 That's too long, that single, Phil Dodd and Harry Clements. And together we're the folks that put together this meeting. We meet twice a year, roughly. We've been meeting for a few years. So this is our fifth meeting. So we know our audience by a show of hands. How many folks are here for the first time? Wow, OK. Good to know. Good to know. Thanks for coming. So for those here for the first time, we started this group just for informal discussions. A lot of us are of a certain demographic that some of us own larger homes than we want. And we're looking to downsize. And we'd love to stay in or around Montpelier. And yeah, I'm being waived by Frond back there. For those who are here for the first time, please make sure you sign up. So we have your name on the mailing list for future emails and meeting notices. And the sign up sheet is right in the back there. Yeah, so we take this off just to have an informal discussion with other like-minded community folks who are thinking about what we do of trying to age in place, trying to stay in the area, and realizing that there weren't a lot of options for us here in the community. And hoping that, and I think by the sheer volume of people, how many do we have on our mailing list now? 200 people on the mailing list. Yeah, there's obviously a lot of community interest. And we've had the good fortune of having some people who are interested in maybe developing some sites that might be appropriate for folks like us. So we are hearing from some of them today. And we'll hear from Carrie. But are there any questions of anybody who are here for the first time? Just quickly to get things off? Are you? Okay. We wanna stay on schedule. And so for purposes of doing that, I will turn it over to Carrie to talk about the survey we've done. Thank you. Thanks to everybody who was kind enough to complete the survey. It's fairly anonymous, but we went through SurveyMonkey to be able to get the number of responses and the number of questions on there that were really important. Also, because we're able to retain the email addresses, which are totally confidential. But if those of you who completed the survey, but you did it through a link, then we don't have your email address. So we wanna make sure that if you're interested, you also don't realize you're not part of the mailing list if you didn't complete the survey from something we sent you directly rather than the link. Anyway, so without further ado, I'm just gonna go ahead and non-requestable. Give it a little sleep. So these are our questions. I'm really not gonna be really deep on this because I think everybody can kind of see, I'm sorry, the TV's over this way and you have to turn, but you only have to press on. So if you add the together, the either, the onshore or the purchase, there are a lot of people who would be open to purchasing a new place. Probably not really risk, there aren't a lot of new places to purchase through it. So that's part of it. Carrie, maybe you can read some of the percentages. It's hard to see. So I'll put it as a preview. Okay, so for those who are, and if anybody wants these, you can always, I guess, let Frondo, I can send you to PEF. Maybe it's easy enough or I can send it to the group. So people who wanna purchase are 35%. People who wanna rent were just 7%. People who wanted could do either 37% and those who were not sure were 20%. So there's quite a few people who own homes who really wanna go downsized. So, how many people completed it? 124. So this was how soon do you wanna downsize? So some people wanted to do, let's say 13% wanna do it right away. Now this survey went out in July and it ended the end of September. So that's the time period. So within one year, one to two years of 25% to the three was 19% and then three to five was 22% and then over five was 20%. So it's kind of all over the map but it's pretty consistent one to five years. And then on the size unit, and this is for square feet. Some people don't really know what their square footage is to where they are now but I just would like to, do you really know how small 100,000 square feet really is? So it's pretty tiny. So 1,000 to 1,200. I went out to see a grouping of over 55 homes on Gran Nile that had just been built over each of them, 1,500 square feet and they were duplexes, really nicely done. And that was about the right size for two people. And for one person, obviously, you could probably do a little bit less. But more than 2,000 square feet is a really terribly hand-sizing part. That's, we have a few people who want to do that. And then, that's the same, that's the smoothest one. Okay, so living on a single level, that was really important. But up in New England, living on a single level is really challenging because we don't have a lot of homes that are on a single level. If you had a second floor that was for a guest room or for a studio or something like that, that could be a little bit different. But then getting up and down stairs to say nothing of where we located and located around that way. So from the standpoint of purchasing, I'm sorry, I didn't get a percentage there. I'll try to do that. So for our freestanding, so people like the idea of a small freestanding house, which was about, now there was, this was checked off in, you could do multiples, like in choice of top, you know, preferred, most preferred to least preferred. So you're not gonna find the percentages equal. But the number one was 57%, the first choice was a freestanding small house. The second choice was a single level condo. And then the third choice of the first one was a tiny house. And then a town house and a duplex. So it's kind of all over, but that's in order. Small freestanding, single level condo, town house, duplex, tiny house. And then for renting. So there were slightly different preferences. I think a lot of people in Montpelier think that a condo is an apartment, but a condo is a legal structure. So whether you have single family, or whether you have duplex, whether you have town house, whether you have apartment, there all can be condos. So it's just how it's a legal structure. So that is for rental. 50% want a small house. 47% want a single level apartment. 80% want a town house. 4% want a duplex. And some to share. And then some don't want to rent it all, but want to buy it. What's the final choice of town house? Town house has two levels. So you have two floors. And you've been arranged so that you have your living on all one floor, and then you can go over there. Gary, can I just interrupt for a minute? I think we can send a link around of all of the survey results with the wrap up of the meeting, right? I'm not sure about a link, but maybe. Okay. Or a PDF. We can send a PDF. That's not a problem. Okay, so for those that I see taking a lot of notes, we'll do our best to somehow compile all this information and get it out to you. Yeah, I didn't want to do a printed handout because there's 30 pages, and I've got to come up over a moment. And how many bedrooms. And I'm not gonna, these, we start to get into more minutiae, which I don't think we need. How many parking spaces? Do we go one or two? What kind of, in our bathrooms? These, we gather disinformation because we would be talking to builders. We would be talking to realtors. We'd be talking to people who have a vested interest in understanding what the community is really looking for. Could you say what those price ranges are? Yeah, I'm getting there. Yeah, you just pass through it. Can I pass through it? Yeah. Back up, too. Let's try to do that. Maybe it's for men. Is that 30? No, that's a little bit. You don't need, do you have? Yeah, I'm not normally doing this. So, we're going to have a price range. Let me just see. That's renting. One more, so there was one more. One more of both of them? A lot of them. You don't want me to go. A lot more down. Okay, the maximum price range. Well, the maximum price range, that's a little bit down, the maximum price range. There you go. That's it. Welcome. Our name. Oh, we need that. I think it's close for you. That's rather... Definitely not