiently historically significant to be preserved or it isn't, but this determination can and must be made without appealing to subjective notions of what is sacred. To do otherwise would be not only to favor one theology over another, but to enshrine that theology in law. Winooski's foremost responsibility is to, and I quote, protect, preserve, develop, and use Winooski's historic, cultural, and architectural resources to maintain the architectural and historical integrity of existing buildings or features and ensure the compatibility of new construction or usage to adjacent properties. No religious sensibility should be permitted to supersede the civic duty. Thank you. Thank you, Sierra. Next is Arthur McCarris. Thank you. Welcome. So what I'd like to say is I like the building. The reason I like the building is because I grew up in Massachusetts just outside of Boston. My family had a construction company that specialized in renovating old historic buildings in Boston. And so I spent my summers working there, old brownstone buildings. I moved up to Vermont because I liked the quality of life here in 1986. So in exploring the area as a new comrade, I found this church to be just so beautiful. Whenever I was in the area, I made the effort to go by it, just to look at it. So I'm a few years later, I decided to become self-employed. I rented an office, which my first office was here in Manuski in 1990, and I was there for four years. And going to work and from work and to work sometimes if I had the time, I would go by the church to just to look at it. And that was in between 1990-94. And then now I've since been in Essex Junction. And I still go by the church to look at it and to my surprise, 30 years later, my daughter ends up living right across the street from me. And anyways, the building has unique architectural design. It's lines and it's geometric patterns are beautiful. And you know, there's an architectural firm in Massachusetts called Mass Design, who are world famous for designing new structures in third world countries. And they have a saying that beauty is justice in their emphasis is in creating new architectural designs that are based on historical premises that make life beautiful for people. So in their saying is beauty is justice. That's it. I like the building. Thank you. Thank you. Next on the list is Joshua Sigartel. And I do just want to add a caveat to the attestation that this is to the best of my knowledge. I'm a flawed human being and I cannot predict the future. So what would you like to say? Sigartel. Good evening all. My name is Joshua Sigartel and I also live across the street from the church. The diocese argument brings up a salient point about the use of the space. The church is loved to keep the building due to the possibility of profane activity, but seems morally sound with the prospect of selling the space apparently to the handy family, one of the worst landlord organizations in Chittenden County. Like my wife, I have no desire to impede housing development. The Chittenden area has a high need has a need for high quality low income housing. However, the handy corporation is unlikely to provide that for the space. Local investigator Johnny Wanzer in his piece titled Burlington landlord horror stories, alleged the handy corporation to be discriminatory in their rental practices, renting to ex convicts on parole or disincent or who are disincentivized to complain about broken equipment and home issues. They're also accused of vermin infestations, unlawful evictions and deposit theft. On a community level, these issues can result in the stretch of the public defender system, health issues that are likely to fall on taxpayers when the disenfranchised cannot report health issues to their landlords and an overall degradation of the city's quality of life. To reiterate, I am in no way against property construction and Winooski, but telling landlords responsible for these horror, excuse me, for these horror business practices seems to be me to be more profane than repurposing the church into a library or a community center with high quality low income or affordable housing. You, sir, gain the notoriety of having the first Johnny Wanzer reference at the Winooski BRBs. I will remind everybody that this is right now the owner of the property is the church. And right now the appellant is brought up. So if we could try to keep our conversations in that area, that would be that would be helpful. Thank you. Next on our list. Yeah, next for potentially in the room, Scott Lewis, are you in attendance with us? Okay, you're welcome to come up. Time this. I've learned what the lights mean. Green is good up until 30 seconds. It's yellow. Red is your picture too. Interesting. Okay, well, good evening. My name is Scott Lewis, and I live across the street from the church. Allow me to paint a picture. A messy apartment didn't we lit with a vague breeze coming from window with glass that doesn't fit the window frames. Some black substance appears to be growing on the ceiling. There are cracks in the wall that have been growing for years and you can hear constant dripping of water in the roof, which is stained another part of the ceiling in the hallway to the leading this apartment. You could hear other tenants complaining about bed bugs that have been fumigated for months, even after numerous reports of the landlord on the way there. There was a vague smell of sewage from some open pipe. The door to the building had you were told a blood stain on it from years ago. Down in the lobby, you saw two men getting into a loud argument. They've been yelling at each other for hours, even after the police have left for the third time that night. In other words, imagine the stereotypical bad apartment complex. That is what is being proposed to be put across my street. I'm a programmer by trade, but I've always loved doing things with my hands. I'm a bit of a DIY handyman. In another life, I would have made a great property manager and the way I see handy properties manage and maintain horrifies me. The scene I depicted is not an example of every apartment of theirs. However, everything I described has been noted and been made public record in many different properties, all of which have been owned by handy, indicating consistent negligence and poor property management. There might be some who would argue that affordable housing lures property values. This is actually a myth, largely speaking, multiple studies have shown that property values tend to actually increase when affordable housing complexes go up. But with a very specific caveat, the condition of the property has to be good. When they are not good, the value surrounding the properties drops significantly, which incidentally also reduces the property taxes that the city can collect. Handys has consistently been reported in papers of public record by health inspectors to have buildings with unlivable conditions. And in the case of non-residential properties of zoning violations, these conditions have shown, these conditions, studies have shown also correlated with an increase in crime. Affordable housing may not necessarily be an increase, may not necessarily increase crime or reduce property values, but bad conditions and poorly made properties do correlate to the environment that handy's property specifically cultivates to contribute to crime overall. I love Winooski and I'm not planning on selling my property anytime soon, but when I do, I would like to be able to afford another home of equal or greater value. Thank you. Next. So we have several folks that sign up that are online that I'd like to go to them if that's okay and then we can open it up to whoever else. So next up on the list, I'll find you here quickly, Scott Newman. I believe you have the ability to unmute and you can speak. Can you hear me? Yes. I believe we can hear you. I can't see you. Thank you. And evening and thanks for the opportunity to provide comments on the St. Stephen's Church. I'm Scott Newman. I live in Burlington. My interest in this building is as a 30 year historic preservation professional Vermont. 15 as Preservation Officer for B-Trans and 15 as a consultant to private non-profit government clients. I've been in nominations for hundreds of buildings for the state and national registered historic places and have extensive experience with active 50 permitting as relates to historic sites, several of those projects being in Winooski. Regarding the overview of the appeal documentation, this may be covered around, but since there's no formal listing of the church structure in the national state register, this is not an accurate statement for a couple of reasons. First, the method for listing second structures in the property in the state and national registers is identical to how St. Stephen's Church is documented in the Winooski state register. This method for listing is still used today. For example, in a recent national register survey completed for 400 buildings in Waterbury, there are dozens of structures noted as related structures which are considered listed consistent with the rules of the Vermont Division for historic preservation. I don't see how St. Stephen's Church is any different, and it seems a stretch to suggest that this related structure consistent with the division rules is somehow not listed in only this particular case. The second reason relates to the age of the church. The overview of the appeal states that the survey form is ambiguous or the surveyor was not sure whether the building was 50 years old. Also an inaccurate statement, the date of the survey is noted as 1979. That same survey notes the date of the church construction as 1928. So it's simple math for the surveyor to realize that building is 51 years old. So it's clear the building is over 50 years old. Bottom line, this Marblewall Church was properly documented on the survey form as being 50 years old and properly documented on the survey form as a related structure to the older rectory, the primary resource. I don't believe there was any ambiguity here whatsoever. In my professional opinion, the church is currently listed in the state registered historic places. The second point relates to anticipatory demolition. As Brita referenced earlier, when a building is purposely or wink-wink demolished or a subsequent project that requires an Act 250 or Section 106, if there is a connection made between that demolition and the permitting for the subsequent project, the subsequent project may not be given a permit under Act 250 at all. That could be an undue adverse fact as determined by the district coordinator. So if I were a developer, I would be extremely worried about stepping into a situation with such a controversy regarding a problem such as this and a building which is listed in the state register. Thank you. I just want to give you heads up your way over time. So if you can give us just a 15-second Cliff Notes Verge and wrap up. I'm done. Okay, then. Well, thank you so much. Okay, thank you very much. Okay, next up online is Megan Gonzalez. Megan, I'm gonna have to find you here. All right, Megan, you should be able to unmute and provide comment. Awesome, thanks, guys. I will keep it very brief. I just wanted to chime in as a Winooski resident and homeowner that lives very close to the church as well. It's a gorgeous structure. I would so, so, so appreciate keeping it and having it go on for future generations. I'm so grateful for the work, Britta. Steven and so many other community members have done and I just wanted to vocalize my care and love for this community and what it could continue to be and how awesome it is. Thank you, everyone. So I'm sorry, my dog is fine. Thanks, Winooski. Thank you again. Thank you, Megan. All right. And next up is Jess Gereld. If I'm saying