 I'd like to welcome everybody both virtually and physically for those of us that are here in the room. We're going to be, this is our first meeting on Zoom, so bear with us if we aren't smooth in our transitions to the virtual folks and so forth. So. Yep. And Dusty, if you want, I can give a brief set of instructions on how to participate and manage Zoom for those who need it. Yep. We'll get that in a second. So the, the, I'm going to actually make an adjustment to our agenda this evening. I'm making it on the fly. Before we do public comments, I'm going to put, move Dennis up to the first on the agenda. And Dennis, I'm going to ask if you can, I'm not sure what time, how much time you were planning on giving us, but if you could maybe target, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes and more if you need it, but we'll, we'll hit high points and you're usually giving us a lot of information really easily and really quickly. So with this, I'll have Darren give us a quick overview on Zoom controls. Yes. So for folks who have not used Zoom before, there are a few things you might want to know about. One is if you would like to raise your, well, first of all, your menu should be towards the bottom of your screen. If you are in full screen mode and you're not seeing that hover over the top of your screen with your mouse or hit the escape button and you should be able to get out of full screen and see all the controls. We will have folks raise their hand using the reactions button near the bottom of your screen and then you can hit raise hand. Keep in mind the other reaction buttons above that will go away after a minute. So raising your hand will stay raised and then take it off your hand the same way you push your hand. Yes. You can lower your hand the same way you would raise your hand. And then there is a chat. We will not be using the chat for actual commentary or communication other than to identify technical difficulties or for some reason your raise hand feature isn't working. You can enter into the chat that you would like to speak. And if you have any questions at any point in technical difficulties, please let us know and we will try to address them. Thank you, Darren. So I'd like to just recognize the myself and Ned are present in the room and Dave, Josh and Tom are attending virtually. So with that, Dennis, putting you first up. One moment, Dennis, with that in mind, you can take as long as you want. Yeah, he's kidding, Danny. The capital plan is always a work in progress, more so this year than any other year. Just so everyone knows, we switched over to a program called Plastica. It was used for blood-saving purposes, that's great for putting all the pieces together but it doesn't really put it together in a workable format for explaining the capital plan. So finance had to go to the unit spreadsheets, we've had to go to narrative and I think next year you may see a different format for the capital plan. The other thing we did this year and the past year is we've included water and sewer projects capital plans. We decided to take them out of capital, this capital, because this capital plan is based upon funds that are out of the general fund and it's too sad to put them on the tax rate. It does not go to water sewer projects. So we pulled them out this year to get out, just include those projects that fit in that category. And I'm working on the water sewer budget now and we're there and we're going to develop a separate water sewer capital plan that we'll go to the board with. It's not exactly adopted in the same way as the enterprise fund. We want to separate out those long term projects in that category from the ones that are normal only included. I'm going to tell you just a very broad aspect of the plan consists of about five or six elements. It's the capital plan spreadsheet, which is about six pages on ledger. The funding schedule, which basically shows what people requested from the two cents on the capital plan and what we finally agreed upon from the town manager, the public works and finance to actually fund from the two cents. There's a section on the capital fund financials that's in there. This is all on the web page. I'd be hard pressed to tell you where to find it because I don't usually use the town web page for that. Once I produce it, I leave it to other people to put it where it belongs. But there is some details on the capital fund financials, what are in each one of these accounts. There's a status of capital projects, which I did up, which basically tells us where we were kind of before we started the capital plan this year. That's in November. We started the year, obviously July 1st, but we did that. We defined what projects are in the capital plan. And then there's summary sheets. And those summary sheets are probably 120 pages long in terms of all the projects trying to define what's included in each one. So in all in that entirety includes that's the capital plan. What I'd like to do and do this very quickly, and I rely on Darren to bring up information, but there's a very small spreadsheet. The very first one, Darren, if you would, if you can somehow bring that up. That would be great. Smallest one, let's see. Just a moment to get to it. OK. I don't know if you can read it. I've had a little trouble reading it online, but I just want to I don't I'm not going into detail on all this, but I want to explain to you when you look at the capital plan either here in the annual report, you need to understand what the various accounts are for. So you see very first column is fund balance as of six thirty twenty two. This is what finance is estimated. Our fund balance is going to be after we've done the work that we've identified actually at the end of this fiscal year, which would be June 30th. What you see in the next column is how we've allocated the two cents from that are given to us as a result of the capital tax. That varies from year to year, depending upon what projects we have ongoing and where that money is is actually needed. But that's not all we spend on capital projects. So if you want to slide over to the right side of that there and all the way over, you can do that to the far right. OK, what you actually see is the estimated spend for FY twenty three, the second column over, and that shows what we intend to spend. So although we've got five hundred and twenty three thousand dollars from the capital tax, we're going to be spending two point eight million dollars. So where does that money come from? Well, it comes from the two cents on the capital tax in a lot of cases. Some of the two cents on the capital tax gets put into funds that are earmarked for future years. So it's not all of the two cents. Some of it is due to grants and the largest one that you see there about the fourth line from the bottom that one million seven hundred eight thousand five hundred thirty five dollars. That's in stormwater and that's the expended expected cost for our last flow restoration project to meet our flow restoration portion of the state NPDS phase two permit. The LDS project, which includes Essex Way, parts of what I still refer to as the Langfarm Residential Development, the LDS church and also part of the complex at the end. It's on the LDS property. That's why we refer to it as that that project. But that that is a significant expenditure and it's a very large project. So you can see that takes up almost well everything but a hundred thousand dollars of our expenditures. And the others are spread around between money that's being spent for vehicle replacement, money that's being spent for road work, major road work and equipment as you go down through, if you were to slide all the way back to the left where we started from. Here we go. You can see the various categories that we play stuff. And I'm really not going to go into those categories very much just to explain that we do bracket them into categories. When we got done this year, one of the things that we found quite honestly was there were some projects that we really needed that were not fundable in any way, shape or form. But it so happens that with money that's been given to us by covid through covid, not the ARPA funds, but other funds. We were able to use or identify some projects from the that are from the undesign what they call undesignated fund account, fund balance in the capital plan, whatever you want to call it. And the four projects we had was are these, just so you know, one is the Fort Water Tower Roof. We've got about $90,000 saved. That's a lot of effort on the part of the historic society getting funds for that. It's money the town set aside in the past. We needed about another $40,000 to get that project done so we can repair the roof and keep that building from falling apart. The select board approved that, so that's included in the capital plan. This front brickwork on the library that's greatly deteriorated due to salt intrusion and over time. And a lot of that brickwork and mortar has to be replaced. And so again, it's a major project. We've included in the capital plan or not funds in the operating account to do that. So we've included funds in there to match up with some earlier funds that we had set aside for that project. We put a few funds into the public works equipment replacement fund. We looked at that and found overall that we were not replacing not putting enough funds away to replace our existing projects at current prices. And the last one was one for the police department, actually police, fire, rescue and public works to a certain degree. But there's communications equipment up on Brigham Hill Road that needs to be replaced. And it's a fairly significant cost. And that is important to keep our emergency services going. So that was also funded. So we have done that. The other thing that we included in the plan issue that has not been there in the past is some of our long term needs. And that's just what I want to spend a couple of minutes on. This is going to be a need that's going to occur probably long after I'm no longer with the town and maybe other people as well. But there's there's two major cost centers that are going to the town's going to face. One is for stormwater. We've we will have completed when the LDS project is done. The flow restoration part of the permit, but