millennials. So, that's for prices for renting, the maximum for renting. Is that what people were looking for? I'm sorry, can I go through it? It's really interesting because you can't rent an apartment in Montpelier with two bedrooms, which is $1,500. Yeah. I do believe that you have a sign that shows what home price range is. Two down, two two down. It's like $30 or $40. It was before this then? Yeah, it was before this then. Okay, hold on. So, covered parking, the maximum price range for this thing? Okay. It's another reality check that I think the 10 has really got to look at, or the city, I spent an increase of $1,000. So, at $100 to $199,000 to purchase is a little unrealistic in this area. What was the percentage on that? What's that? What was the percentage? The percentage on that is 42%, one to five, between $100,000 and $199,000. Now, there is one place I looked at in Berrytown, and they are doing a development there. Their places start at $199,000, but that's stark. And I don't know what that includes. I don't know what the amenities are. They haven't built them yet, but at Specto, they have a recap housing. I mean, they have a nice spot. I have information here that somebody wants to look at that after the meeting. So, that's about as close as you're gonna get the recap community in Mary for $199, and that's a starting price. So, I think you need to really look at it. I don't know whether people think that the valuation of their existing homes is really high, and so they need to be able to sell those and live on the proceeds from the sale. So, therefore, it can only buy us a lower price house, but I think when you're considering downsizing, you really have to kind of look at a little bit higher price range. What's the second? The second is $200 to $299, and then it goes down up from there. So, that was in $300 to $399, $499. I mean, we even had somebody who would do $600,000 and up. Maybe that was a joke, I don't know. Okay, living within walking distance to Montpelier. It was very important to most people, but what's happening in downtown Montpelier is moving at a glacial speed, and most of us don't have that kind of time to think about it. And then how far from downtown Montpelier if you wanna live? So, people looking at, okay, can I be in a community that's a little bit not right in the downtown, but is kind of close? So, we are getting near. So, that's a 21%, we live within a quarter mile, 20, 34%, we live within a half a mile, then a half a mile to one mile, mile would be like 36%. So, there's some flexibility there. And then if you found something that wasn't in Montpelier, would you move there? And so, there's a lot of people think, oh, okay, well maybe, you know, I can think about it. And I guess it really depends on what you mean by not in Montpelier, because it depends on how far away you wanna go, that circle drawn. This is another concept, I'll talk about this a little bit later, but if you're interested in housing that includes a kind of a mini community center, which would reduce the amount of square foot as you might need in your own house. So, people were interested in other options, so I'll show this. What's most important? So, people would like, this would be exercise room, guest room, free-fill coming from out of town, that could actually be a rent type of thing. A shared community kind of kitchen, I think that was part of it. And then workshop and studio space, I think those were the top of four. That came through because my dad had a place and they had a community center and they moved to a place that kind of they didn't have a community center. And they said that was the biggest thing they missed, was being able to have a place for people to gather and just libraries and other possibilities, something like that in peer books. So, different amenities, this isn't all that important right now because I think that's something that's gonna be going forward. People won't wash their dryers and about to need a deck and an open floor plan and the temporary and the area. So that's kind of more part of those people who are builders who are maybe say, okay, what people want. And this was interesting, if you're ready, would you be able to put a deposit on a place or a battle place before you fill it out? So that would really bring kind of lenders into the picture, I would think. Okay. The services, which was obviously snow removal, garden and lawn mowing, trash removal, that's kind of what we have in our houses now. I went to visit a couple of independent living places which gave me a really nice, looked out, okay, list down all of the expenses you have in your current house. Then realize that if you're a condo, that a maintenance fee cover set or that you would have a group that would be, you wouldn't have to deal with that anymore. So it becomes substantial and I don't think people realize how much you actually really pay out on maintaining a home. Especially a large one. Okay. So there are some people who would live, would you live full time? And that was 50 or 59% and then if you live in a home part of the year, it would be 17%, some people were not sure. So there are some people who travel, who it's, you know, they might spend some time in a warmer climate during the winter. And this was more for realtors. How long have you lived in your home? Most people was 51% was over 20 years. So there's a lot of people who have been in their homes a long time and believe me, the realtors are looking at this saying, we gotta free up some space so we can bring in some young people. And they throw cash in the floor. And this is just kind of how many bedrooms do you have in your house now? God damn. That's not all that critical, two, three and four. I was surprised at how many people had four bedrooms. Three and four. So it shows that, you know, totally empty nesters. Kids don't like it when they can't come back and visit moms. Yeah, employment status, retired was 66%. So it's obviously the bringing of the town. Semi-retired, it is like 17, 18%. And semi-retired can be just about anything. I mean, you make any kind of income at all from anything you do. Then employed part-time. And then the only full-time people would be like 7%. So it's obviously a different. Terry, we probably have time for a few more. Okay. He's the timekeeper over there. Okay, independent living, and that's it. Done. Have a perfect time. Thanks very much. We will make an effort to get a PDF by email to everybody. So that's gonna be well-documented. Also, I should mention Orca is filming this and I think they'll be showing this meeting on TV. So we'll find out, you know, when that might be or for people who wouldn't make this meeting. I really wanna thank Terry for this survey. She put a lot of work into it. She paid for the survey about the account. It was really a great effort and things to be very useful. So, another round of applause. One thing, I'm gonna talk briefly about real estate prices because, as Carrie pointed out, there may be... Oh, I'm sorry. 