that correctly, Jess, give me a second to find you. Let's see. Okay, Jess, you should be able to unmute and talk. Hello. You did actually pronounce my name correctly. So bravo. I am a board member of both the Vermont Marble Museum and the Winooski Historical Society and a former resident of Winooski. I've had a hard time collecting my thoughts on the subject of St. Stephens and brevity is not my strong suit. So I'll do my best to get through everything quickly. As someone who cares very much about the city of Winooski, it's disheartening to see the change that's happened to the city as the number of perfectly usable structures which have been or will be demolished in order to erect just non-descript units of housing is really disappointing. The idea that this building is not worth saving if it isn't on a historic register is ridiculous to me. The only thing the lack of designation means is that no one had the time or the energy or the money to bother doing it. It doesn't make it any less impressive or important. The past parishes that worshiped St. Stephens couldn't possibly have known that this would have been the eventual outcome. And I'd like to think that if they had they probably would have made an effort to list it and give it some protection. The argument's been made by numerous people that the building must be demolished in order to avoid a dishonorable or disrespectful use. And that also seems kind of disingenuous. I could come up with five to 10 different potential uses off the top of my head all of which could be very useful and serve the residents of the city well, a library, an extension of the senior center, a community center, a food bank, a homeless shelter. All of these would be beneficial to the citizens of the city, not outside developers and would be compatible with the Catholic teachings even though they're secular. What better use is there for a decommission church than being of service to the community it resides in? Monsignor Lavalle said earlier that the church is more than a building and yes it is, it is the community at the part of. That community is still here and they're fighting for it. I fully respect that it can and should be sold for secular, non-religious, not profane uses but the argument that it could be used for a bar or another such use and therefore must be demolished isn't fair to the people of Winooski who have fond memories of attending St. Stephens. The people who pass by it every morning on their way to work or school as they go about their day. Those people care about its silhouette on the horizon. They care about their relatives who may have contributed funds to the building of the church who were married and baptized and confirmed at this location. Last thing I wanna say is that Vermonters are a group who typically pride themselves on being resourceful people who bring creative eco-friendly solutions to every problem. I'd like to challenge all of you to consider the idea that there might be many different ways to use our collective ingenuity to successfully find an acceptable use for St. Stephens. Demolition and the resulting infill will not likely enhance the streetscape in a way that's more impressive or more well loved than the current monumental marble structure. And that's all, sorry. So also online, Anne Cousins signed up to speak but indicated that she may not be able to as she's traveling. So Anne, if you are able to speak and want to if you could, if you're able to use the raise hand feature go ahead and I'll give you permission to speak either otherwise, oh, there we go. Okay, one moment please. There we go. Okay, Anne, you can unmute yourself. I'm going to speak very briefly because I have a lot of background noise where I am but very quickly the Catholic diocese of Burlington has churches that they have used for what they call profane uses but in fact our community uses that have been a continuation of the service of the church but a secular use. And I would encourage that this approach be considered for St. Stephens. We have a wonderful opportunity. This is a landmark built of Vermont marble and built by architects who are known nationally in fact internationally for the ecclesiastical architecture. So my encouragement is that we find a solution where everybody wins. Thank you, that's all I have to say. Very much, Anne. Those are the only folks that I had signed up to speak in advance so you can open it up. Okay. To the floor. Is there anybody else here in the room that would like to speak on this? I saw your hand first, come on up. Thank you. What's your name? My name is Felipe Rogers. Felipe? Yes. I am a happy resident of Hickok Street. And I came in late but I was hearing arguments on my way here. I was disheartened to hear so many of my neighbors completely ignore Monsignor LaValle's reasons for wanting to demolish the building. And even I heard a total perversion of the concept of religious liberty in this country. You know, forms this, historic register that, some technicality there, it doesn't really matter, stacked up to the fact that this is a holy site and it should be incumbent on us, you know, we the people forming this government to respect their wishes. There is nothing anyone here can say that will guarantee that the structure won't be used contrary to their desires further down the road. And I am curious why we all care so much more about the status of a structure, a physical object than what that building means to the people who actually worshiped in it. The church has been non-functional for two years now, declining membership. And I heard a very heartfelt statement from the parish here that they want to bury it and have a funeral for it. That struck me as something with heavy emotional weight and something that I don't think anybody else here speaking addressed. The board, or rather, the zoning commissioner had made his decision already. I think that the review should uphold that decision. Thank you. Thank you very much. I believe your hand was next. So I'm Sue O'Brien. I've been a resident of Buenos ski for 38 years. I would be remiss if I did not share that my husband Mike's family, the O'Brien's, were devout parishioners of St. Stephen's Church going back six generations. And tonight two of those generations are here with the first emigrating from Ireland. My husband's dad, Dr. O'Brien, always called St. Stephen's the Irish Catholic Church and St. Francis the French Catholic Church. Many other ethnic groups joined St. Stephen's over the years, including the Vietnamese, Italian, Polish, Lebanese, and many others. The St. Stephen's parish was founded in 1872 to serve the Irish rail workers' families. The former brick structure was built in 1871 and later replaced by the present neocothic marble church. The church was dedicated on September 29th, 1929, over 93 years ago. On the back of this little wooden replica church of St. Stephen's, it says both buildings are a testament to the faith and generosity of our ancestors. The marble church was designed by the famous Boston architectural firm of McGinnis and Welch, known for their religious architectural buildings. I learned from Joe Perrin, the Winooski Historic Society's president, that the marble block siding on the church is actually a mixture of white marble blocks coming from the proctor quarry and light gray marble blocks coming from the West Rutland quarries, both owned by the Vermont marble company. The West Rutland quarry closed in the 1970s and the proctor quarry closed in 1993. Today, the quarry in Danby is the only remaining quarry in Vermont and it's the largest underground marble mine in the world. Dimension marble, as used on St. Stephen's, is quarried to remain as a block to use in monuments, walls, and fireplaces. The majority of marble today, however, is ground into powder and has many uses. Believe it or not, but your toothpaste and Cheerios probably have them in it, along with many other uses. Thus, the marble that adorns St. Stephen's church is irreplaceable and priceless. The marble church is of local, state, and national significance, both in its design and building material composition. What lies under the marble speaks to the efforts and pride of our ancestors. To build a church to stand the test of time. Behind the marble block siding, the church is built with juried brick coming from Essex, Junction, and Oak Timbers. I was lucky to tour the church in rectory some years ago when Father Davino hosted an open house. In going through the basement of the church, I was amazed by the mess of walls and the pristine condition of the space. As an illustration of the church's significance, I want to share a post by Maryam Block that was on the Winooski, I'm just not, yesterday, or maybe, yeah, yesterday, on the Winooski Vermont Historical Society's Facebook. And it's written, I'll just read it verbatim, in 2019, Maryam Block, or herself, did a project through the Mill Museum with art students from Winooski High School. Students were asked to paint a hidden gem in Winooski. This student from Burma that you can see in the picture had only been living in Winooski for a few months. He chose to paint the St. Stephen's Church. When asked why, he explained it was the first building he went to when his family arrived in Winooski, and he could not believe that he was going to live in a place with such a beautiful church. The building left a huge impression on him, giving him hope for his new life ahead. Living in its- I'm gonna pause real quick. I'm like, sure. We're way over time. Oh, I apologize. Yeah, okay. Living in a time when our natural resources have become limited and scarce is everyone's responsibilities, including the Catholic Church to save and find respectful reuses of our treasured churches. We owe it to future generations to show them that beautiful buildings survive and thrive, and just maybe plant the seed that they too can design and craft their own architectural gem. I ask you to give hope to St. Stephen's Church and save this beautiful and historical significant church from the wrecking ball. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Would anybody else like to speak? Yes. I'm sorry? There is a man over here as well. Oh, okay. I think I saw a hand way back in the corner. Okay, thanks. Hello. Hi, I'm Trent Chinaswamy. If you want the spelling of that, we can talk later. I have it on the sign and sheet. You're all great. I'd like to say that, first of all, here as a private citizen, I have no particular love for the Hendy family. I'm a renter. I think that's unlike a lot of the people here. It doesn't mean I'm not committed to the city. It just means I'm committed as long as my means allow and that is a fluctuate state. I also as a Catholic school graduate, I have no love for the Catholic Church. But it appears to me that whatever happens to this property will require the consent of the Catholic Church now had recorded in St. Francis and that they are not willing to give that up. My worst fear is that we don't take a lesson from our neighbors in Burlington who have had a church sectioned off for many years now, only for it to eventually be demolished and that we all end up losing value in our properties by having such a section blocked off and eventually losing and tearing our committed part and losing some civility in our discussion at the same time. So I'd like to just encourage everyone to stay reasonable to your decision here and that you make something, a decision relatively quickly but with all due process so that this community can continue to be special. I would love to see this as our structure say but we have to be realistic. Thank you. Thank you. My right side of the room. Yes, hello. I'm Rob O'Brien. So I didn't actually have a lot of information on what the key issues are when you were making your decision but a couple of things just came out that I want to point out. Whether or not the church is on the list of historic register, I don't know if that is the key point here. What I will say is the church is historic. My family were parishioners in that church building for its entire life. So weddings, funerals, major life events, people remember that is history to me. That's one point. The second point is I just want to respond to one of the people who gave testimony here saying yes, the parish or the parishioners all want this church torn down. That may be true that the St. Francis Parish Council decided that they wanted the church torn down but I think that many of people here in this building today are here because they were parishioners of St. Stephens and they love the building and they love the church. And that is all I will say. Next, yes, thank you. Former DRB member, welcome back. My name is Amy Houghton and I actually sat right there many years ago and I was also on the planning commission. So I'm also a landscape architect. So development is something that I do and professional at it. And I know this I'm taking sort of a different stance on this but I think it's interesting and I want people to understand that I would love this church to stay and I also want them to understand that this site can be developed to its maximum potential for housing without demoing the church. So I think it's important to know that. So that's just sort of a quick and I looked at all the zoning regulations and everything and did a little drawing. So it's also been brought to our attention that a developer also said the same thing. So just that these things can coexist and it's wonderful that that fabric can be together. Thank you. Thank you so much. Would anybody else like to speak? Yes. You have people here that have way more familiarity with the issues than me so I'll try to be brief. My name is Jeff Nicholson. I actually live in South Burlington but I've always felt like we had a community here I've lived in Burlington came here 40 years ago saw most of this area by foot before I ever had a car for the first decade. I've walked into that neighborhood and let me tell you when you walk up that street you can feel a change. I'm not a religious expert or architecture expert but you can feel the difference and I don't think it's a religious experience or metaphysical but it's the space. The air is different to the surface reflectivity is different. You can just tell that it's a different space. Our communities are built around spaces like this. Winooski's really well built around communities like this because that's the way they built communities back in those days and they had different institutions than we do now. We would have a land trust or a city council or something take care of it. In those days the institutions were the church and so the community gave to the church to build this space. I don't understand their doctrine and I'm not being critical of it. I don't know how the teachings of Christ relate to real estate but I'm sure they're trying to apply their... Seriously, no, I'm not insulting. I'm sure they're trying to apply their doctrine as best they can but it's the community that made that not the existing governance of a church and as you built these big multifamily housing units which are either a disaster or a miracle depending on how you look at it we need more affordable housing, we need density, we need walkable communities but you have to preserve the parts of those communities that make them communities and if you think of your Winooski neighborhoods they're all built around churches and they have residents and stuff and that's the way this looks. If you clear all that stuff out and just have these big multi-unit housings that's great for affordable housing perhaps but it doesn't maintain your sense of community and I guess that's really my thing it's the community that donated through their institution of the church to build this community and now you're talking about people who are from that specific religious community as well as that neighborhood community saying maybe we would like to keep that part of the community and personally from my experience of knowing and experiencing that neighborhood that's what I would recommend you do. Thank you so much. Is there anybody else in person here, yes? Yeah, my name's Sean Blything on Russell Street. I wanna echo the idea that we can have this building and the future development coexist at the same time. I'm raising a family here, I have a couple of small kids and I'm also keenly aware that we're a growing city we're becoming denser and denser by the year as the developments come up around us. Something that I'm becoming worried about is that we're losing opportunities of infrastructure that we won't ever get back as we seed this property away to developers which are solving housing problems but we're gonna be creating our own new problems down the road by lacking infrastructure to have community gatherings, things like that. So the church I feel like is the structure itself still has opportunity to be used by the community. The coexistence of this property and that building moving the senior center into there and growing our opportunity to actually use a common space like that in the future. So it's actually something I'd like the parish to consider is could this be something more of a community of a valuable piece? So it's about it. Okay, thank you Sean. Is there anybody else here in this room that would like to speak tonight? I see a hand. Hi, my name is Jeffrey Thomas. I live on the Clara Street in the last 16, 17 years. I wasn't really planning on speaking so this is gonna be a little rough. It occurs to me that St. Stephen sits on a really valuable piece of real estate. If I were the owner of that piece of property, I'd wanna get as much money for it as I possibly can. The Catholic diocese is gonna get a lot more money for this piece of property if they knock it down, if they sell off the marble or anything else that's valuable in it. If they sell this piece of property with the church intact, the developer that's currently interesting is probably gonna walk away. Maybe not, I don't know. But it seems to me that this piece of property is gonna bring more money if they knock the church down. So that's something I'd like us as a community to consider. There's a lot of value in retaining this church. It's a beautiful thing. It's the kind of thing that gets on postcards for a community like Winnowski. It seems a sin to knock it down even though it'll bring in more money if we do. So that's my thought. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Zach. Another comment from the back? Hi, good evening. Excuse my disheveled look. I was doing a construction in a space for kids up the road. And I'm not sure. I'm from originally from, hi. My name is King McMillan. Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm King McMillan. King. And I'm the founder of the Fight for Kids Foundation. So I'm from New York originally and I've seen a lot of churches that were repurposed for like community centers and things of that nature. And I was just, I didn't hear everything that went on but I was wondering if there was like some common ground where I hear a lot of people talk about community spaces and we do like right now I'm opening the Winnowski use and on Mallis Bay Avenue, but it's a small space. And if we could do something for kids or adults in the community, it seems like that would be in alignment with the church's purpose ultimately. If that's something that might be an option that will help maintain the church as a building but maintain the structure of the community on a like a, it's not just about the building. It's about the community building the community. And I think the church as a building for building the community would be, is a good thing or could be a good thing. So it's just a question of is it an option to either repurpose it for something that for kids I would be willing to have a conversation about that. And the other thing just because where we open the space next door there's a mosque and the guy, he was saying, oh, you rented out the space. I said, yeah, he said we were looking for a bigger space and the mosque in South Burlington just took over a church. And I'm just saying if it's to be a religious space, I'm just throwing it out there as another option maybe the mosque from Mallis Bay Avenue would the church again, consider it staying a religious space and then being able to keep the building as it is. That's all I just wanted to share. Thank you. Thank you so much. Is there anybody else here that would like to speak? So that developed for immediately without checking into different possibilities of what they could do with the church. You know, my older brother used to be a developer and he, and I didn't mention to him that this was up to Zale but I kind of made it as Zale he put him to hold on to this project. But, you know, I said he does, he developed an FBI deal with the VA hospital, et cetera. And I said, wouldn't it be nice if you could put something meaningful there that would represent the church in a better way? And anyway, he said he was one who'd do anything to the church, he said I would do something. They're getting you on the Zoom right now. Sorry? They can't hear you on Zoom? Yeah. They can't hear you on Zoom. Yeah, if you'd like to speak for more than a couple seconds, come on up please. I know I want to just cover this all over his hands. We can't, unfortunately, can't really speak on that tonight and as of right now, no transaction has occurred. But they may be willing to talk to you about that after the meeting. So, yeah. Hi, everyone. Jeff Behran, I own House on Maple Street. I thought the gentleman that brought up the point about knocking it down would bring more money and is a really good point. And I'm curious that, is that the reason why? Because it would be worth more. And I also have heard rumors that there were other developers that were interested in the property and that they wanted to keep the church, but that their offer wasn't even considered. So, I was just curious if that was true or not, just throwing it out there. I love the church. I'm a confirmed Catholic, I think it's a beautiful space and I hope it stays. Thank you. Anybody else before we turn it back online to see if there's any more response online? And, Eric, let's take that to the Zoom one more time. Yeah, for folks that are online, if you have any comments, please use the raise hand feature and we will recognize you in that order. We do have Representative Bebeco on the line. So, Representative Bebeco, you can unmute and speak. Good evening, everyone. This is Daisy Bebeco. I live on LaClaire Street and I am currently in Montpelier where I represent you in the State House. I just have to say I've been listening and I couldn't be more proud to represent Winooski. I see a lot of opinions and various... I'm just very proud to be representing you and grateful for this process and that the community has come together and you guys are going to take these thoughts into consideration and refer to Act 250 and make sure that policies are followed. And I just, I'm so grateful that we have the ability to do this and that Britta and Steven and others pulled this together. And I regret that it didn't happen sooner. I know, and hindsight, it would be better that we had community come together through the process and be informed a little bit sooner. And I know we can follow along with planning and zoning meetings. Those are posted on the Winooski website where it can direct us later. But thank you, everybody. It is so wonderful to see you all and I'm sorry, I'm not there. Well, thank you so much. Is there anybody else online? I'm not seeing any other hands online