that's already about four years old. The new permit requires us to move phosphorus. And with the village, we did a phosphorus control plan. I think the costs in the plan are estimated too low. We're looking at that. But the estimated for the cost for the town over the next that was 20, I think it's now 17 years is about five to six million dollars. So to meet that that phosphorus and control plan. Some of that is going to be through grants, but some of that's going to end up having to come out of the local taxpayers pocket. And if we're only collecting five hundred and thirty five thousand dollars a year from the two cents tax and right now that five hundred and thirty five thousand represents a tax on both village and town. So if separation occurs, that number is going to go down. And yet the need for stormwater improvements by permit that's required is going to go up. And so one of the questions that we've raised to the select board is the town, the board, the community needs to figure out how they're going to pay for this into the future. It could be that there's a lot of ways to do it. I'm not going to get into how to do it now. That's going to be a select board decision, but there needs to be additional funds or we'll never meet that permit requirement. The other one is buildings until we got our own building employee who's dedicated to buildings. I don't think any of us realized the shape that our buildings were in. And we found that through expensive projects at the library, public works, building, fire station, that once you start to pull apart a board, you uncover things that maybe you never wanted to see underneath that board and you find that you have to go further. And we've identified some long term needs in the buildings area that are expensive. And part of it involves moving departments around a little bit to create space, use some of the existing buildings. But some of the major improvements that might be needed would be a two bay addition to the highway garage for the water sewer department to put them there. Move them out of the building that I'm currently occupied, the old public works building and probably convert that to a public works admin building, move Aaron and Chris and the rest of the staff so that all the public works are located in one building. It's a need. It's an existing building. Most of that can be accommodated in the building, but it still requires that work be done there. Our salt shed, quite honestly, is falling apart. We store about 40 percent of our salt for the winter. We're always subject to whims on the part of the salt vendors and contractors during the winter time. And it's not a pleasant position to be in for a public works director or for the community. We need to get to a position where that structure is replaced and replaced with a larger structure so that essentially we can buy the salt we need for the winter the year prior to that winter. And it's basically sitting on our shed. And we don't have to worry about when we have a storm after storm after storm and the shed starts to disappear as far as quantity goes. So we're then faced with when are we going to get salt? And we need it because the storm is coming. It needs to be, and that's the way that V-Trans runs their program. It's the way we should do it. That's another item that I think should be on our hit list. The fire station needs to be expanded or a new fire station built. Again, this isn't a select board agreement to do this. This is the fire chief public works department. We've looked at these and we believe that's a valid concern. Parks and Rec, as you know, with the changes and what occurred under separation has basically found itself in probably an untenable position in terms of size and space for what they need. There are improvements needed to the swimming pool in that whole area. That whole complex is expensive. You start to cost all those things out and a swag, and that's what it is. It's not a detailed estimate and our swag is about $15 million. That's a lot of money and there's no way that the town is going to do that all in one swoop. Over the next 20 years, that's probably a bill that's going to come due in one shape or form. If you bond at a 4% interest, the debt's about $860,000 a year. It's not an insignificant amount and that's over a 30-year period. It isn't doom and gloom because we still have to put the money aside for our roads, for our paths, walks, trails, information management, natural resources management, a whole bunch of things. I don't think we need to lose sight of the fact that those two items, stormwater and buildings, are a looming issue as far as capital expenditures go and that over time, the community is going to have to figure out what we need, where we build it, how we build it, and how we can afford to pay for it. That's the broad brush of what I have. At this point, I don't want to get into individual projects other than if someone has a question about one, I'll try to answer it. You can go to the material that we sent you or the material on the web page and you can see the projects that we're looking at and there's a narrative associated with each one that explains it. I do have a couple of other things that I want to get into but I'll do that. I want to take a minute after any questions come up and I'll let Dustin handle any questions and I'll try to answer them. Commissioners, any questions for Dennis at this point? I'm all set. Thank you, Dennis. I sounded like shoe. Yeah, it was shoe. He's on. All right. Before you go on, Dennis, I do want to say I want to express my appreciation for the detail that you provided us, the guidance, and the collaboration. Aaron's going to be a big high target to try to hit. He'll hit it. He'll hit it. He's on board. All right. Why don't you keep going? Okay. If there are no questions, like I said, we're in the office. We've gone to a little bit of a split schedule, but if I'm not in, Aaron will be in. If you have a question about a particular project, like if it's a storm project, what are project and you're concerned or have just want to know what it is, you can talk to Annie, talk to me. We'll try to answer your questions. If after the meeting you think of something, send us an email and we'll get back to you to answer that. The other thing that I wanted to mention, because I know it's come up lately in terms of a couple projects in it, it seems like it rears its head all the time. This is not a criticism of anyone, either the development community, the planning commission, public works or anyone, but from where I sit, it's really important that I think as the PC deliberates on projects, town staff, especially from the public work side, we've established standards for lots of things and they're published. Our standards are recognized as being legally defensible and I'm thinking of things like curb cuts and site distance and those kind of things. We've gone through this, I think a recent project where that's kind of been questioned by the applicant and I understand that's normal, but I think that when it comes down to those issues, all three of us now, Annie, Aaron and I have PEs, so we kind of think we know what we're talking about. If the standards are wrong, then we need to change the standard, but if the standards are there, we need to make sure that in fact, from a safety perspective, we enforce those standards. We never want to be in a situation where, and I don't care where it is in the community or any community, where standards are waived, something would have happened and we find up in ourselves in court where we have to defend a standard that we did not accept. We just cannot do that and so while the applicant may have good and different projects may have very good arguments for, you know, waiving standards, I would ask that the planning commission recognize that we do know what we're doing. We do believe those standards are in the best interest of the town and that it's our sincere hope that the planning commission recognizes that and if they are standards that the stance that we take is supported, we will make suggestions from time to time and again, those are our suggestions. Sometimes some of the material that goes into these development reviews is what I would call macro information, things like wetlands, that where there's maybe a map and it's on a macro point of view, but once you design a project and you get to a point where you're actually designing roads and drainage, it falls to the micro level and then the question becomes, are you impacting that infrastructure or that existing natural resource? We hope they're not. We hope that the maps are accurate, but in those cases where we ask that maybe there'd be a checkmate, we think that that's important in terms of protecting that resource and if it means that a particular roadway has to be moved to avoid it, that's part of the process and I don't think we should try to avoid that. We should try to meet it head on and just say, okay, if we're not sure that the map is accurate or it's now at a micro level, let's check it. If it works out that it's fine, everybody's a go. If it doesn't, then we have to relook at maybe how we would redesign stuff. We want to work really well with the developers and their engineers. We try to and we do as good a job as we can, but there are going to be times when we don't agree and I think that's when it kind of hits the fan and I think we want to just make sure that the planning commission kind of understands where we're coming from and that our interest is in protection of the town and the applicant's interest is in getting their development approved and they're two separate interests that will often collide. Never seen that happen before. We try not to. We try very hard not to, but when they do collide, I think just trying to lay that as maybe a parting comment for the board and for staff that we need to be right if we make a recommendation and if we're wrong, then we need to change it, but if we are, if that information is correct, then I think our expectation is that the boards will support those decisions. That's it. Thank you, Dennis. Thank you for quite a few reports that I've sat through with you from you. You appreciate them very much. You're actually been recognized and we haven't really ever, anyways, I'll stop. I have