124, I heard. Yeah. So, yeah, it was apparent that, you know, there may be a little bit of a disconnect there on terms of purchasing in particular. Looking at through the survey myself, I saw 74% wanted a two bedroom unit, 37% wanted one and three quarter baths, 69%, 64% wanted to be within walking distance, and 42% wanted to buy between 100 and 199. Prices are a lot higher than that, Montpelier. And they're probably gonna be even higher for new buildings that might happen. Just building costs are very high these days and that's just the reality. The good news is, if you're one of those people who's been in the house for 20 years, 51%, you're probably gonna get more for your house perhaps than you realized. I looked at some statistics from the realtors, keep track of all the sales statewide and in different towns. Statewide, January through September, we had sales were up a little bit and the average price jumped 4.3% to 224,000. That brought down things are selling fairly quickly. So the month supply of properties for sale was 9.8 months. Realtors generally say if it's below six months, that's a seller's market, above six, it's more of a buyer's market. Condos were very similar to the average price or the median price. That's where half the sales were above and half were below is 195,000 and there were 8.6 months supply of condos. So what was going on Montpelier? Well, we exceeded the state average. The median price this year is 282,000. That's up 13% from a year ago, from January to September a year ago. Days on the market has been cut in half. Properties a year ago were taking 140 days on average to sell, we're now selling in 69 days and our month's supply of inventory is down to 4.1 months. So it's a seller's market in Montpelier. Condos similar to the median price in Montpelier is up to 193,500. That's a 17% increase over a year ago. The days on the market has decreased somewhat not as much, but by 25% and the month's supply of inventory of condos is even lower at 3.7 months. Well, maybe you wanna think about Burlington. They're building a lot of stuff up there. They're managing a lot of new projects. It's much more new construction than we're seeing around here. Problem is, the median price up there is 308,000. Question? I think it was interesting that Harry reminded us that the idea of a condo is something that a lot of us think of in one way, but it's a broader definition. So when you talk about condo prices in Montpelier, what's the, are there most condos in Montpelier parts of older homes that have been? I wouldn't say most. I think, you know, I don't know that the category is actually townhouse-condo. And I think they're referring to the typical, the common knowledge of what a condo meaning is like Murray Hill or Independence Green, that kind of thing. But at any rate, prices did not go up as high in Burlington. They only went at 5% compared to Montpelier, but they're up higher, they're at 308,000. There's only 2.2 months supply of single-family homes in Burlington. Their condo price this year is 236,000, and months supply of industries is 1.4, so things are very tight in Burlington. There is another option, buried. The prices there are considerably lower than the towns I've mentioned, and considerably lower than the state average. The median sale price for a single-family home in Burry was down 2% this year to 152,000. That's 150,000 less than Burlington, 90,000 less than Montpelier. Townhouse-condo category, the price there was 167,000. That was actually up 13% from a year ago. So I just thought these statistics might give you a sense of where the market's at, and what helped you in trying to figure out what might work for you. So. Can you set those up too? I can do that. We can make that part of the report we'll send. Sure. What's the availability of that? Well, let's see. The very inventory of homes for sale, there were 84 homes for sale in September. That's down from a year ago. There were 128. Montpelier, there are 26 single-family homes for sale compared to 26 a year ago. So it's been busier in Montpelier for a while, I think. We're gonna move on now just to touch base on some of the projects we talked about at prior meetings. Some of those are moving along, some of them aren't. But I think first I'll ask briefly for Jay Ansel to tell us a little bit about one project in particular, 250 Main. He's been involved with, and anything else he has to update us on. Thanks, Jay. Thanks, Jay Ansel, architect of Black River Design in town here, about to be 38 years. I'm also gonna be downsizing. 250 Main, I think we met actually there a few number of months ago with some of you. Jeff Nick owns the property. It's the old Nicky headquarters and looking at a cottage type of development there. Potentially 21 units or so. Some duplex, some single. And at the moment he's sort of doing further study is what some of the options are there, how to work with the topography and the soils. It is sort of topographically challenged, but it's nothing that can't be addressed. It's probably a lesser slope than a third of Montpelier where we built on many years ago. I know that's sometimes a concern, but I think if we look at the communities that we know and love and could they be formed under what is of a concern at this date? If they couldn't, maybe we should rethink what our standards are. So I think that could happen. I asked him, what is his timing? I think he would look at probably next summer fall for construction. Your survey is wonderful. It answers a lot of questions that I think he had and then we had in looking at what these units might be and would try to respond to those and then have some additional meetings with you as that moves along. We were a participant architect in the net zero team bridges. We were sort of the winning group there and we're looking at additional options along that corridor and meeting with some of the stakeholders there. This would be sort of transportation-based development which would allow some opportunities and a number of properties there, probably more of multi-family. You perhaps saw some of the news flashes on the Budcars that are in Vermont and potentially a couple of them could run berry, water berry, which would also provide transportation. You could downsize, perhaps need only one car or less than much of your life could be met by walking, biking, or on the car. We were looking at sort of approaching net zero and energy improvements by a change and alteration of lifestyle and we think in some ways a better lifestyle. Certainly some issues with having those trains run with AOT in the state to have them operate. I think they feel that there's a fair number of improvements need to be made to the rail and the bridges, although when you look at it, year ago or so where you had the train cars running and box cars full of granite, I estimate those weigh about 500,000 pounds each. The single cars are about 100,000 pounds. So hopefully we can have some realizations that this really is not the same. They go 14 miles an hour and open up a number of possibilities there. One of the things we talked about last time and that can be an assistance or an obstacle is zoning. Juan Pilar, you're probably read, has been through a lot of rounds of what is happening with the zoning master plan. They are now basically re-adopting a 2010 plan with a few tweaks that will allow them to move forward with the zoning and those hearings are going on now. There have been, I had asked them for instance about a third of the city was being rezoned as rural and to my mind, if we're looking at more housing and trying to have it be affordable instead of two acres and potentially having 12 units on 24 acres allowing it to be a cottage development, you're gonna be on four acres, which will also help reduce costs. And I think they are now allowing that. So, and this week there were some requests to perhaps have some of the land along Berry Street go into the rural, not to the rural city, riverfront zoning, which will allow some higher density there. And I think there's probably gonna be some response which will also facilitate some housing through that corridor or a little higher density. One thing that Montpelier in many cities needs is more market rate affordable housing. There are some wonderful programs working with the French block that will be mostly low income but some affordable but looking to have more affordable market rate. Part of what is difficult relative to the costs are that you see developers that will build in Burlington and the construction costs are similar to here. It might be $200 a square foot for the house itself. Yet what they can get for them is, as was mentioned, one and a half to two times what we get here. So that's a hurdle. So, we are looking at doing a number of additional projects and talking with stakeholders, probably be getting back with you and seeing if there are some that target some of the specific interests and then get together and see if we can move some forward. Yep. Is there anything in the works for upper floors from the TV bank? Yeah, there is. He'll talk about that right now. There are. Thanks, Jay. Steve Ribellini hasn't made it here. One