at this time. Okay. Jim, just a question. Can you explain what happens next after the end of this hearing? Yes, at the end of this hearing, we're going on to another hearing, which some of you may be here for. What we typically do is go to a closed-door deliberative session where we will talk, and again, the decision we are deciding, what we're making a decision on is an appeal of the zoning administrator's determinations. And as a reminder, the determinations that were made came out of this book. This is the Winooski Bible right here. And so we will be discussing, based on the testimony that was brought in, whether or not the correct decision was made. And that's where we'll go from here. Decisions can be appealed, as I said before, to the Vermont Supreme Court Environmental Division. And I forget, there's another court beyond that, if it goes beyond that. Thank you. Yes. Yes. One question. Did I understand you correctly at the beginning of the meeting that the vote, your vote on this will also be done in closed session? Yes, it will. So that doesn't have to be done in open session. No, everything will be written out. You will see, if it's not unanimous, you will see it was a four to one or whatever vote. But that will be responded. I think it's 45 days from the end of the hearing. Correct. Once the hearing is closed, you have 45 days to issue a decision. Yeah. So, yes. Can I speak? Can you speak? Certainly, come up. Hi, I'm Louise Rushlow. And I wasn't planning on speaking. But my parents, Louie and Pauline Rushlow, were a very big part of this community. And I'm sorry, but yeah, my mom always said this was the best place to grow up. And 60 years later, we're still friends with all of the French Canadian kids that we went to school with. And we're still friends with all of the Irish kids from St. Stephen's. And it was the best place. And I just want whatever decision is made to really take into account that it's not about the money. My mother would always say, that's Pauline father speaking, that it's not about the money. It's about community, and it's about love. And it's about taking care of each other. And I hope whatever decision is made, that those ideals are followed through. Thank you. Thank you, sir. And we will invite Bertha, as well as representatives of the church to come back up and respond to any testimony. Right now I'm a senior. And Tom, if you want to come up and make a response. I think we're all set. Okay. Okay. But thank you for the courtesy. Yes, thank you so much for being here. Bertha, would you like to come up and make any closing remarks after the testimony? I, this is gonna be really brief. And I just want to thank everyone who spoke today. And I think it's wonderful that our community is coming together and weighing in and making their voice heard, considering what an impactful decision this will be. What I just wanted to do is remind us, and I heard it said that it doesn't matter whether the church is listed or not. That doesn't matter at all. I heard it said that the church is not listed, just kind of thrown out there sort of very casually. I just want to remind everyone that, and I'm gonna just read from the land use regulations here. I know you know it, but just so everyone can hear like exactly what we're deciding on here. And why the zoning permit was issued. And that's because the demolition of structures listed on the national or state registers of historic places shall be prohibited unless prior approval is received from the Vermont division for historic preservation or a letter from a qualified historic preservation consultant documents that the historical significance have been compromised and no longer relevant. So the decision by the zoning administrator was that the building is not listed, therefore it's not protected, and that's why we're in this place. And that everything else we're saying is so relevant, but the actual decision that's being made has to take that into account. And when we have a building that its state register listing is really unclear, and I think there's been a lot of testimony that has spoken to that. I really think that needs to be very, very carefully considered in your decision. So that's what I wanna say. Thank you so much. That's all I've got. I believe with the numbers we have, it might be appropriate to take a quick vote to close this portion of the hearing. Mr. Chair, before you close the hearing, you've got the exhibits that the zoning administrator has put together. Just for a complete record, those exhibits should be admitted into the record for consideration with the testimony. Yes. We also have, when we meet in deliberative session, we have many more documents we'll be going through. That may be admitted as well. Yeah, so just for reference, and I have a copy of the exhibit list for the applicant and the appellant, we have exhibits A through O that will be entered into the formal record. There is also a potential exhibit P, which are various correspondences that were received over the duration of this time that the Development Review Board will consider their evidentiary value and potentially admit those as well if there's any substantive information as well, and that will be included in the record also. All of the exhibits will be available online once the final decision has been issued. Okay, can we close the door? No, we technically cannot. Since this is a public meeting, we have to leave the doors open so the public know where the meeting is. But we can take a recess to allow folks that wanna leave to leave and clear the lobby as well. I was going to ask that as well. Can we take a vote quickly to close the hearing for now? No, the air recommended would be a good idea. I will motion. Okay. Second. Second. Okay, I'll see motions, Jordan, seconds. All those in favor of closing this hearing. All right, here's the end of this hearing. This closed. 10 minute recess. 10? Sure. 10 minute recess. Five. 10. The report, Winooski Falls Way, and I was hoping Eric might be able to give some background and we'll call the applicant up. Yep, I'll do a quick introduction. So this is a request for a variance from section six point, sorry, from section 3.6 of the city's land use regulations related to specifically related to parking, the location of parking in the city's downtown core zoning district. The applicant represented by Dave Marshall here, sorry, the property owner represented by Dave Marshall owns property in downtown Winooski known as Lot 9. It's officially addressed as for Winooski Falls Way. It's a small parcel kind of right on the northwest corner of the land out in front of the Champlain Mill southeast of the circulator. It's a 90 by 90 lot. It is within the downtown core zoning district. So the regulations outlined in article three of the unified land use and development regulations apply. One of those requirements is that any parking for projects located in the downtown must be located either on the site where they are or in another facility that is either municipally under controlled located in the downtown. The key factor there is all parking related to development in the downtown core district must be located in the downtown core district, whether on site or off, but somewhere in the district. So the applicant is requesting a variance based on a variance from that section of the regulations in order to allow the parking to be located somewhere else. So unless you have any questions for me, I'll let the applicant provide. Sure. I wasn't clear if the options are parking on site, parking in a city lot, those seems clear to me, but are you saying it can also be provided in a different place that's not owned by the city in the downtown core? The regulation, let me just read you the specific citation. I think I referenced it in my memo, but the specific language says all parking spaces for uses in the downtown core district shall be located within the downtown core district and shall either be located on the land where the use is occurring or the parking spaces shall be in a municipally owned or controlled parking facility in which event the applicant shall provide a written contract with the municipality which guarantees the continuous use of the required parking spaces for the identified use or uses for the reasonable expected duration of the use or uses. So I would say no. It either has to be on this property or in the city lot. Correct. Dave, I don't know if you were here earlier when we swore everybody in, but we do ask that you affirm that everything you are saying is the truth under the paints and penalties of perjury. I did. Thank you. For the record, I'm Dave Marshall from the firm of Civil Engineering Associates. I bring a little bit of background to this particular downtown project and the fact that we were invited to be part of the design team back in 1999. So... Sorry, Dave, if I could just interrupt you quick. I have your documents online here. If you want me to share anything, just let me know. Sure. Perhaps just the overall plan, site plan that was included with the application that'll help just orient everybody with regard to some of the dynamics that were put into play when the original downtown development project was put into place. So what this particular application seeks is based on the characteristics of how this particular lot was created by the city in conjunction with the other infrastructure and other features within the downtown area. So up on screen right now, you see two blue squares generally. On the left is a lot nine. That's the applicant that is before you tonight. And there's also another lot, a lot eight, so called off the northeast corner of the Champlain Mill. Champlain Mill was the one with the photovoltaic infrastructure on the top there. And in this particular case, going back in time, this downtown development project was subject to Act 250. And with that, it required that there be sign-offs from the Division of Historic Preservation in regards to impacts, potential impacts to historic structures and the downtown area itself. So out of that particular negotiation process with the State Division of Historic Preservation, these two lots were created. They're much smaller than anything else that was created as part of the downtown project. And it was done for a specific reason. It was done to make sure that any structures that were developed on those sites would not overwhelm the Champlain Mill. Champlain Mill's very important components and anchor of this particular part of the city. And again, what they wanted to make sure is that based on the positioning of these particular future development areas that it was controlled in a way that basically would not, again, overwhelm the mill. And you can see that off the quadrants. It's not in front of the mill. It's not off to the side of the mill. It's basically off the corners, specifically to allow viewsheds in all directions to the facades of the building. So the reason we lay that groundwork is that when you look at those particular lots and their size, they weren't intended to be have on-site parking. It was always intended to basically have them rely upon the parking garage infrastructure. And at the time when this was all created back in 2004 and earlier, the parking garage was empty. That was easy. Sure, you can park in the garage. Because again, based on just the value of these lots, lot nine is assessed at $2.4 million an acre. So it's not something you're gonna put a three-story sub-shop on. This is something that really has always been envisioned as being serious development through the very earliest agreements the city has entered into with the original property owner. So there lies in, again, the dynamic of the fact that this particular owner now is looking to develop the site. It has worked out previous parking agreements