indicated that if they need me around to help out, you know, a day here, a day there on projects, I'm going to do that. I just think that it's time to turn the reins of running this over to a person who probably can do a better job than I can. So it's time for us to do that and recognize that and go do it. All right. He's had a good teacher. Okay. Well, with that, anybody have any commissioners, any questions for Dennis before we move on? I'm hearing none. I don't give a lot of time, so be ready with your, with your unmute buttons. So now we want to roll into the remaining part of our agenda, which is going to be include public comments. And then we're going to get into a work session on basically, I know we call it zoning regulations, but it really is a work session that's on a plan on our work plan for the next year or so. So the term zoning regulations is probably a little too narrow for tonight's discussion. I think I saw our facilitator on board. So we'll engage with Regina Mahoney. We'll engage her with her in a moment. I was going to say you do have some public comments. Oh, hi there. So we are going to open up for some public comments at this time. So I welcome members of the public to give us some commentary. Full name and so because we're working with zoom, it may not be super clear. So again, when we see you or recognize you, please just state your name for the record and be aware that we're not going to be getting super granular. So, you know, if you want to share with us your ideas or comments, please do, but we'll probably won't be doing much debating with you tonight. That's the clarification. Are you talking general public comments for anything not on the agenda right now? Or we really don't have anything on the agenda. So I'm just opening it up for public comments. We'll give a few minutes. We aren't going to go a whole long time into this. So please be as brief as you feel you can be. The first name that I saw was Betsy Dunn. Thank you very much. Is Dennis still there? No. Nope. Oh, never mind. Okay. Patty Davis. Yes, I just wanted to say I admire you guys and I miss coming to the meetings. So it's been a long time, but I really am going to miss Dennis. And I know he's not on the, he's not there now, but what he just said a minute ago about, you know, the collision of developers goals and the town goals. I want you guys to remember the years that that guy from SE consultants, his name was Mark, really drove home that when developers do come that you guys on the planning commission are in the driver's seat. And what Dennis said, following the rules and what the people say, living here want green space and all that and protecting our natural resources that if developers don't comply with what you guys want, please don't settle. Just be choosy on what developer you pick. That's all I want to say because what Mark taught you is such a good lesson. And what Dennis taught you, we should never forget. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else who would like to offer comment? Al Seneca. Al, yes. Hi, I'm here with Brian Birch. We've been listening in. We wish we had caught Dennis as well because Dennis has been a good ally of us and we work well with him and we're sure we're going to work well with Aaron as well. But you know, I just wanted to make sure based on some of the comments that not all developers are the same. But I wasn't sure if we were supposed to chime in now because you said there was nothing else on the agenda, but we did have a letter in and we want to make sure that we get a few seconds here to just explain our case. You can give us a quick high overview if you want. We are not going to be getting into the details of that. We don't need you to get into the details. We just want to make sure that you got the letter, number one, and that we try to explain what we're looking for. And if it's a possibility, we would just like you to consider it. That's all. And I think that's fair enough. I mean, we do have the letter. Okay. If we were going to be talking about specific sections and regulations tonight, we would be able to address that. But we're really keeping at a high level and we're trying to gather the planning commission, both commissioners and staffs, targets for the coming year. So with that, please feel free to give us an overview of what you're looking for and recognize that there will be a time in the future when detailed discussion will happen. Okay. We'll give you a quick overview. I'll let Brian do most of the talking, but I'll try to get in here. Yeah. Okay. Yes. So we wrote a letter and submitted a letter, which you have, and that spells out basically our request. We're talking specifically about the RPDI zoning district. As you know, I know this board's been together a long time. And so most of you were involved with the settlement agreement. And those past five years, there's been a lot of changes there, a lot of good new businesses in the park and improved access to the trails. But with the RPDI Resource Preservation District Industrial, we were just hoping to keep it simple and have the industrial portion of that zoning district adopt the industrial uses. And on the second page of our letter, we just highlighted the uses in red, which would be allowed in the industrial, but not in the RPDI. Yeah, right there. So everything that's not highlighted is allowed in the RPDI. But those items in red are not allowed in the RPDI. And we would like them to be added. And actually, since we submitted the letter, we actually had a few that we thought could also go under either permitted or conditional. That would be a restaurant, car wash, medical clinic, and cannabis growing. I'm not sure how exactly you guys define that. It might be defined under wholesale establishment, but we just wanted to make sure that you guys knew there was quite a lot of discussion about cannabis-type businesses now with all the new laws and rules that may be changing soon. The short version is you want to update the uses for the RPDI. Yes, that's correct. And if there's another meeting we should be at to kind of give us more details, I'll just let us know and we'll be at that meeting. But Sharon had mentioned that you guys were in the process of doing kind of an update. And that would be a good time to get our request in. So thank you. I think that's probably what we would need to know for tonight is that we've got requests to update uses in the RPDI. So when we start whiteboarding, there's one of our items. Then we can start deciding on the time frame and how to map it out and start working on a tentative schedule to address these things and look at them. Excellent. All right. Thanks very much for your time. Thank you. Okay. Oh, let's see. Dina helping Barrett. Another hand up. Hi, how are you? Can you hear me? Yes, you can. You're on loud and clear. Oh, thanks. Our neighborhood is Maple on and we border, as you guys probably know, RPDI and Blodgett is behind us. So we are directly affected. When we bought this house, IBM was up and running. It was fantastic. It was in the trees. There was a business behind us. They had trees all through the parking lot. They had trees up to the building. It was a 25-acre lot, I believe, with another 25-acre next to it. It merged into one big, gigantic, clear-cut 50-acre lot, which to me was against the intent of RPDI. It should not be like industrial. A big picture, you know, top-level pictures should not be like industrial. Out by Susie Wilson Road doesn't have the houses. It wasn't a water source. What was behind us was a water source. There are people hiking, biking, trails. I hope you guys stick to and listen to what Dennis Letts just said, that the intent of that land should stay to preserve the natural surrounding. Any economic development should be done to keep and preserve the natural surrounding. I would not want a restaurant there. I would not want a car wash there. What's behind us really should have at least solar panels on it to mitigate the impact it's had on our neighborhood. We hear trucks idling. We've had trucks idling for hours and it bounces right into our yards on top of just, you know, climate concerns in general. I appreciate Blodgett. They have been great neighbors. I have nothing against the company behind us. They are really good neighbors, but I would like the intent of that land. I want the buffers to stay. I'm noticing the 50-foot buffers as I go for walks back there. Keep coming down. The trees are coming down. The 200-foot buffer that's supposed to stay behind us. At one point, I think it's only 175 feet, so that keeps creeping closer to us. Just keep that in mind when you develop the land. Thank you. That will be information that will be good to bring forth to us when we start looking at that section and zoning and so forth. It would be helpful maybe between now and then, and we don't have it then yet, but if you could maybe draft up your concerns, would she leave? She's still here. Maybe just draft up your concerns in writing and get them into staff so they're on file. So when we get to that point, they're not overlooked and you don't feel like you're coming in at the last minute. I think that would be helpful in the long run. You're getting your thoughts down now. Get them into staff so they're there. We won't, that way we definitely won't forget about it or overlook it at the time. Yeah, we have some of them informally in an email. However you want to communicate it to them, that's just so we have it on hand. Betsy, your hand is still up. Yes, thank you very much. When you talk about the cannabis shop that you want to have there should be opt in, is that too close to the founders in the middle school for the zoning? Well, we're not getting into the specifics of that today because that's just a thought that we're talking about and that would be something that again, when we get into the specifics of the zoning discussions, regulations, and so forth, we would bring up anything that's specific and they're making town regulations or mandates in place by the time we get to that anyway. So that's all something we would cover at the, as Dennis said, when we start getting into the more micro level. And I guess if I may, I believe we're still waiting on legislature to see if we can even allow the sale of cannabis. Well, I mean, it's right, it's neither here nor there for tonight's discussion. Exactly. But it's one of those items that changing the uses in the RPDI district would should generate a very lively debate when we get to that point. So stay tuned. Thank you. Lorraine Zaloum. Thank you, Dustin. Yes, lively debate indeed. Also, and that was my sister before I assume people know we're related, but I will certainly write something up with her too, because I want to know that there are also burns that noise that when something butts up against the neighborhood that we also protect against sound pollution, light pollution, because it looks like that wasn't well considered. There's no burn between an existing neighborhood and that new light manufacturer that's behind. And I don't want to make that same mistake. And I'm also seeing the waving of 25 foot buffer in between all of these. It's very disturbing because then I see the pattern of the developer saying, yeah, but you did that before. And so now there's precedent set and they're using that and you guys wave it. That's a consistent problem. So I will definitely work with my sister and other people and send in our concerns. And hopefully we will have a repeat of the last time. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay, we're going to wrap this up so we can get rolling. Patty, you have another comment? I real quick, I just wondered if you're looking at the outskirts of the ETC Next plan when you guys discussed neighborhoods, different neighborhoods around the ETC Next, which would be the land, the RPI or RDI, whatever that you're talking about, like Saxon Hill area and all that. Is that your overview? In other words, is that your template that you're going to decide what developers you want to keep that green space? That's my question. I'm not sure I understand your question. All I wanted to know was if the ETC Next plan and the neighborhoods around it are like a template for you. Are they like an over, like a mission statement so that when you do me and talk about your regulations and all that, you're using that as a format, as a template. In other words, as a mission statement. I don't think we can say that. I think that's lumping too many things into one pot. Howdy, the ETC Next plan is fairly specific to that geographic area. If you're asking if the same process would be followed in terms of going through the planning and creating a document and then implementing zoning possibly, but that would be something the planning commission would have to discuss. Is that what you're talking about? Okay, exactly. Okay. I think also to be frank with everyone at this point, the process may evolve as we go to some degree. We're looking tonight to do something that is probably a little bit out of our past norms, which is to come up with a work plan. It's going to be a somewhat fluid work plan as initiatives change, as everything changes, but that's our goal tonight is to come up with a template that we can start working towards for planning. Okay. Thank you. At this stage, I'm going to reach out to Regina and say welcome. Thank you for helping. Sure. Thanks for having me. We have six of our seven commissioners on board, all three staff members here. And I think as hopefully I was not too fumbling around, but fumbling around too much, but we really at this stage tonight's exercise is an attempt to come up with some of the major targets that we want to hit throughout the next year. And that's staff is contributing planning commissioners need to contribute to this. And once we have an idea of what we want to get to, then we can start talking about how, when, so forth. But it's a really big elephant, so let's take a bite. As long as it's not an elephant in a room. All right. Yeah. So that, that sounds yourself. Great. So anybody else who's on who's, I think it looks like everybody is muted. That me. No, I'm going through the mics. We're good. It's all yours. I just met Regina, introduce yourself so people will know. Oh, introduce. I thought you said mute. Why do you want her to mute herself? Introduce yourself so the audience will know. Hi, everybody. Regina Mahoney. I am the planning program manager for Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission. I have been at the RPC for about 10 years. Prior to that, I worked in the town of Milton for eight years, most of that time as the planning director. And what I do at the RPC really is sort of, it's probably best described as under the non-transportation bucket, even though we are pretty well married up between transportation and everything else that we do. But so I focus on land use, housing, energy, water quality, emergency management, lots of lots of different things on the sort of my side of the organization. So what I thought I would do tonight is just give folks a very quick presentation. It's probably about 10 slides, if that many, just sort of grounding in the concept of implementing the municipal plan. I think probably some of it is not going to be new information for folks, but it might just sort of help start the conversation, just sort of get everybody on the same page. Does that sound good? Yours? Go for it. Awesome. All right. So just give me a second here to share my slides. Okay. Can you see the right thing? Yes. Perfect. Excellent. That's awesome. Okay. So this says section three only because this is a part of a four-part presentation that kind of gives you the sort of full overview of land use in Vermont. So we're just going to run through a couple of slides in this particular section. So just starting us off, as you folks know, you've got your municipal plan and that's really sort of what lays the groundwork for what you do from there. And a lot of what gets is talked about in the municipal plan can either be implemented through your regulatory process or non-regulatory. And so the regulatory side looks like your zoning, your subdivision, your bylaws, any local ordinances that you might have. And then non-regulatory can be a whole slew of different things. I would say also including the capital improvement plan that Dennis just talked about. So just broadly, why do we have land use regulations? For the most part, they are intended to help you implement your visions and your goals from the municipal plan. And the first two that are on this list, promote compact walkable development and then also protect important natural resources. I would say that is well-grounded in the state's main planning goal, which is that in Vermont we would like to have, would love to have compact settlements surrounded by rural countryside. And from my perspective in doing this work and we sort of have the same thinking and thought process at the regional level as well, is that if you really can kind of concentrate on those top two, concentrating development where you want it to happen, that in turn helps relieve some pressure and protect natural resources surrounding that. And it really also can help you sort of implement basically everything else on this list. So it's a great starting point I think just in terms of thinking about where you want growth to happen, laying a good groundwork to sort of pave the way to a yes for that development to happen, and then on the opposite side you're promoting all these other things by doing that. Okay, limits of land use regulation, essentially this is probably not new information for you folks, but with land use regulations you can tell people what they can and cannot do on their land, but not to the point of depriving landowners reasonable use of their property, which would ultimately if we were doing that be considered a government taking. That's really embedded in the 5th and 14th amendments in the Constitution. The second point here on the slide is that Vermont is a Dylan's rule state. That essentially means that municipalities are not enabled to do particular regulations unless the state expressly states that you can. And so all of that is in for the most part, Title 24, Chapter 117 for our land use work. Then sort of going down a little bit even further, particularly in that section of statute, it really has these two sections that talk about the limitations and the prohibited effects. So main things to keep in mind are that limitations on local regulations include you've got to treat housing types equal and avoid discrimination against affordable housing, protect home occupation and home daycares, make sure you sort of lay out a non-conformity concept because once you put regulations in place and you change those regulations you automatically create non-conformities and you've got to be clear about how those should be handled. And a few other things, but those are sort of the top ones just to bring up tonight. So the players and the process, you folks are well familiar with this. So typically the zoning administrator is on the front end, they receive the application, they decide whether it can be approved administratively. If so, the zoning administrator issues the decision and the opportunity for appeal goes to you folks. If it is a quasi-judicial application, then it goes for the Planning Commission and then you folks issue a decision and then opportunity to appeal from there. So there are a number of different types of reviews that we have in our regulations. The most common of them are here on this list. So the first is a permitted use that generally means it's permitted administratively and requires a permit with limited review. Next on the list is conditional uses. Typically this considers external impacts of a use and its compatibility with surrounding land uses. Site plan really looks at internal impacts of the site and looks at the design within the lot itself. Variances allows for relaxation of the dimensional standards in very specific uncontrollable circumstances. If you read the letter of statute around variances to the T, it is nearly impossible for somebody to truly need a variance. Well, lots of folks think they need a variance, but to really follow that law, it's pretty hard high bar to meet. Then waivers, these allow for relaxation of specifically defined rules so long as there's a clearly defined process and standards for how the waiver should be applied. Then we've got plan unit developments. These allow for flexible plan design. Sometimes this is done as a carrot for