of the projects we've talked about and you're probably well aware of is the new apartment buildings he's building down near the co-op. I think it's called Maple Way is the name of the road off of Berry Street. And I talked to Steve the other day, I guess they're coming along and he thinks some of those may be available as early as this winter and others may be not till early spring, but that has six units, six two bedroom units. And Steve Ribellini is here in town. You can track him down or I can help you with that if you have questions about that one. You asked about the TD bank building and yes, Presidente does have plans. This is the building at State and Main. And starting January 1st, he told me he's gonna convert the top floor, it's a three story building, to nine modern high end apartments. There will be two types, he said. One bedrooms and he called them locks but I think they're really studios. So one bedrooms and studios up there. He said they would have high windows, air conditioning, European appliances. Small, small, small appliances. An elevator, they have an elevator there, he's gonna put in new plumbing and parking for those units will be at city center across the street, which he also owns conveniently. So these are rentals, these will be apartments. He said he expects them to be ready to occupy in May or June. And he said he will launch a website with more information about the units around February 1st, so stay tuned if you're interested in that. But that's not the end of the projects that are happening in Montpelier. Phil, this is a question that Steve's not here. Six units in that are the top floors, is there a lift or elevator, anything? I believe there is an elevator, yeah, yes. And he'll have parking there on site. But Diane's gonna do, sir, next speaker to tell us more. Great, thank you. We have Liz Genge here. Liz was kind enough to be here for her last meeting, I think. So this is her second meeting. She's director of property and asset management at Downstreet, and she'll update us on a few projects that they're working on. Thanks, I'm so glad to be here. I'm Liz, and we have at Downstreet Housing and Community Development. We used to be known as Central Vermont Community Land Trust, for those of you who might recognize that better. We already have 134 apartments in Montpelier, and we are adding 48 new apartments. So I'm here to talk a little bit about that. It doesn't include the condominiums that we manage also on Berry Street, and I'm not gonna talk about that today, but our home ownership center and our website, downstreet.org, you can get more info on the condos. So the French block above Aubuchon Hardware will be 18 apartments, studios, and one bedrooms. They'll be able to rent, ideally, December of 2018. So that's still our goal. And then I'll talk about the One Taylor Street apartments, which will be 30 apartments. That looks more like May, June of 2019. So some of the qualifications, I'll start with qualifications and the different income things, and the rents and the square footage in some design, and then I will leave my cards for more information. So the French block apartments, which will be happening first, 18 are low income housing tax credit program, which is what our big funding source is, which means that I don't have a mortgage to pay, so I'm able to keep my rents lower than the average rents. So four of those will be market rate apartments. One will be capped where your income is not quite market, but for two people, the income maximum is $47,300 a year. The other three of those apartments, there is no income cap at all. So the French block apartments, again, studios to one bedrooms, square footage of the studios to one bedrooms, little small 500 to 650 square feet. Heats included in all of our apartments and the rents for the market rates will be about $800, including your heat. And then let me just say one thing, a lot of people who are interested in housing programs, they might not think that you qualify, even if you're a maximum income or what have you, because you might have some assets, like I think a lot of folks might have homes, correct? So that doesn't disqualify you at all, I just want to briefly explain how in housing programs we look at your income from assets. So for example, if you owned a home, that's potentially, say it's worth $250,000 right now. And if you had a mortgage still owed on it, we would subtract that mortgage out of the value of your home, but say you didn't. So if your home is worth $250,000, we look at how much it would cost you to cash it out. So we look at a realtor fee and it's closing costs. So the value of your home to us would be $234,000, so correct. And then of that, we would impute the potential income, which is given to us at 0.06%. I can hear myself, this is so crazy, but this is what it is. And your annual income from that home is $1,408, and that's what we would count towards your income. So sometimes people fear that they, or if you have a retirement savings of $300,000 in the bank, if you're not getting any return on that, we would impute it at that 0.06%. So we would count $180 a year for your income on that $300,000, but most people are getting a bigger return. We would count the real return that you're getting. So you're getting a 5% return on your retirement annually. That's a $15,000 that we would count. So it varies, but that's how we look at assets, and that we add that to people's income. So that's the French block very quickly. Again, we're hoping December 2018, and the One Taylor Street Apartments is very exciting. The Transit Center, wherever people are calling it, is on One Taylor Street in town. There's going to be 30 apartments, brand new building. It's going to be a transit center on the bottom floor, so nice high ceilings. Green Mountain, there'll be a transit center that will have their own space, potentially a cafe in there, there's things going on. So that would be exciting. 19 of those 30 apartments are the tax credit apartments where we look at your maximum income. So that maximum income for the tax credit apartments, both at French Block and at Taylor Street, for two people's $35,500. So there's a segment of those. And then we have 11 apartments at the New Taylor Street Apartments that won't have that cap. Seven of them will be truly market rate units we don't look at income. So these apartments will be ready about May 2019. Again, there'll be one and two big studios, one bedroom apartments. The one bedroom apartments here are born like 720 square feet, and the two bedrooms about, you know, 800 to 900 square feet. So a little bit bigger than the French Block. And the rents for the one bedroom apartments, the range for the rents for the one bedroom apartments will be from $700 to $900. Again, including all your heat, depending on what your income might be. And the rents for the two bedroom apartments will be, start at $900 and go up to $1,200 and be $1,250 including your heat. And it'll be the air source heat pumps that'll have air conditioning. You'll be able to see the state house. You won't be looking right at Capital Plaza. I recently saw the plans, I'm very excited about it. And I don't want to talk too, too much, but we're not accepting applications yet for these because they're still a little far out. As you know, we haven't broken ground on these programs so we don't want to jump the gun. But if you have any questions or how to apply or questions about our other apartments, you can let me know of my cards here and again, our website. I can market rates with no income guidelines. The same apartments? Yeah. So they're not upgraded or... That's right, they're all the same. And like, for example, we have a river station apartments which is by the Hunger Mountain co-op in there. We have seven market rate apartments in there and the others are the tax credits. So they're all the same. It's just the rents that you pay are a bit different. How do you market rates differ? There's no determination, luckily. Meaning, it means that when someone applies for, there's 30 apartments at Taylor Street, correct? And