with the city, but all of those, they're no longer available, whether it be over a lot, what we call 7D, which is on the far right-hand side of the screen, on the far eastern end of the downtown core area, or actually the city had even offered parking spaces at the O'Brien Center that I think we all now realize wouldn't have conformed with parking within the downtown core area. But nonetheless, there were efforts by the city to basically meet the parking obligations that were created initially when this master plan was put into place. So with that, we're here today with the conundrum that the city has no parking spaces available in the garage during the day. It's oversold. The report or the information that the applicant provided in the application and supported by staff in their particular review identifies that through contractual agreements that there is no parking available to provide to lot nine or lot eight, for that matter. So with that, we're in a scenario where it really doesn't make any sense to try to develop lot nine with parking on it. Even the topography doesn't set it up for trying to put multiple levels of parking. It's just too small to basically provide those particular access points. So with that, the plan had always been for some substantial building at that location, the value of the land dictates it. And also the city's own TIF. Now that's the plan that utilizes the tax incremental financing. Any increase in value on a piece of land, those taxes are used for a substantial period of time to pay back for the infrastructure that was put into place for the downtown. So the plan had always been to have something substantial at that location and the applicant is moving forward with what the city had identified as far as a very high likelihood of a hotel being planned for that location that was put in place in 2006. Staff has brought forward the development agreement with the original property owner at that time. So with that, that's the framework of how we come to before you today. We would love to be able to move forward, but we can't without parking. The city has said, man, there's no parking for you. So how do we fix this? Well, one of the things that also was a dynamic component of the original regulations that were created, this was all done in the interim zoning and then as staff has indicated, as Eric has put forward, eventually it was codified in a formal manner within the city's development regulations. The idea was to fill the parking garage. We have to pay for it. And the last thing we wanna do is have somebody parking three blocks away when we need the revenue to basically pay off the infrastructure that we have put into place here. So that was also another reason why you had to park inside the core, either on your property or in the city property. You know, it's kind of controlling, but that was done for a purpose. So we're here today with the understanding that the city garage has been oversold and all we're looking to do is try to find a solution that would allow for some techniques in regards to offsite parking to be utilized to enable the hotel to be forward. Actually what they're proposing and it's not part of this application, it's something that would show up as part of a site plan application later, but it's actually used to LA parking. You know, when I go to Boston, last thing I wanna do is go and try and figure out where to park. So yes, I swallow hard and I say, here you go. Please go park my car and, you know, when I need it, I'll let you know with the 15 or 20 minutes time that they say you need to provide. So that's the, you know, ultimately there is a technical solution and with that, we're trying to find a way to recognize that when these set of regulations were created, it had a certain, had good faith or good intentions as far as how it was to be implemented, but that has now been lost with the fact that the partner project is so successful. And in that regard, there's no relief or no opportunity, more importantly, for the owners of lot eight or not nine to be able to move forward in a manner consistent with the original intent. So that's the background. Now the variance laws in Vermont require that you jump through some pretty specific hopes. And with that, it may be prudent for us to go through each one of those five and to talk those out so that you can understand how the efficiencies, you know, those particular issues being addressed or being, you know, I'll call it addressed. And with that, we can all form our own opinions that will allow you then to deliberate appropriately. So with that, I'm open to how you'd like to proceed. I was, I believe you were on a call with city council. It was a big mess of Zoom maybe two years ago, three years ago, that I was also involved and they invited me to come and chat. And there were some concerns that were brought up at that meeting and I just wanna know if they had been talked about or addressed and some of those concerns involved the potential for onsite parking and is that still an absolute no go to have underground parking there? It's really not a viable solution. So we've looked at it, you know, each based on just the square of the size of the lot itself. If you didn't have to do any internal ramping, you could probably get somewhere between 18 and 20 parking spaces depending on where you're asked to enter that particular lot. But in order to basically satisfy, you know, the hotel demand and 96 spaces is the one that's been published. You're looking at four, five levels of parking regardless of even taking away what you need for an internal ramping. There's only two places you could enter this particular property based on the topography. There's one off of the circulator and then there's the lower level down at the bottom of the Champlain Mill. So there's two levels that technically you could basically configure and then build everything up above that. But that's not going to satisfy, you know, the program that had always been envisioned for this particular parcel. Okay. And in a ballet scenario, where do you envision potentially parking people at this point? It's points north. We're still working out that. And that's something that we would have to come back to the city with to identify exactly where that is. Within the city limits or? Oh, absolutely. Okay. Yeah. It's actually within, you know, it's adjacent to the core district is where the spots that we're looking at right now. So there lies in, you know, so it's not really remote. It's remote compared to where you and I like to park our cars in relation to where we're going, but it's not a significant distance. And I know that there was another question that I think I believe I asked it. I don't know if it was answered at that point was in regards to a ballet type of scenario. You would be removing several of the street parking spaces in front of what we call a little park area by the crosswalk. Is that accurate? That is the proposal. That's before the city council as far as removing some of those parking spaces to enable those guests that are coming to register to basically short-term park and then basically have those cars moved out by the LA. Is there a contingency plan for a rush? Let's say a plane land. You've got a wedding that's booked up a good chunk of rooms and you've got 20 people landing on the same plane at the same time coming into with 10 different cars. That's probably the same with any urban area that basically has those same crushes. You either drive around for a while or you basically look for a parking space somewhere else. Again, not long-term parking spaces. You're looking to basically get out of the car and walk and check again. Impact on the circle. You don't envision a problem potentially with impact on the circle. No, no, the circle just doesn't set itself up well for anybody to park on the circle. But we do envision that the angled parking when the ski falls away as being the biggest candidate in regards to people driving by the hotel and going, that's where I want to check in. Where do I park? And that's going to be part of the search, in those particular rush periods. Okay. Any other questions? What would you say to the contention that the hardship that's mentioned in the guidelines is created by the applicant and their decision to put a hotel on this property? So, there lies in what's considered to be reasonable use of the property. I mentioned the assessment value, extremely high per acre. Again, that's not for a low use. The city has recognized it as being a highly valuable property. It recognizes that anybody who develops property recognizes that when you pay that much for a piece of property, you also have to put something significant on it in order to basically recruit the investment. So, it's not for the faint of heart. It's also not going to be something which is a single family home. It's obviously something that has always been programmed whether it be on the city level in regards to what their expectations were for the lot or for the sale price and what the buyer was expecting to be able to put on there. That is always going, that is always been the plan. So, is it a hardship caused by the applicant? Well, when they bought the property, the city had offered in conformance with the development agreement that was introduced in this particular application. Not by us, but the city staff, which is okay. But the very fact that the city as part of that component was obligated to try to find places it controls to basically provide parking. And it did so for a while. But now it's run up against the scenario where it says, I'm sorry, we can't offer anything. So, if we're no longer going to be offered any parking, what do we do? The development agreement came with the purchase of the property. Yes, it runs with the land. And if they sold the property, it would go again to the new, it lives with the property. That's my understanding. Yeah. That's my understanding as well. Yeah. That's not in the packet though, is it? The development agreement is. It should be included as probably towards the end of the packet attachment for this. Didn't it have a sentence in there about the city didn't have sufficient space in the garages, what would happen then? I don't remember what the predicate of that sentence was. Yeah, there is, obviously you can use the development agreement in both ways. As far as whether it's beating up the city or beating up the owner, and that says, oh, by the way, the city doesn't have to get you, you don't have a right to park. Right, that's the gist of it, I think. Right. It's protecting themselves. It's in this situation. There's a couple of different statements that kind of run counter to each other, which says in one side, it's like, we're gonna work together and figure out how to make this work for you. We're not gonna sell these out from under you. In the other side, it's like, well, we can't guarantee you anything. But at the same time, that'll be in the background. The, again, the original intent when the regulations were written was that you were gonna park in the garage. There's no other requirement like that in the city. It was done specifically for a reason and it was done to basically ensure that the parking garage was gonna be full. Well, very successful, as far as at least selling out the contractual obligations. Is this in the city building another garage or that's at least a proposal? This is an action that some of the documents. There is a plan to build a garage on lot 7D, which is the dirt lot behind the CCB building that we are moving forward with that. The city did have a vote to bond for that garage to borrow the money to do that. So that process is moving forward and moving slower than we anticipated, but there is still a process moving forward with that garage. Sorry, I'm just going through that application again. I'm trying to find the wording of the agreement. In the event that an insufficient number of spaces are available in the municipal garage, property shall provide elsewhere the additional parking spaces required to comply with the zoning ordinance. Who shall? The owner shall. And we would love to. It's just when you look at the downtown core area and its limitations, there's not many places left. Right. No, there's a logical push to increase the total return on an investment to max out what you can put on a lot. You look at the height, I think you've gotten, there was a, not a variance, but the height has been increased for this lot as part of this development agreement. It's actually compliant with the height limitations. 