implementing good site design. Also what can fall in this category, although it can be done separately on its own, is the concept of a conservation subdivision. So if you want to see a design where a new residential subdivision has much smaller, tighter lots so you can protect the surrounding farm fields or forests or whatever might be there, you typically need some flexibility on the dimensional requirements for those smaller lots that you're clustering. I would say that we have much, much better tools than a plan unit development, but we've got it in the books and it's there and lots of folks use it. So not unusual for there to be lots of improvements in how we do plan unit developments. Then subdivisions, fairly obvious, just the actual division of land. Okay, regulatory decisions. I'm not going to go too much into this. You folks know this. You've been writing your decisions, doing it in time, and like you're supposed to do, I believe. Unless anybody's got questions on that, we can circle back. So the appeals, you folks know this too. So appeals of your administrative officer, zoning administrator, go to the ZBA and the decisions that you folks make and the ZBA makes, those go to the state environmental court. Just a quick reminder of interested persons. So not everybody has the ability to appeal a decision to environmental court. You've got to meet these specific requirements and you also have to have participated in the process, essentially. But also the final decision of who can appeal and who can't appeal really need to be made at the local level. That's the environmental court who can make that decision. And last slide, just non-regulatory implementation. So just again, a little bit of thought and thinking on the variety of things that can fall under this category. So you'll see that there. Okay, so I'm going to stop sharing. Any questions before we actually start putting pen to paper and brainstorming? And conceptually, that's, you know, we're on board with you with what you just said, it's an outline of our basically our existing process. So I think we are good to go. Okay, great. All right. So we did get some ideas via email. So that is great. And I can, I can kind of share that. But I think probably before we talk about what we got so far, let's just open it up. And really, the concept and the thought is to try to establish a work plan for 2022. So really, it's a it is relatively short timeframe in the grand scheme of things. But in thinking about your work for the next next year, what would folks like to see on the list? I'll start take the first swing at this. And correct me as we go. I would like to put the ETC next at the top of our list. That's my own personal choice. We've done so much. I'd like to really start memorializing the changes that we need for that. I don't know what they are, what they would all be yet. But I think that's that's an effort that we shouldn't put off very long, or we should find ways to work on it concurrently with everything else that we're doing. I'd like the other thing I'd real, I'll say pet pee that I want to nail down as I really want to strengthen PUD discussions, because we struggle with that every single time we do one. And I understand the nature of the beast is that it is flexible. And it does require interpretation, but we really should have a pretty clear set of guidelines that we can use to apply an interpretation or develop an interpretation using number of points and so forth. So I think those would be my high points at this stage. But I want to make sure to get on the list. Next. Yeah, I've got a couple. I was second the ETC. And it really picks up what Regina heard slide number one, when they're talking about compact walkable development, we have that kind of area. So that that is really prime. But I think I'm not sure number one, did we really decide that we were going to use a form based code for that area? I mean, we'd be around for about five years and never really decided. So so that that just gets mixed in, I think with the with the number one priority. You know, we have a host of other things we've talked about over time, updating our PUD regulations. We know coming down the road with the Housing Commission and all, we're going to have to also include inclusionary zoning both in the ETC and in the town as a whole. You know, we really and I kind of tie some of that stuff into how we when we make plans, we come up with the incentives to get the kind of mix of affordable housing that we need. And the couple with that, and I'm going to throw them all out at you. We also need in that same framework to deal with the energy efficiency, because I think that's a big a big hammer that's going to sit over us. And so how do we incentivize that in a planning form? I'll get some other stuff. Well, it's I hear somebody else. Well, we heard tonight we're going to get Saxon Hill and review, but those are kind of kind of little things and maybe some of the little stuff we can hash out, you know, one at a time at a meeting when we have the time. We need a bucket called little stuff. I like that. So in 2024, when you finish all that, what do we do? Well, speaking of which, you've got a town plan update coming up in 2024 as well. And that's all that that should be on the list then to start prepping for that. I mean, that's that that I'm sorry, Regina, that's just our stuff that you as staff can contribute and put on this list. So we don't we have all that we have the long term in front of us as well. So anyways, I'll be quiet now. I probably won't stay quiet. No need to apologize. Okay, you guys online. You're not going to get out of it without saying something. David's got his hand up. Who? David has his hand up. David, where's his hand? Who's watching that? Thank you. You try to be you try to be civil and follow the rules and and you know, um, try David jump right in. So ditto to the PUD discussion. I think the last year or so has shown that we really need to look at that. I if we're bored, I would love to go back and revisit phasing. I'm not sure that our current phasing policy and process is serving us well, given that we never bump up against it, meaning the the maxes. And then I would like at some point to really start to look at affordable housing and specifically whether our density bonuses are effective and or could be more effective. That's it for me. Josh, instead of saving us to keep watching for your hands, just jump in. Okay. I mean, I haven't been jumping in because there's been a lot of Everett in the background. He ran off so I have a minute. It owes to PUD, ETC for the reasons discussed specifically sort of a little broader farther afield. I really like the idea of us tackling the once and future walkable communities of the Fort and then the old historic center, because both of those places were at one point very dense communities with all sorts of amenities. And I mean, maybe all the bones aren't still there, but there's stuff there that we can work with because really those those places are exactly the kind of things that we say we want and they used to be those things. So those are my big two things. I've got some little things mostly preparing for the future. So making sure that new development solar ready has the ability to add electric charging easily. And then to David's point on density, affordable housing density, I'm definitely interested in figuring out ways we can increase density in existing and in developed areas in field development. Do we ignore shoe? I can speak. I'm ready. I'd say ditto to the PUDs. That's the one that I find in my mind is the highest priority is to revisit that and try to understand how we can use that more effectively or clean up the language around it so we can say, this is a PUD or this is not this doesn't meet the spirit. It just gets so subjective that it just becomes difficult to get through that process. And it feels like nobody wins. I'd like to fix that. I also ditto to the density bonus. As David mentioned, I'd like to see that and Tom really like to see that get get used in a really good way as opposed to similar to PUDs. It seems like it when it finally does get used, we're all like, really, that is not right. The right application. And of course, CTC next ditto to that. So I don't really have anything new to add, but I just want to add some emphasis to those three things. But you guys, we got a whole list and we can share with you if you want. Yeah, one item that I'm not sure we want to tackle on our own, but we probably want to tackle with the energy committee is the future of carbon neutral zoning and that whole thing. And I think some of us are still struggling to totally understand it. But these are the kind of things if we're going to look to the future that we might want to be either leaders in it or be prepared for at some point, it may come from above and we'll have to deal with it. And it will be better if we maybe had rushed around with it and with the energy committee on both carbon neutral and all the other energy efficiency bonuses. We should probably reach out to them and if they're interested, we'll do something. I think you'll find them more than willing to participate in the interest. And maybe to add on to one of the comments Josh made was it's not just the walkability of the fort, but it's also the development opportunities in the fort zoning. And so if we run into that, a number of times when folks have wanted to do something, but they can't because it's not zoned for it. And it would seem to make sense as far as looking at that area, we haven't had an opportunity to really dig in. Is there something we can do there to make it more effective? And again, more developer can also include the walkability components of it. So it's you don't have anybody or any uses, whatever. That's the William Parkinson has had a request in on the list for many years for you to relook at that. There's also issues there that public works is working on with the capacity. One of the other things that I think we generally come in for some criticism is that the planning and the approval process can be burdensome and stretched out too far. So I think we need to take a hard look at how we can get things into a pipeline. And if somebody is there with money in his pocket and wants to do something, how we work