if someone applies and you're making more income than the tax credit ones, then you can get into a market rate apartment. So their rent will be higher because someone's income will be higher. Does that answer your question? Does it want to develop or wants to charge? I think the question was, I think the question was, how do you determine market rate rents? Who determines what the market rate is? Oh, well, we looked at them. We had market studies done in Montpelier and we're looking at that. And also, we're also a nonprofit and we just, we want to be able to rent the apartment swiftly and keep affordable to people who, market rate, you could be making million dollars or you could be making 70,000 or you could be making 50. So the rents reflect what we need to get to make sure the buildings are operating well into the future. I have a question about the, what do you call it? It's a Taylor Street. This is where the buses are going to come. Yes. All the buses are going to come through there, right? It'll be like the bus stop, yes. The bus stop. But I'm wondering what you're doing about pollution from those buses because if you live up there and the buses are down there spewing whatever they're spewing and they're idling whatever they do, has anybody given any thought to that problem? Do you want to answer that question, Alison? Alison Friedkin is our development, the real estate development. Good morning, everyone. Alison Friedkin, director of real estate development at Down Street. Excellent question. So briefly, if you were to imagine this new building, it has two blocks. I like to think of it as building blocks, if we all had this kit. So you have the two blocks and then you put the long block across the two blocks. So one of those blocks is the transit center and one of those blocks is the lobby for the housing. And then the housing actual units are the long. So second, third and fourth floor, okay? So this block, that's the transit center, that's what's on Taylor Street. The lobby for the housing is at the other end. So because of the parcel and the long narrow, so into. So there's two types of buses that we expected the transit center. The big buses, the greyhounds, the, you know, the link. The link, thank you, the link. Those will stop on Taylor Street, turn off their engines, folks will load, folks will unload, okay? They do not go under the building, they do not circulate around the building. They have to stop on Taylor Street as a side issue. The smaller bus, the one that takes us through Montpelier and also runs up to Waterbury, that one circulates under the building, again, because we've got the two blocks, that one circulates under, but it just drives under like a car or any other thing. And it comes back around and then stops in front of the transit center that this block over here turns off and that's where it does its loading and unloading. So we're not, okay, I appreciate it, I answered your question, but I just wanna say, so this was something that was, you know, well-studied and well-documented and as we don't feel that there'll be any adverse effects to residents and be no different than you living anywhere else in the city and having the usual amount of car traffic. So. Okay, thanks, thank you so much. Sorry, one last question. Is the percentage of apartments you offer as market value versus the subsidized detected by the federal funds that are used for development? Pretty much, I mean, so we're able to, for example, let the Taylor Street apartments tap into, ideally, nothing is completed yet, the state VHCB housing bond that will allow us to build apartments for a range of, yeah, it depends on the funding that we're getting. I guess the other part of my question is, if through studies or however it can be made obvious that there are a lot more people in the market value range, is that something that can be adjusted? This is the adjustment, I understand. We have, so we have 25, at least 25 folks that are qualified waiting on our list for market rate at the river station apartments. So we do know the need, and so when we also can rent apartments that are at this lower income as well in Montpelier and the range, so that's what we exist for. So as you've probably known, the one Taylor Street property was going to be operated by a for-profit. And again, I think it was kind of what Phil said, it just, it didn't make enough money in our current market in Montpelier for them to make it work. So we are stepping in and it's going to be fabulous and we're going to have a range that includes, again, so of all these 48 new apartments coming in, 10 are going to be about market rates. This is a good one question. Another good question. Yes. What's the pet policy for Devin Street? Well right now the pet policy, so right now for Taylor Street and for French Block, we're thinking about upgrading or changing our policies. Right now we don't allow pets unless you have reasonable accommodation for an animal. But that could change. All of our apartments are non-smoking, it would be non-smoking campus. And we're evolving again. So I'm, thank you for doing the survey because that will help us and again, this is new for us also to have brand new, a lot of market rate apartments and we're excited to meet the needs of the community. That's what we're here for. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so next we're going to have Ronnie Coleman who's here from the Home Chair and she's going to talk about how it's possible for you to adapt your home to be a little accommodate, perhaps another renter. So you can arm share in your home with a renter. And Ronnie's been, I'm just reading, she's been crafting and mediating home sharing agreements with Home Chair now since 2011. She earned her master's in mediation and applied conflict studies in the Woodbury Institute in the Champlain College. And in 2007, and outside of her role at Home Chair now, she helps individuals and groups navigate challenging situations with her business partner at Riverstone Resolutions. You're on. So that's me. So I work for Home Chair now and I think some of you know about the program, some of you have already talked to me about it. What we do is we work in Orange, Washington and Lamoille counties and we match people who have extra space in their homes with people who are looking for affordable housing. So we are an affordable housing organization, we're a nonprofit, we're partially funded through the state and partially funded through private grants and donations. And we've been in existence since 2003. We started under the Council on Aging where we were matching primarily older homeowners with younger people that were looking for affordable housing and there's a combination generally of exchange of a little bit of money and a little bit of services. In 2010, we expanded our mission to serve all ages, all populations, all types. So we split with the Council on Aging since elderly population was no longer our focus and now we serve people, we've had babies in our program, families with children and I think the oldest home provider that we've had was 101. So age is not a factor necessarily. So this is a little bit of a twist on sort of the idea of downsizing. So I kind of see in terms of this group two sort of options for you. One is a lot of you own your homes and you're maybe empty nesters. You have looked like in the statistics, some of you have four bedrooms, some of you have two or three bedrooms and the idea would be to have somebody move in with you to fill one of those bedrooms or several of those bedrooms and provide you with a little bit of extra income and potentially provide you with some services that you may want for me. Maybe your kids used to mow the lawn or shovel the walk or any of those things. So we have people that move into people's homes and they maybe cook a few meals a week or they clean the house or they bring in the wood. They help keep the fire going in the winter, any number of things and some of them pay a little bit of rent. We do have about 30% of our matches don't pay any rent. They only do services