59 and a half feet. Yes, thank you. So no, there hasn't been a waiver for height components beyond what is allowed in the zoning district. I must have been misremembering something, but I assume that the developer has done the pro-former or whatever to figure out how many units are required to break even here, right? I trust that's the case. I don't know for, usually engineers don't get involved with that. It's hard for us to judge reasonableness. Does he need all 96 units to make, or is this like you want to get the most profit you can, which is understandable and logical, but is it reasonable to build 40 and you could make money on this? I don't know, because nothing's been presented. Right, that is correct. And if that's something that we need to provide, if the board feels that's an important component, then we can continue the hearing and see what we provide for you. Do we want to go through the five? Sure, yeah. The five variants. Yeah, requirements. Yeah, does that, again. I can bring those up on the screen here as well as they're outlined in Mr. Marshall's memo. I've got my big book for the first time. So I'm going to share my screen again. So it starts here under item two, basically A is the first requirement of the variance test. Correct. So whether you want to read that particular subsection A, I think it's important. Essentially it asks or basically states is like, okay, is the conditions of your particular lot such that nobody could have envisioned that when they wrote the regulations? So that's paraphrasing, but that's really the intent and the fact that what if you had a triangle shaped lot that was surrounded by streets that had extremely large front yard setbacks. Maybe there's nothing left in the middle of the pie to utilize and you say, well, nobody really envisioned when they wrote the setback rules on how to, how that might impact this odd shaped lot. Many times the rules are written because they're beautiful rectangle of lots and sometimes not. So that's just a background for flavor in regards to what the statute is intending in that particular case. At least my professional opinion over the years. So with that, the real question is, is well, how special is this particular lot in regards to those particular characteristics? And that's why I brought up the background of how this lot was created, why it was created, what size it is, why it's so much smaller than any of the other development lots within the downtown core. It is larger than many lots in the city, but at the same time, many of those lots aren't right in the center of the downtown core with specific financial goals set by the city. The city specifically was going to benefit by high level development of the lots. Again, I mentioned the TIF. Now that's the short term benefit of obviously being able to pay for the infrastructure, long term benefits of the city in regards to additional tax revenue. So the plan had always been to have robust development in those particular areas. In this particular case, again, the character of these lots were created specifically to gain approval from the state of Vermont in Act 250 in regards to development near the shape of Plain Mill. So that's why these lots are small. They're small compared to everything else in the downtown core, and they were done again specifically not to have parking on them, but to basically utilize the parking garage for that infrastructure requirement. So here we are today in the fact that the original base goal of how these lots were created and how they were going to be developed has been kind of been, the rugs been pulled out from under them. So we're looking to try to create some ability for the project to move forward in a manner that doesn't impact the city because if the goal was to basically fill the parking garage with contractual obligations, it's been done. And in this particular case, you can't sell any more. So the revenue stream has been set and at this point in time, now we're just trying to figure out how can we deal with the other party equation, which is actually to enable the development of these remaining lots that were specifically designed to rely upon the parking garage. And if the city can't provide the parking garage and as Eric indicated in the specific wording of the ordinance, that it has to be from a city facility, either onsite or a city facility. Well, right now we're still waiting for that particular opportunity to put itself forward. Who owns a lot of aid? The city. Should the current owners purchase the property? I don't know. I know it's assessed at $430,000 by the city. For the tax purposes. That's all I know about anything. Lot nine or eight? Oh, I'm sorry. That's lot nine. I don't know. Lot nine, yes. I believe, David, I think it was in 2014. I think I saw some questions. I said when did the current owners? Oh, when. I thought you said how much. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Eric already nailed that earlier in 2014. Were they the first, they purchased it from Pizza County? Correct. And that was never, I mean, do we know why it wasn't developed after the development agreement was made and before that property was sold? Yeah. I guess it was. I don't know. The development agreement was 2006. So the eight years when nothing happened or they were trying to put a deal together or something and then they sold it to this group and it's been eight years since then. Eight years. Since then. Now the garage is full. So they can't develop in accordance with the agreement anymore. Forgive me if this has been answered. I was reading through a bunch of stuff. Have there been discussions about 70 in the garage that may be constructed there or that will likely be constructed there shortly? I'm sure there have. I know enough to be dangerous because I'm also the design engineer for that project. Okay. And I'm concerned about the pressures that are already on that garage for the agreed upon development that's going to occur on top of the garage. So that's pretty much all I can give you without getting permission to share more information. We have an agenda for that later on. So I'll ask Eric. But it does sound like in one of the documents there have been discussions with current tenants of, I don't know what the garage is called. Abnaki? No. The current one is the Cascades garage. Cascades garage, yeah. To move them should that happen to the other garage. That is correct. So CCV is one that is very interested in allowing their staff and their students to be closer to their building. That would be one of the beneficiaries of the new garage once debate. And that would obviously free up some space in the Cascades garage contractually in regards to what is currently allocated to CCV. Was there space in the garage when the property was purchased or just the expression of the city to work on it? Was it known at the time? I don't know. I can't answer. I don't know that answer though. So that was the first, that's the first one, right? The unique shape of the lot. Number two. Item B here on the screen. Yep. So I'll read item B. Because of such physical circumstances and conditions, there is no possibility that the property can be developed in strict conformity with the provisions of these regulations and that the authorization of a variance is necessary to enable the reasonable use of the property. Again. There's that word. Yeah. Reasonable. Reasonable. Any questions about that one? From our board. So C, we talked briefly about whether the hardship had been created by the applicant or not. And this, again, you're speaking back to the development agreement. And I don't want to put words in your mouth. Well, in this particular case, the hardship somebody wants to develop here. And the question is, is it going to, it has to be three stories. That's part of the regulations in the downtown core. So you've got to put a three story building on this particular footprint. And the question is, is by the time you've done a practical three story building, what's left over for parking? Something that the math just doesn't work based on the limited size of this particular parcel. So now the question is as well, the goal had always been to utilize parking in the garage. Was this hardship created by the applicant? No, this was part of the program from day one for law eight and law nine was to park in the garage or park in a public facility. And cause also strict rule reading of the regulation says you can't go and tear down a bunch of buildings up on East Allen. Put some parking up there because it's got to be on your property or in a city owned facility. So the opportunities, city owned facilities, either cascades, you know, the existing garage or the future abnacate garage. So there lies in, but that's not built. And we're here today with, you know, the request that basically says the original way everything was set up was to rely upon cascades. Proximity makes all the sense in the world. And right now it's oversold. And right now, despite the city's best efforts, it doesn't have any solutions. And what we're asking for is the developer view board to recognize that this was a scenario that when the regulations were created, made all the sense in the world. But the circumstances have changed over time in regards to the ability to meet those particular standards and to enable the use of the property. I guess what always confuses me about these regulations is whether financial considerations are considered a hardship. You know, like, is it engineeringly possible to put four levels of parking below this site? Is it reasonable? No, is it physically possible? Everything's possible. You're talking to an engineer. We can do anything. We can say in the world if you give us enough money. Right, the fact that you'd be on this level in the river, it could be done. It could be one proof. Here you go. Yeah, you can do that. Easy. On limited money you could do it. Yes, so. We'll put an elevator in. And you basically move to different places. Right, you've got elevators, you've got stairs, whatever, you've got three parking spaces and you go 17 levels down or whatever. Good. For a level. We're good to go. Are there concerns about just in that, not the 17 stories down scenario, but in going underground a little bit as far as flood zone is concerned with the river? I know that. You know, so this particular property is located just outside of the flood limits. It does beg the question. If you dig a big hole and create a bathtub, what happens during the really, really large storm event? Of course it's going to get filled up. If we were developing inside the flood district, you'd be required to flood proof the building. That's not the case in this particular location. Again, that was also chosen as part of the Act 250 perpening, not to put things in the floodplain. So the answer is, is there the concern? It's never been really looked at seriously in regards to a feasible or reasonable solution on how you deal with parking on this particular property. So haven't put a lot of thought into it other than perhaps