together to get what we want and to get them down the road faster. As long as it's the appropriate. I wouldn't say that may be that they came earlier but because when an applicant comes to us, what the patient is willing to work as their other proposal, we get it as possible. That's only when we get a lot of Yes. Yeah. Well, I think that that when they talked about, you know, rezoning at Sand Hill and permitted uses and all, I think we really don't like to see them lose potential developers that we don't even get a chance to discuss even. And so I'm looking at a more open structure maybe to, if it's reasonable, we can figure out a way to consider because we'll never come up with every possible use that they're going to want to do. Yeah. You could do it with broader use categories or maybe performance standards that you say, you know, as long as you're not creating a nuisance to the community. These are really intangibles. Hard to define. And certainly, let's also not lose sight of the fact that it's not, we're not here for the developers per se. We're here for the community. And that's the other points that have been made is that we got to not lose sight of community, community good. Right. Exactly. That's the goal is figuring out how to define that. And so I'm, I'm hearing, go ahead, Darren. I was gonna, you had asked earlier staff had anything we wanted to add. You know, there's plenty of, you know, very specific topics we can get into you folks covered. Most of what was on our major hit list. The other things were parking. And both in terms of the amount of parking and how the standards are, specifics of the standards and, you know, waivers for being close to transit and, you know, walk bike amenities, and looking also such as things such as bike parking and getting more specific about what the look like, what that looks like. And then sort of in that context, we did receive the bylaw modernization grant from the state. And the idea behind that is to look at the whole structure of the rags and some of the major topics and bring them into the 21st century. So that includes things like density, PUDs and the development review process, parking. There's at least one of walkability and streetscape. So we've already covered that in your interests. But that's an enabler. Exactly. When we get to the discussion, how you got it, you were ready. And one of the things that we, the way we structured that grant is knowing that we'd already be working on a lot of this stuff. You know, the town is committing to putting those regulations into place. And a lot of the grant money that we have gotten will go towards a build out model of if we applied standards, such as what we've contemplated in the ETC or such as the state wants us to do throughout our sewer core, our, you know, core development areas, what sort of, you know, densities would we be looking at what's actually possible and therefore what sewer capacity or traffic needs would we have? And how do we get there? But that's sort of the framework we've worked, we've thought about and we'd want to share with you. And we do have a commitment of trying to at least produce a draft set of regulations by February of 2024 under that grant. I think January 31st, yeah. And I think that's plenty of time for us to get into some of this stuff, but there's a lot to deal with. Well, it's good to have that understanding of the target, because again, with a lot of this, if we don't put a target on it, you can't, if you don't have a target, you can't hit it. Exactly. Yeah. Regina, you've been listening to us and Yes. What I'd kind of like to get your thoughts on it is I'm hearing we've got a number of not not little things, but but short term low hanging fruit, supermortar speak projects that are going to go out beyond this next year, regulatory things, the town plan update is an example of that. I mean, it's I'm hearing things that start to fall in my mind in natural buckets, groupings. And a lot of pieces from the time when we get into diversity, density, housing, that's like I, this is general, the density is going to seem that might affect even if it's just to say, nope, never going to happen. Where is density appropriate? We do that by understanding. Housing again, it's sort of the same. But there might be aspects of like, how do we what density bonuses we offer. Energy, I think is a really big bucket because energy can be anything from, from some of the design review standards that include you know, boyers or fix shading devices on buildings to bike parking, like color route ballast parking standards, because maybe through the reduction of parking, we're thinking that we're going to encourage more, you know, sensor land use that encourages public transportation or that can allow for public transportation. And then the environment, I guess, sort of and sort of some energy, but as it's on buckets, you know, that's all of our natural resources. And then for specifics, ETC, 40th and L and then P priority. And we also, we can't miss performance standards because we do really meet when we're thinking about density and people living closer together and mixed use districts. We really need to think about how these things come together. And a lot of times outlining some, some level of performance standards and help everybody approach development with the same understanding. Yeah, right. So, Regina, from that's, let's bump over to you for a little bit. So do you, do you feel we've got, like, can we create a workable outline from what we've been bouncing around here? Yeah, I think so. And I'm slightly hesitant to share my screen, but I'm going to do it because I would have liked to have like made these buckets perfect by the time I'm sharing my screen, but they're not. But I think at least we've kind of definitely got things captured here pretty well. Let me just kind of zoom in so everybody can see your window to Regina, that would help. Oh, yes, right. Does that better? Yes. Okay. All right. So, starting off with the big stuff, we definitely got the ETC, lots of folks agreed on that. The, I just moved the fort up here only because I think this is definitely in the walk, both of these are in the good walkability category, but maybe the fort isn't the is sort of like next up after ETC potentially. I don't know how how you'll, how you'll figure this stuff out. Inclusionary zoning definitely is going to come to the table because the housing commission is working on that. Energy efficiency, I've got that there. Process improvements, parking, and then I kind of added bylaw modernization and sort of took some of the things I had up here and dropped them down here because I do think you will be able to through that grant look at density probably fairly broadly at in the town as a whole really look at the the PUD regulations within that and sort of the whole idea behind that whole grant is to figure out how to get more housing and more affordable housing in town. So, I think you'll kind of through that be hitting a bunch of targets. Then got OISO's performance standards concept here, the town plan, and this concept of these sort of larger themes, which you know all of this could sort of be categorized under that under those. And then I did just have these the little stuff down here you know I think the solar ready could easily be thought about in the more broad energy efficiency concept. But it also could be you know that could be relatively easy small that you kind of drop in the zoning regulations. So yeah that's that's kind of what the list is looking like. We were thinking if we had time we could also if it's helpful brainstorm a little bit on what criteria you'd want to kind of flesh this list out from so you can sort of prioritize unless it's feeling kind of like an obvious prioritization to folks already, particularly because of the bylaw modernization grant which you have. ETC seems like a big big big topic. The fort and the inclusionary zoning those are going to be coming up to your table. So I don't know if the list in terms of priority order looks a little like that ish. Darren did you were you're going to give something to I wanted to add something but it's it's captured in the 2024 town plan just that we have to do wildlife habitat forest blocks as well. But I think more from a broader planning perspective than a zoning level discussion at this point. Yeah. I didn't want to lose that because it is a statutory requirement now. Yeah. Good. I have a question. Are we so what did you mean by performance standards? Is that like energy efficiency standards? No like nuisance standards or. Go ahead. So with the Champlain Valley Expo and their sound permits through the village be an example of a performance standard where they can't go above a certain decibel level? Yeah, that could be. I mean anything can be under. Like picking up the trash or something or allowing. So I'm crashing closures and and just general sort of well being of places and spaces. Okay. Thanks. I just didn't I just didn't really know what that means. Thank you. When we get into that if we if and when we get into that little detail it would be good especially if we start touching on things that might have legal implications that we get police chief involved because we had issues way back when we tried to talk about enforcing zoning sound and there was no way for them to enforce. So there was like no way for us to put anything in unless we got people to be nice and put up baffles for air conditioning units and so forth. So it just I think that's if we get to that point we can't we let's have the right other staff engaged with us in those sorts of discussions. And maybe another thing under performance standards is screening of mechanical equipment. Exactly. All right. One of the first things I heard from Ned when I started the screening of mechanical at the bank and then later on. Yeah that that kind of stuff gets to you know really fine fine level that you know it doesn't because it just makes such a difference. You can have a gorgeous project and then if you have these awkward mechanicals in the middle of you know the front lawn or whatever like unscreened and because we don't have any performance standards or there's nothing about screening of them. But this is where also in the last application that we had when we were talking