and that could be like 10 to 12 hours a week of work that you could have done around your house and for you. And then some people pay up to $400, $500 for a bedroom in somebody's home and the flip side would be they wouldn't necessarily provide you any services. So and then it runs the gamut. The flip side of that is if some of you are looking to sell your homes to not own a home and have that responsibility anymore is you could move into somebody else's home and help them and provide a little bit of money, provide a little bit of services, anything in between. And we do have home shares like that. Our average age of a home provider which is what we call the people that own their homes and having somebody move in, the average age is 78. So it's sort of a lot of older people are doing this. And then the average age of people that are moving in is 56. So it's not necessarily people in college or in their 20s trying to figure out what to do. Usually people come to us in some sort of transition. Either they're empty nesters, they're going through a relationship change, they're retiring, they've just moved to the state sometimes and they're not quite sure where they want to be. So there's all kinds of reasons. And so that's sort of that helpful piece. So what we do as opposed to going to something like Craigslist or putting up a flyer is you'd come to us because we do extensive background checks, criminal background checks, both state and federal. And we do reference checks. So we check people's housing references, employment references, personal references. And we do extensive interviewing. So for the people that own the homes, we go out to their house so we could see the space and meet them and spend an hour and a half, two hours kind of getting to know them, asking lots of questions. The flip side is the people that are looking for housing, they come to our office and we interview them there. We ask the same questions of everybody. So we get to know people pretty well and then we start the matching process and that's really sort of where the magic happens. Is we're matching people not only on where they want to live and how much they could pay and the services they can provide, but also lifestyle. If somebody tells us that they're up at 4 a.m. every morning and making a ruckus in the kitchen and doing their thing, most likely we wouldn't match them with somebody that goes to bed at midnight and gets up at 10 a.m. So we match for lifestyle as well. And people come to us with all kinds of sort of requirements, all kinds of sort of things that they bring and somebody asked about pets earlier. That's a big one. Is people either have pets in their homes that they need help taking care of, maybe they go away on vacation and it's nice to have somebody around to take care of their pet right in their own house or we have people looking for housing that have pets and have a real hard time finding apartments that they can rent. They may have the money, but there's no apartments available that will take a dog or a cat or a bird or whatever it is that they happen to have. So I'm just planting the seed for some of you that are thinking about this. The other thing that we do is sort of an offshoot of our program is we provide conflict resolution services to community housing organizations. So we've done a little bit of work with Down Street and some senior housing buildings sort of across the state. But in sort of thinking about, you guys and thinking about, I'm imagining some of you are thinking maybe about co-housing spaces, communities. So what we can do is, you know, as you know, sometimes your neighbors are a little challenging. Sometimes you are the neighbor that's a little challenging. No judgment. Is we can come in and we can help help with some of those conflicts to smooth out your living situation. Everybody wants to live in a peaceful, calm, nice, quiet space, whether that's within your own home or within your neighborhood. You know, you sort of want to pull up into your driveway or into your parking lot and go, home, this is great, right? You don't want to pull into your driveway and wonder if your neighbor is, you know, peeking through their curtains, you know, spying on you. So we can help with sort of some of those things that come up in housing. I think I've said it all, but are there any questions? So when you do a, how long do matches last? That's a good question. So matches last a variety of lengths. Our average match lasts a year. We have had our longest match is six and a half years. And then some of our shorter matches, you know, may last months, it really just depends. But people don't tend to like transition too much. So people that come to us, we don't do short-term housing, we don't do emergency housing. So people tend to come to us wanting to, you know, have something pretty permanent. Yeah. You said the services you described, are you actually involved with the lease documents and things like, oh, you are? Yes, yes. Thank you for asking that question. I totally skipped that part. That's part of the process is once people get into a match, they meet each other and they decide that they want to move forward in their match. They do what we call a two-week trial. And so the person moves in to the other person's home, basically trying it on for size. Let's see if what we've talked about, what we, you know, our expectations, our boundaries, all that stuff, see if it actually works once we're living under the same roof. And so my job is to come in and help people write an agreement. And so it's a little bit like a lease, but it's way more personal. So how are we gonna share the kitchen? Who's gonna shovel the walkway when? How, you know, who's gonna clean what, when, what products do we use? How are we gonna talk to each other if things aren't going well? How do we approach each other? What does that look like? We talk about all of those pieces. So it's just, it's a much more sort of personal, interpersonal kind of document. People paying you for the services or they're just making contributions? Another good question. We have one fee and we call it a match fee because it is assessed once you get into a match. You've been through a two-week trial. You guys both decide, everybody decides that they wanna move forward. Then we do have one fee. It's a sliding scale based on income anywhere from a hundred to $500. And so that, the fees that our participants pay us account for about 3% of our budget. So it's a pretty, pretty nominal fee for what you're getting. And we also realize that people come to us because they need affordable housing and don't necessarily have $100 to hand out. So we do payment plans for sure and they can start into the future. Some people say, when I get my tax return, you'll be the first person I pay. That's okay, because we understand that people come to us because they, oftentimes because they have issues with money. The other piece to that is that we have had people have gone to their church and their church has paid that fee. The Elks Club, all manner of sort of community organizations generally are going to either contribute or pay the whole fee. So, yeah. Any other questions? Thank you, Ron. Our next speakers are gonna tell us about their experience planning to build a new small home. Larry and Barbara Florsch, our long time area residents. They lived in Adamant for 32 years. I think they said it was on 15 acres and up the hill, three miles out of dirt road. I guess they sold their house a little over a year ago and been looking for a change. So, welcome them up to tell us about their experience. So I thought we would divide this into two sections. One is the why and how and then what we're doing now. So we, as Phil said, we had a place that was four bedrooms, two and a half baths, lot of land. Beautiful, beautiful place, loved it. But looking forward, Larry's turning 70, I'm 67. Looking forward, we said this is not really sustainable for us. I mean, how are we gonna age in place here? It didn't feel right. We wanted one floor, we wanted all the things that were on that list. You