just the 15 seconds that we've had this discussion with. Next on our list. So the variance, if authorized, will not alter the essential character of the neighborhood or district in which the property is located. So our response here is that it actually will supplement the intent and the character of that particular area with obviously the sensitivities to the Champlain Mill. Staff brought forward in the packet that, well, if you're going to do offsite parking, what's that going to mean for that neighborhood and the character of that area? I think that actually will play out with an application that would have to come before you with regard to anything that occurs in any neighborhood. And either it's going to be a use that is allowable either through permitted, it's either permitted or conditional, and it's got to go through that test. And that is also part of ultimately how the zoning regulations have been set up and the character of those particular zoning districts. Or not set up, right? We've had questions about is a parking lot by itself and allowable use for a property, especially when it's serving another building. Yes, that has come up. We're good. Thank you at ease. I'm getting another headache because of it. Thank you. And there are a number of subsections in which it kind of asks for specific, you know, concerns. And that's the non-faulted sections that we can read between the lines there as far as, so the one I'm reading at the top is says, he essentially does not substantially or permanently impair the appropriate use or development of adjacent property. So that's, again, the original Act of 50 permit was specifically brought all those issues forward in order to basically deal with that, at least on the historical preservation side of things. There's always going to be some discussion in regards to access and how all those particular features of trash removal and things of that nature to be addressed. Some of those are in the development agreement itself. Others I think we've actually tried to design a even more sensitive use of the property, minimizing the impacts to the mill. So that we're kind of getting ahead of ourselves here, but nonetheless to try to fill in the blanks that we offer those things. We do access to renewable energy sources and resources, I should say. We have a statement says we don't envision that it's going to impact anybody's ability for energy resources. Many times when there are some communities that basically have specific shadowing requirements or minimizing impacts so that people can enjoy both direct sunlight and obviously in this day and age, the ability to basically generate their own electricity. Parking lot probably isn't going to do much of that as far as unless we start to do a 13 story high parking lot. So just in jest. But nonetheless, as far as what this particular use will do as far as sprawl we'll call it, impacts beyond the downtown core, it's probably not going to be an impact on that particular type of that issue. Detrimental to the public welfare. I actually have beat up the TIF enough in regards to if we can actually utilize as much tax revenue going as possible, then there's significant benefits to the community on that end of things. So those are just some quick answers. The narrative is there in black and white for more digest and if you like. And then last one, the variance if authorized will represent the minimum, I can't read what you're doing. That's why I stopped it. Thank you. If I were to represent the minimum that will afford relief and will represent at least deviation possible from these regulations and from the plan. So what we're trying to do is, what is the bare minimum that we can do in order to basically enable the project to move forward with the understanding that the only relief we're looking for is parking. How do we solve the parking problem? And right now, the regulations are pretty specific in the fact that it's either you gotta be, the city's gotta solve the problem or it's gotta be done on site. And we've talked about the onsite solution, which I don't think based again on the intention of what was to be placed on this particular property makes sense. And again, the city is challenged right now as far as being able to offer anything as far as parking within its existing and the proposed facility is still proposed. We all wanted to go for it. So those are the things that again, I just lost my train of thought there. So the minimum, we just want one relief from one particular requirement of the regulations and that's basically to allow us to figure out our own parking solution. And it's gonna still require investment on another piece of property to basically carry the day. And still require our approval to. Correct, yep. So there's no guarantee in regards to the fact that we'll ever find a suitable offsite parking solution, but the only way we'll find out is if we can at least further investigate that. Would that come before us, Eric? I guess it would depend on what district it's in, yeah. Well, I think it would also depend on what a decision looked like on this matter, yeah. Technically, projects in the downtown core do not require approval of the development review board. They go to the city council for design review approval and sign off on the amendment to the Act 250 application because there's an existing Act 250 permit for the entire downtown core. So any changes require an amendment to that application. So the city. So the variance is to have the parking outside the core? That's correct, yes. So I think it would depend on if the variance were to be granted what language may be built in that could potentially require that something be brought back before you all before a final decision or before a final design moves forward to city council. But otherwise, projects in the downtown core do not require any approval other than, as long as they meet the master plan and the zoning regulations don't require any other approval other than city council. There is a provision that does allow for the development review board to provide input at the city council's request but it's not a requirement. Do you envision a potential facility that requires parking for more than just hotel guests, restaurant, banquet hall, meeting rooms, that kind of thing? And how would that possibly play into your parking plan? Let's say, do you envision a banquet hall small that could host a 50 person wedding? Good question. The answer is no. My understanding is that even the original plans to have a formal restaurant has been put aside in recognition that the city would already has plenty of restaurants that we don't need to compete with. So they probably have a breakfast set up, so modest in regards to how to basically solve those particular problems needs. But after that... So there wouldn't be much of a call for anybody who wasn't staying at that hotel to come in. That's my understanding. So sorry, just to interrupt quick, I'm just noticing on our attendees list is the property owner, so I'm gonna bring him over as a panelist. There was about 50 people in there before, so I apologize, Adam, that I didn't see you in prior. But he did raise his hand to talk, so he will be coming over to the Zoom side here momentarily. But anyway, sorry, I just wanted to let you all know that he was coming in. Okay, Eric, can you, I don't know if this is better for deliberation or not, but can you summarize the state of... Can you hear me, Eric? Yes, we can, Adam. Okay. I'm sorry, but I just wanna thank you all for taking the time to review our application and thank you, David, for making the presentation and what we're here today at this point because when we purchased the property and the development agreement and went through some initial proposals with city councils back in 2014, there was never a parking problem mentioned. And what a great opportunity that I still believe in to develop a hotel in a great community of Winooski and have visitors have the Winooski experience. And oh, you have a hotel site, as Dave pointed out, a small hotel site with a 900-space garage right across the street. And the master plan defined our design guidelines that we've always followed. So we've just been following everything that the city put in place. And that was always our intent. And that was the exciting thing as a hotelier to have all these design guidelines as a parking in place to go forward on an exciting project that would be an extension of the Winooski experience. And to have a hotel in that location would help build all the restaurants and bars and use the river walk and be an exciting experience. But unfortunately, we are where we are today because the parking has become this conundrum as Dave has defined. And I've been living through for eight years. And as Eric pointed out, there's no spaces available in the garage. So we're here today to have the variance to explore opportunities to have your approval to go look for a parking solution outside the downtown court. So I thank you for taking the time to review our application and consider the situation that we're in. Thanks. Thank you. Sorry, David, you were gonna ask a question. I know there's a parking lot in the downtown area beside the Winooski Walk, yeah? One of those lots. It's Redstone. Redstone? Yeah. Parking lot. Oh, oh, yes, on East Allen Street there. Are parking lots allowed in the rest of the city as a use? That's a good question. I think based on decisions that this body has made in the past, I think the answer would be no. I think my interpretation of the regulations is that it could be. But that particular parking lot was permitted, I believe under a previous version of our regulations. So I don't know what the regulations said at that time. So that's how that was built, I believe. And just for reference, that is also, that's not technically in the downtown Corazoning District. I was gonna say, does anyone have other questions for David? I was gonna say, I totally forgot Aaron is on this call and we can't see him. So I don't know if Aaron has questions. Let me stop my share, actually, as well. Okay. Hey, Aaron. Oh, I'm good for now. Okay, thanks, Aaron. Anybody else have any questions or comments? Yeah. I want an opportunity to express in the right time. Absolutely. Hearing no more, no more questions for you, Dave. Thank you so much for your time. And we invite you to come on up and take a seat. I'm Aaron Wheeler. I am the facilities manager for the Champlain Mill. Before we begin, real quick, can you just affirm that? I did that before, but I do. Okay, thank you. And in term, our position is that we oppose the variance and believe that LA Park it will impact the area and the mill. So basically feel it will result in undue impact on the mill. We believe strongly that this is driven in large part by the continuing expansion of the facilities or the buildings that have been proposed for lot nine. And I would like to just take a moment to reflect back to the beginning. Dave did a good job of talking about the Act 250, the protection historical preservation of the mill. But if you go back to amendment one, and I acknowledge there's been several amendments. And you say that, and that was, in particular, it was 4C1065-1, which is the first amendment to the master plan for the downtown. In that amendment, there is a drawing which is the landscape drawing. It's 3.0. It's dated May 9th, 2002 at the date of the amendment. It was received by Act 250 and recorded and stamped on May 10th, 2002, as exhibit 25E. I didn't bring that copy with me, but it's on record. And it clearly indicates at that time, in my mind, what the intent of lot nine was in terms of a building. And it was shown on the drawing office building that the footprint appeared to be about a third of the law. And so I think going back to the five variants, the items that you summarize here tonight, that if you look at it, the hardship that's driven on parking is by the expansion from that first intent to where the project is today in terms of its size. And its size will drive spark in, which will impact park, which will impact Champlain Mill, and it will impact the surrounding activities within the downtown. And I cannot speak to whether it'll impact the city or not. That's been alluded to in the, you know, that that would have to, it's been discussed. That, you know, there'd be subsequent evaluation of any parking and who would weigh in on that or not. So basically in summary, I refer you back to that beginning because there has been a migration and every project over time will expand based on, you know, the ability to get a return on a particular piece of property. We all know that. But in summary, we oppose for the reasons that I've stated. Okay, thank you. Again, your first name? I'm so sorry. Myron, M-I-R-O-N. Okay, thank you. Can you remind me for context when the rotary was put in? Oh, that's a good question. I want to say, what, sorry, Jordan? 