about separation between two different developments potential development and existing and also which one of the members of the audience mentioned with berms around industrial and so forth. So that's that's where I would see performance standards being able to be applied setting the expectations up front so that people know that you're going to be expected to mitigate sound mitigate vision. And I think the point of performance standards is putting some quantity on that and some measurable way to say you've achieved the goal or you've achieved the intent. So performance standards. Would you be able to incorporate the performance standards into some kind of a form based format. Oh yeah, I'll just pass that theoretical. We're on this topic. Does what happened with the model lighting ordinance? Did that go anywhere? Yeah, whether it's form based code or what was that tone? The model to temper. It's I still have a document somewhere in my office of the study that CCRP said see did on lighting standards. So I can share that again if you're interested. Well, I'm just thinking that might be a topic under performance standards. Yeah. Yeah, or energy efficiency. So there's there's have to be overlapping every single one of these things as we go. But we obviously can't start doing anything unless we have some ideas of what we approach. So as we I would expect as we got into if we if we took a broad topic like ECC next we get into that and all of a sudden we're going to start having to bring in the energy efficiency incentives and parking because maybe that's the area where we have reduced whatever we change the requirements to drive a different business model or a different housing model or whatever. Yeah, and I would say I'll stop sharing my screen that because you've got your town plan coming up as well. If there's some topics that just you can't quite come to conclusion on what's the right approach. You know some of those kind of higher level topics can be worked out in the town plan to to sort of then help set the stage for what how you address an issue next. If it's a really pressing issue that's probably not a great strategy because it's going to be a little while. But that you know in terms of energy efficiency I'll just sort of take that take that topic because there's definitely good things that can be done via zoning to help address those issues climate change issues the state's energy goals. But a lot of that also it's not in zoning necessarily. The main most important thing I would say in zoning is make sure you get those the zoning right for the walkable dense areas so you can really concentrate growth, get folks housed in a way that they can walk to some things as opposed to always have to get in their cars you know all of that that kind of the benefits that come from that. That's to me the main most important thing to do in zoning from a from a climate change perspective. And then a lot of the other pieces can kind of get you know either figured out when you're looking at the town plan or also the state is going to just be putting out a lot of money and grants for these kinds of things whether it's electrification, whetherization of municipal buildings, lots of money is going to be on the table in the next year or two. And those will sort of end up you know becoming a prioritization and sort of dictate what you do because the money's there and if you're prepared to go for it then that's going to that will help help too. So I think there's going to be a lot of effort on that. And just to say that I don't think you've got to sort of sit around and do a lot of thinking on that it'll it'll come. That's a good point. So my question now is to whoever can help with this whether it's Regina or I'll even look at Ned. But how do we take this list that we've got and translate it now into into work items? And I don't mean specific granular you know exactly yet. We're going to get granular the more we go into this the more granular we're going to have to be or microscopic as as Dennis was referring to but how do we transition this now? We have a broad we have broad topics and we want to get things that we can work on and work on in say the next six months. I mean we're a PC that meets twice a month so our time frame is stretched out just by nature of our meeting schedules. We could add additional meetings in and we've as we've done in the past if we have acute needs specific needs. How do we how do we translate this now into a work plan? Can we send the list Regina's list to all the PC members and have you prioritize? Okay let's say I'm even going I think that's a good step I would agree and I don't mean to take Regina's thunder but I can't stop talking sometimes. No offense. The question really is how do we when we get that list I think prioritizing everybody saying priority great. How do we now transition from a wish list to a work list? Another question that might help frame that is how does the PC envision going through this process? Do you want to have all these discussions on each of these topics at the full table? Do you want to break up into you know work groups or have you know specific PC members working with staff? What's the structure you want to start chipping away at these because once you start delving into a topic you come up with more questions you come up with needs for you know to get do more research you come up with a list of here's what we'd like to achieve how do we get there and I think given the scope of what we're talking about it could easily eat up you know the next six planning meetings if you want. A five year list. Didn't quite frankly it's it's it's we shouldn't expect everything on this list isn't a year I mean this is a multi-year bucket. So there's prioritization for sure structure of how it gets down an organization. Yeah and I would think you would need to know what the priority is in order to determine how many workshops or separate groups. A priority can shift based on what can be done right. Yeah I guess you know it depends on what is coming down the pipeline for everything else and if it looks fairly thin we could you know set aside bigger hunks of regular meetings to deal with whatever you know up to date as long as we keep moving forward. Yeah and we could set aside you know your second meeting in the month for just planning topics again you know with some flexibility based on what comes in the door. We did that in the past with with the allowance of consent agenda items. So Virginia from from like an RPC standpoint I mean this is not something you wouldn't have seen before right. So what would you I mean would you have a thought on transitioning from a wish list to a work plan. Yeah and I think what probably would make sense is to just sort of think through some some basic criteria on how you would sort this and I can I'm happy to sort of drop it into a spreadsheet if that helps and put some columns in it and I can offer my thoughts on how to answer each of these questions but I think it probably would be a good next step for for you folks to sort of go through that exercise but I think what you would have to review are the sort of urgency, the difficulty, the resources. So do you have the resources on the table to do it and as we know you've got the bylaw modernization grant which certainly helps from a resource perspective on those items and you know I think that's probably and then maybe if you would want to think about additional structure or other folks that could maybe help with these I don't know if there's other committees or whoever then you also could add so who's going to do it and I don't know if there's any thinking too of you know what's I think what Darren was just asking is there some things a little bit more in staff's bucket or how is the PC working with staff on that or is there some stuff that the PC is going to sort of take a little bit more ownership on maybe in small buckets of subcommittees so that can be kind of a helpful column to just sort of think through in terms of like okay who's going to take the lead. And Regina makes a great point about leaning on the other municipal boards and committees a lot of them have said you know they really want to work with the planning commission on their interests and issues. So how about and rest of the commissioners please chime in but how about as a starting point for people to poke at taking taking Regina up on the idea of spreadsheeting this and adding some of the qualifying questions that you talked about and circulating it and over the next few results reserve some time in every meeting coming up to flesh this out a little bit more maybe half an hour not not overdo it but don't keep keep fleshing this out a little bit so it's a little bit more defined and identifying which groups groups and or individuals might be good resources for it Ned yeah I I don't want to spend six months deciding what our priorities are no I think we have a priority right so now how do you know we need to start how do we transition into working checking them off and we I don't think it's it's effective to just grab number one on the list and and do it to the completion because there's so much oh no we we need a plan to be able to do that planning commissioners want to um try to have a joint meeting with the energy committee and talk through energy issues um have a joint meeting with the housing commission or does someone want to go to one of those meetings here's the concept and invite them back to the planning commission table is what so let's let's make that be a phase two of our of our process let's take another another meeting or two to clean this list and process up or not process the list up we have a better better defined targets um not not add in you know to keep this going forever but let's let's planning having this done in two meetings doable maybe but I think we need to have our plan an idea agreement with the way we're going to go before we start going to the other absolutely and that would be I think what Regina was just saying do we doing who do we include who do we look for what other committee so I think that's that's where we get that going identify them and then go yeah um shoe Dave Tom Josh what are your thoughts time in sounds good prioritize and go yeah I would just I raised my hand for a second to ditto the let's