know, open floor, plan, two bedrooms, two baths, that gave pretty much sense to us. So we were not in a position to purchase anything new or build anything new without selling our house so we sold it and became transient. And it's been an adventure. We've lived in four places over the last, not a little over a year. Bolton, Florida, we've been to Texas, we've been to South Dakota, we've been everywhere. But right now we're currently in the North Inn in Burlington in a condo. And we've had all of our, we got rid of so much stuff. I became stuff at first and we had a basement. There was nothing, it took me a year to clean out the basement. There's nothing in there we needed. So we got rid of probably- The mason jars. The mason jars. We got rid of, we got rid of maybe, I'm saying it over half of everything we own. We have tractors and gators and sofas that people are hosting. And everything's been in storage and we've been traveling. And so our initial intent was to, the utopian idea was to establish a, what we call compound with my son and his family. But that did not work out economically and there's a lot of reasons it didn't work out. So we are gonna be closer to them. But when we started looking for a house we could not find any house that met our expectations. We couldn't even find a house we wanted that cost a lot more than we wanted to pay because they were too big or they had two floors. They had a basement or they weren't in the right location or they were a small ranch that wasn't energy efficient. They would have to be totally retrofitted and didn't have space. So we took to looking for property, finally found some Dutch farm community in Berlin, Mountain Views and so forth, 5.7 acres and we're closing on a construction loan Tuesday at the house. You can tell them about the house. Do you have any questions as well? I just say it takes courage and conviction and I never had any real reluctance to do it because I knew in the long run we would not settle for something that would not make us happy. So as long as we had that conviction we just had to move forward, trusting that we would get where we needed to go. So what inspired us to build the house was I was invited by our builder to see the Habitat for Humanity house that they just built an East Montpelier which is a passive solar house. And I got thinking well if they can build this for Habitat for Humanity maybe I can build one similar that I can afford. So we started from that plan and move forward we started doing sketches on napkins and all this kind of stuff about what we wanted and we involved our builder and the biggest thing of course was finding the land. That took us like it seems forever but between finally coming up with the land and then getting a plan that we really liked we've come up with a, we think it was going to be a house that will be very close to net zero. It won't be totally, we're asking for things to kind of blow the whole net zero thing out like a range hood that vents outside or a gas fireplace for ambiance. So these kind of things don't, you won't qualify for the net zero label but it'll be close and that means it'll be relatively efficient to heat it. We're going to heat it with a heat pump and if necessary we have the gas fireplace. 13 inch wall. Yeah, it's got all this stuff that you would know all this stuff. Corgated outside. Our 80 or 90 ceiling insulation all that kind of thing and we went through this whole process and of course with the bank you have to get an appraisal from the bank as to what this place will be valued at when you finally get it built. And we had some issues there because the appraiser didn't take into account all of the high efficiency stuff. And so they were coming in with, yeah, they were coming in with an estimate that was lower than what we wanted to borrow. So we challenged them and they finally came back with an estimate that was over what we wanted to borrow. So we were in the sweet spot. So we will close on Tuesday and hopefully the excavator will start on Wednesday and we hope to get it dried in by the time everything freezes up and they can work through the winter and we'll be in early spring. So 1300s and 50 square feet. Yeah. Two, three bedrooms, but the middle bedroom is even though it has a closet is very small. It's our office. And so one, everything's got the handicap accessible size of doors and one of the showers is a roll in sort of shower all concrete floors. And then the other bathroom does have a tub for the grandchildren. Yeah, we should point out this is a slab on grade house. It doesn't have a cellar. It is, as she said, roll in shower in the master bedroom. The bedrooms are small, but we kind of figured the most, the time you spend in the bedroom is sleeping so you don't really need to dance around. Oh, one big open room. A screen porch. Gotta have that in Vermont. Yeah. Do you have any questions? Where's your storage? We're going to have to probably build a shed or a branch. But there are closets and a pantry. That kind of thing is figured into the floor plan of the house. And a mechanical room and a laundry room. So where did you build it? You did not use an architect? That's a good start. For those of you who are a Money Python fans, the next sketch is called the architect sketch. No, no, that's all right, too. You don't, you don't, you don't, you don't, you don't. We decided that perhaps we should involve an architect. Because we were scared, we'd never done this. And I wanted to go to Black River because we knew a guy, Teshmark, are quite well. And, but somebody else in the household. Well, we saw this house in a magazine. All the architect. And I didn't do diligence. I looked at his website and I talked to him for an hour on the phone and he was talking. Just like what I wanted to hear. I, you know, and then she insisted on talking to him. She talked to him for an hour and we were really satisfied. So what he wanted to do was a, a project plan that was his first step. And that would cost us $1,500. So we paid him the money and he actually met us at the site, took pictures, did all kinds of stuff. And three days later, he gave us a, and also we had to fill out a questionnaire, you know, about what we wanted in the house. And, and to get out of the house, you know. And so three days later, he sent us his project plan along with the estimate of what it would cost us to build this 1,200 square foot house. Because I think at that point, we were looking at 1,200 square feet. And his estimate was $631,000. So what Larry said to him. I said, you know, when you figure in the cost of the land, I said, we're talking like that's three quarters of a million dollars for that 1,200 square foot house. Larry said, we would have put that house, if we ever wanted to sell it, if we could even afford it, which we couldn't. Put that house on a trailer and haul it to California to sell it. To get the money out of it, that's ridiculous. So he said, we can work with you. I can work with you. So yes, he said, he said, how much do you want to spend on this house? So we gave him the price point. A couple of days later, he sends me this thing and he says, there's good news and there's bad news. He said, the good news is that I got it down to your price point. The bad news is that the house is only 700 square feet. So what was you? He sort of said, thanks. But we went to our builder. And our builder is, we're working with Montpeer Construction, Malcolm Gray. And Malcolm's real together with energy efficiency and green building. And he's just worked with his hand and glove. And I'm not saying that it wouldn't be better if we had architectural services, but we're on a tight budget. And we're satisfied, I think, with what we're getting. We're gonna be real hands-on in front and they're a lot saying that, not that sort of thing. So we're hopeful that it'll work out. Kim? What do you think it's gonna cost? Oh, we know it's gonna cost us a little over $300,000 to build the house. That's the estimate. But that includes the land. Includes the land. And so we, that to us was really economical. The land is, as