04? 04. 2004? Yeah. So that amendment, the first amendment to the Act 250 was, that was prior to the... Yes, 2002. 2002, yeah. And the reason I brought that up, because that's when the entire thing was conceptualized. Yeah. I believe it truly represents what was intended. Sure. Yeah. Can I ask Dave another question? Can we bring him back up? For sure, yeah. And I'd like to give you an opportunity to respond if you'd like. Did you help prepare that original 250 application? So the landscape plan? No, like in 2002, we had this all. That would have been Bill McCat and Liam Murphy. That was the original kind of mine. Okay, yeah. Bill Truex helped him out. He was the architect for the downtown concept. Yeah. Liam Murphy, the attorney. And I had a little bit of hand in there also. Yeah. A lawyer. They needed an engineer and architect. It's the start of a joke, yeah. Yeah. It's the start of a joke. So thinking about Act 250 and our previous item, would the historical status of the Champlain Mill be a part of the considerations for this project? Or because it's a different lot, does that not affect the Act 250 permit? I thought I heard that an Act 250 detrimental development for the historical building was an issue that needed to be considered. Correct. So because this lot has already been separated from that, is that something that would be a consideration? Or like the fact that this is being built basically in front of or to the side of the Champlain Mill? Is that something that comes up in Act 250? Absolutely. So it's all part of when you look at the downtown development design guidelines, they were specifically written to make sure that you didn't get into a situation where you, somebody was going to propose a non-compliant or a project that was going to create undue and adverse impacts to the Champlain Mill or any other historical structures in the area. And it goes back to materials and character of the building. So there are a number of written standards that you're required to comply with, both as part of the zoning regulations that basically have taken that language forward, but also as part of Act 250 when they authorize the project to move forward, they basically says, we're allowing you to move forward with the provision that you meet these other written standards that you put forward. So when you propose a McDonald's next to the Champlain Mill, that's not going to happen. But online is going to unduly, in my opinion, unduly adversely affect the character of the historic structure, the context of the area. So that's where the size of the building, because many times we get into discussions with the Division of Historic Preservation, they said, yeah, you can put an addition on to a historic building, but you can't do it in a way that it's going to overwhelm the original historic structure. So you've got to do any future development in a manner that basically respects that particular structure and doesn't unduly and adversely take away those particular historic features and characteristics of the primary building. So in this particular case, as part of that particular agreement with the Division of Historic Preservation, they specifically said, make sure that any new development occurs at X locations, Lot 9, Lot 8, not west of the building, not north of the building, not east of the building, but in these particular off-quadrants so that the building itself still has its own presence within the downtown area. So that's the background of, again, how that particular item developed. And again, when you look at the column post stamp plots compared to everything else that was developed and subdivided in the downtown, you look at those two and say, what's up with that? Well, it was done with specific reason. So you wouldn't, I mean, if you follow all the regulations that were put in place to ensure that you wouldn't anticipate any objections in the Act 250 filing to the hotel building of this height and these materials. So, we're humans, we object to any change. But at the same time, we also recognize that there is standards that approvals are based upon. And right now Act 250 has a framework that they've adopted that was offered by the applicant and approved by the District Commission. And ultimately those same roles are embedded in the city's regulations. And if you meet the rules, you're supposed to get an apartment. So, in this particular case, we're trying to meet all the rules in regards to what the building looks like, where it gets situated, and right now we just can't get over the parking thing. So, and if there wasn't any parking thing, the building would have built eight years ago. Well, that's an exaggeration. It would have taken a year. So, seven years ago. But, you know, we got involved with Adam in 2014 and we floored very quickly with an application that basically met those particular standards. I did screw up and the building initially was too tall. But we fixed that. So, but that being the background, yes, that's it. And at this point, again, if it wasn't for the parking thing, we wouldn't be talking right now because we wouldn't have to. There was previous litigation with the city and the applicant regarding this project, right? Is that still in court or has that been settled? I believe that's still active. That's my understanding. How does that play into this? As active as a court case can be. Right. So. How does that play into this? I don't know exactly. As not an attorney, I'm not sure how to relate. Again, not an attorney. I was not instrumental in creating that claim or lawsuit. So, I'm at a loss to tell you that either. So Adam actually has his hand raised on the call here. So, Adam, if you want to unmute, you're welcome to do so. Thanks. That case was dismissed. And I just want to reiterate that we have followed the master plan design guidelines specifically. And that was always the goal. And just a point of reference in history, there have been two hotels previously on this exact site. So we're not bringing a use that wasn't already there. The Brunswick Hotel was there a long time. And we haven't requested other than what Dave pointed out how the design guideline encouraged to make the hotel higher. But that we modified that to keep it within the 59 and a half feet. And this is the only time we're asking for anything outside the master plan and development agreement guidance that we receive from the city because the parking issue has stopped the project. So, appreciate your consideration and understanding. Thanks. Thank you so much. Thanks. Any other questions? Well, thank you so much. We'll go to deliberative session possibly tonight or at a date soon. And we will have an answer for you shortly. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. This hearing is now closed. I don't know that we need to vote on that one. Nobody's going to be jumping in. I don't think to continue. So next up on our agenda is city updates. I have nothing specific to update you all on unless there's any questions you have for me. Oh, sorry. Before I forget, Dave, I'm going to give you a copy of the exhibit list for this matter tonight. So into the record and you'll be available online once we finish deliberations. Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you so much. Take care. Do you have any activity on the case of the detached attached accessory? Oh, yes. So the property owner did remove the shed and I believe has rebuilt a separate building in the backyard. Amazing. Consistent with our regulations. Beautiful. So yeah. Despite his... Right. And it's clearly detached. Absolutely. Very much so. Well, that's... There is space between them. Yes. I.e. they are detached. Very good. Not to bring that back up, but... Duncan Doritz, I know you mentioned earlier that that was in court. I don't know if we could talk about that. Yeah. So we actually, we were just at trial on Tuesday for that matter. So the judge closed the trial at the end of that day. So it was a one day trial anticipating a decision in the next couple of weeks. Okay. And was there a George Street appeal as well? There was a George Street appeal as well. I believe that's also been settled, but I'm not sure what the outcome was. I haven't seen any follow-up direction to be given to me for that, but I know, I believe there was a decision issued. Okay. I thought we heard about that one last meeting and I thought the court and I think I might be wrong. Yeah. That's a good question. I don't know. I know it was, I'm pretty sure that the case has been settled. You provided an update. This was November though. And I wasn't there. Yeah. I think it was going to appeal. I thought. Yeah. I don't remember it, but I do know that they, I'm pretty sure it's been settled. Sorry. That the trial is over. Yeah. I don't know if it's potentially being appealed as well from one party or the other, or if a, if the decision has been finalized. Okay. So, but I haven't seen anything more on it. Okay. Other business. So is one other, one item, well, two items of other business. Our next meeting, if we need it would be March 16th. So the deadline for that meeting is tomorrow. I have not spoken with anybody about needing to be on that agenda. So I'm, I would anticipate that if nothing comes in tomorrow, we would cancel that meeting. So just, I'll follow up with you all on that if necessary. Also just wanted to make you all aware. Caitlin Hayes moved out of the city of Winooski. So she had to step down from the DRB. So that's why you haven't seen or heard from her in a couple of meetings with that said, Matt and I actually interviewed a candidate yesterday for that role. And we are recommending appointment to the city council for, for Aaron Morse, sorry, Emily Morse to be appointed to fill Caitlin's remaining term. That will go forward to city council on Tuesday. So potentially we'll have a new member at our next meeting. New alternate. New alternate. Sorry. Yes. New alternate. Yep. Yep. She's appeared before this board before. Right. She has, she is a design manager, I think is her title with Lewis Creek company. So she has been, she has presented to the DRB. This was probably four years ago, three years ago now at least on a project in the city. So she thought it was so cool. That's right. She thought that's where I want to be. Yeah. So that's the only other business I have. Okay. So the last thing on our agenda is to adjourn. I will entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Seconded. Seconded. All those in favor of adjourning say aye. Aye. That passes unanimously. So the question now is whether or not we want to enter a deliberative session on one or both or either of the items that you heard tonight or postpone the deliberative.