take another meeting to it most to prioritize and clean it up there's it up is that that's what I thought I heard from you Regina is that on target with what you yeah I I think that's a good strategy um you know the one thing I will just add to that is I think you can on the on the housing conversation just just in and of itself um the I think you're sort of well set with what you've got coming down the pike so um you know you've got some great work coming out of that housing commission and they've done work themselves to prioritize what's the most important housing tool to tackle first so they've they've done that and landed on inclusionary zoning which I think makes a ton of sense so you'll have that coming your way as a real tool to try to get at the affordable side of the equation and then I think what you've got going on in the bylaw modernization grant will also look at the more sort of full complete picture of um helping the supply demand uh issue more greatly um so I think you're even just sort of focusing on those two you're going to be in great shape on on the housing conversation piece I think a lot of it is just how do you fit in some of these other things without getting too far sidetracked on those lines like um energy efficiency could be a real sidetracker I think not to say that it isn't important but um collectively it it'll be done within um the energy bylaw the bylaw modernization work um and I don't know if I can I can try a little bit too to think when I'm putting this spreadsheet together about how to um explain a little bit that there's going to be uh multiple benefits that come out of any of these that land at the top of your list you're going to have multiple benefits that come out that are touching on the other things you have on your list anyway um so yeah the spreadsheet Regina like overlaps with yeah yeah yeah right um on references item six seven and eight as well yeah and just to say that you know this this is a um this is a great list it's definitely a big list um and you know unfortunately this work takes time so um I think uh my point is just to um be proud of yourselves for having the conversation and prioritizing and picking something uh and and going with it um because it'll be it'll be great great great at the end even if it doesn't feel like you're touching very many things on the list so I think what I'm hearing also is in and I think this is if we've got energy is up on our list but the energy community is working on something we can actually drop that down on our list until they're ready which is why you might need a meeting or two to discuss that but that that's the sort of thing that is when we start tackling is I want us to be able to do something to use Ned's words let's do something and we've I think all of us have identified the etc and pud as being something that we need to do yeah um so while we're looking we can maybe go through this list and have um start here yeah go here here yeah and end up here but we we have a list of items and if we go through that and we say okay this is primarily energy committee can focus on this we can essentially perfect yeah right and and wait for their reports and then focus on how to wrap it in yeah but you know mobilizing them is you know what a great way to multitask yeah well I mean that's that's that allows us to move something forward and I think if we had to pick a discussion that I heard from everybody pretty much is pud etc next and etc next is the regulations and we might need to do some creative thinking or or whatever to get the work on the regulations done puds is more of a conceptual discussion that we have to understand and embrace and get to some level of uh consistency on yeah consistency in its inconsistent nature okay um I kind of feel we're at a at a stopping point for this evening because anybody anything they want to put in front of us uh commissioners we want to anything that you feel we we should add to this list okay they're all you don't have to take it's a huge list but anyways I think this is a stop a good stopping point for this evening to then collate that and let's really try to come up with the work plan and that work plan we need to pick some things that we can do in the next year and it some of the things may be longer term they may be we need to work on this to some degree so it's ready for the 2024 town plan but we also need to be able to do something this year so let's have that be part of our targeting okay Regina anything that you can pick up to steer us on this at this point or we should we wait for your uh nothing else to add I don't think um yeah only to say um because I don't know if I'll be able to say this say this again but the town plan um it may feel like it's been out there for a while because you folks were the first folks who about the eight-year town plan which was very exciting um but I would say it's still probably a really great relevant plan so when you're thinking about that um you know you've got so much great stuff you want to implement so uh I'm I'm just planting the seed that maybe you don't need to like completely build a town plan from scratch oh yeah never have okay excellent I Regina I was also thinking that it could be useful for everyone to dust off their town plan and just take a look just read through it again yep and see what's there and what's up there yep yeah and we can staff and provide a list of like okay here's the things that have to be updated here are the things that we've talked about a lot that might be worth diving into this section then fleshing it out so when we talk about energy we go through the town plan other sections of energy that we need to include are going to need and stuff like that so and then checking off the things that we've already done with the current town plan and then seeing you know what the action items for the future would be I think it's important that we stay and not get bogged down so that we can't move forward that's that's if we can't move something forward then we're not doing anything even if it feels like we are if we're just spinning our wheels well if you're spinning you can always go to a shift okay all right all right thank you Regina thank you Regina you are welcome I'll I'll send over spreadsheet thank you excellent okay we are on now two minutes from January 13 and if I could just add that I I did send you all an email with some grammatical and minor changes yeah I was wondering about one of the thanks Regina sure if it was English I don't even want to get the thing right I won't even argue with it okay do I have a motion for the minutes from the corrected minutes from January 13 they're the updated copy they've highlighted change in January 13th 2022 so moved Raphael Beckman shoe look at that they're trained any additional corrections or any corrections to any page or any line within the minutes hearing none all those in favor of the minutes with the highlight copy thing but I I I I I opposed let's carry six zero we have other business do we no uh maybe we see do you have anything okay have we talked about stipends oh yeah stipends oh I do have another thing about the meeting meeting virtual versus not that yeah so I'm gonna forward you along an email I don't did you did they even get it I don't remember but it we have an email going around regarding stipends so I need you to quickly um sign if you want to receive it's your choice 50 bucks a meeting for each meeting that you attend um that you attend um and get that signed and back to me and then they also want a w4 that and the email will give you this direction to go directly to the finance department I think so um I'll get that out to you tomorrow okay so we also got an email this evening from town manager's assistant that the select board is going to full virtual meetings and at this point they're leaving it within our hands to decide whether we want to go to full virtual meetings or hybrid um I feel we've been running with hybrids ever since we've been allowed and personally I feel it's been successful um but I want the rest of the commission to weigh in and at this point I'd actually like to do a poll to see if you want to continue with the hybrid format that we've been using or if you want to go to full virtual so going down the list gosh I'm I'm fine with the hybrid I think this is working pretty well I think the meetings move smoothly enough I yeah I'm perfectly fine with the hybrid that people who can be there can be there and people who can't can be at home I think this is fine Ned hybrid does anybody not agree I'm just because I found in other cases um full virtual is better than hybrid because everybody's more on a level playing field I think we're working okay but that's just kind of two cents I'm okay either way okay and Dave I'm gonna echo Tom's but for a different reason I find that um it's when we're hybrid it gets difficult to hear um everything in the room that you're in so if if we're looking like we're gonna be um a good chunk of us are gonna be remote I think we should just all go remote because I think the clarity of the audio is better so we're more or less split with Shu being I'm comfortable with hybrid I'd like to maybe try this a bit longer with hybrid and we can check each week if we want or check every couple weeks or if the town makes a decision for us then it won't be an issue um and if it becomes and I would I would encourage everybody to say that if it if it remains a barrier Dave and Tom you guys are be real clear with this if it remains a barrier for you please bring that up and present it and we'll address it again is that okay with folks at this stage sure yeah and it is very important for anyone who's attending remotely to be able to hear that's you know it's been state law frankly so if there's any point that you're not hearing something let us know during the meeting so we can try to troubleshoot it um and or ask us to repeat you know whatever it takes um and we can I'm sorry Darren what did you say sorry couldn't help it sorry technology and see you know if we've got the right equipment and everything you're in trouble David were you joking I was joking sorry okay with um so moved well all those seconded second seconded by somebody on their shoe yep seconded by shoe all those in favor hi hi hi we are adjourned funny sorry