I said, 5.7 acres. And it is right, it's sort of the, it's on Dodge Farm Community. It's right, it's sort of out by the airport at the end of that runway. But it's got really nice mountain views and it's nice open-rolling land. And so we think, you know, the house itself is not 300. It's just the land coming in with it. And that was one of our requirements is we had lived in the woods in Adamant for 32 years and we didn't have any views. We just had a clearing in the forest. And so we wanted to have something a little bit more openness to it. So this property is open and we can see the mountains of Plainfield. And off to the other side, we can see the Worcester Range. It's gonna be ultra-wide. Now you want the synergy of someone buying two acres next to you of some of your land. Pardon? What's that? Now you want the synergy of someone buying two acres of your land. That's right, yeah. Well, you know, actually I was gonna say, I don't know, there is a lot, there is one, it's very pretty land out there. And it gets four minutes from the grocery store, four minutes from the hospital, five minutes from the interstate. And about 10 to downtown Monterey. Monterey, instead of having three miles of dirt in a steep driveway, we have like 250 feet of gravel. And then it's hard talk. So for us aging in place, we think that's good. Yeah, that's probably the best we're gonna do. And but there is more land out there. One piece is large and able to be subdivided. And I know at one point, the sellers had tried to get it zoned where they could do the community thing. And I think eventually they did, but they said by the time it was, it was that ship it sailed or something. I don't know. What compromises do you have to make at the price that you most regret? I like the, it to be maybe slightly smaller, but I don't really, maybe I wish we could go ahead and afford the garage immediately. Right. You know that. I think we had to lock off the garage in the initial building. And we still hope to soon, but it would be nice if we knew it could all be. But you know, the thing is about storage. We are looking at that, but I don't want too much storage because we're all inclined to fill it up. And when I looked at what we got rid of, we don't need to fill it up. I don't know if you read the article in the bridge last issue about storage. I was involved in that. You had a question. George Carlin was right. I missed the article. I had a couple of experiences of downsizing and traveled for almost five years and mostly just a backpack, but now I have, you know, the home is full again. I was recently in New York City in an elder's apartment where I stayed small, you know, the one bedroom tiny. And I thought to myself, where's the fat person's life's relics? So that's what I find myself wondering about that attachment, right? What are all my relics? Your place is probably big enough to accommodate. Some, some. We don't have a lot of relics. We got rid of a lot of relics. We got rid of a lot of relics, yeah. I survived, but. That's right. That's right. Any mindset tips about that? You know, I think that I've never been a collector and I think that there are just different personalities for whom it's easier or harder. For me, my intent right now would be that every single thing in my house be beautiful as much as possible, handmade, and really please me. And I kept silver from the family, you know, silver, even color. I sold the wedding china. We used it hardly ever. Now what we're gonna have to do is digitize, you know, cards and pictures, and we're gonna have to spend some time doing that, but it needed to be done anyway. So we have a lot of art. I think that one of the things is gonna be making sure we have room for our art, but I think we will. Like, you know, what's the rule of thumb? If you don't use it within six months, get rid of it, cause you don't need it, right? So, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, but so I just think different personalities will have a different hard time with them. There are a lot of resources out there for this whole process of both downsizing, decluttering, and dealing with the issue of what do you need and what do you not need. And I've been doing it myself over several years now and have gotten down to about a 400 square foot studio apartment. I have a storage closet upstairs and I have another storage unit which is partly for work stuff, but what I've found is that you go through a conversation essentially with these objects and you try to determine what is it about the object that's important that it exists, that it be there in your life. And I found that a lot of things were mnemonic devices for me. They were links to memories. And so the conversation I've been having is if I don't have the object anymore, do I lose the memory? Does memory go away? Does the experience go away? And that's an interesting one to contemplate. And it's a very interesting process to those groups, but anything you have around, ask yourself, why is it here? It's really a recreation of your life though as we move into that house, it's very much a recreation. Some of the things that people are hosting like sofas, we're just not gonna get back. We don't think we want them anymore. So it's gonna be interesting to see how life recreates itself in the smaller space and to hold ourselves to the discipline of only what we mean. My tractor on the other hand, I want it. And whether I can pry it loose from the guy who's hosting it. There's a really interesting book I'm actually reading it now called AARP publishes it on downsizing. I think you can probably find it through the site and it has some really interesting insights on that. I'm just gonna talk briefly because we don't have a whole lot of time, but about a concept that I've been focusing on for a while and that is on a life and friend Sherry ever here mentioned to me is called an intentional neighborhood. So it is a grouping of single level, taking a lot of a survey into consideration. Homes that could be duplexes, that could be single family, they don't have to all be the same, but in an area. And I have been researching a lot and met with a lot of builders, have met with a lot of, you know, we've met with realtors, met with landowners and looked at what's possible. And I found a couple of really good possibilities. I can't very well say anything at the moment, but what I'd like to find is a group of four to six people who would have a similar interest in helping move this forward so that we have kind of an advisory group of potential buyers of these homes, single family homes that would be either in Montpelier or in immediately surrounding Montpelier that would have all of those amenities. But what it would have that I find critical is a mini community center so that you can reduce the size of the home you'd need so that you would have exercise space, you would have, you know, a couple of guest rooms, you would have workshop space, you would have a community kitchen, that kind of thing, and it draws people together. Independent living is going a little too far, you know, for me, it's kind of an average age of around 83 in the local independent living places. That's another step, but between the ages of retirement whether it's 55, 62, 60, whatever, and 83, there's a lot of years in there where you wanna be with friends, you got time, you wanna socialize, you wanna have a community. So that is kind of what I'm working on and if I could say if there's anybody who is interested in, you know, kind of getting involved and meeting with a builder or a landowner or really moving this forward, could you come up afterwards and we can exchange information and we can kind of go from there. So anybody have questions? Are you talking about new construction? Yes, new construction, level slab on grade. I mean, I've seen this place out in Grand Isle. Well, Grand Isle's flat, so that makes it a lot easier, but there were nine buildings of 18 duplexes, each one about 1500 square feet on slab, radiant floor heat, two bedrooms, plus a den. Nicely done, they were looking out onto a field, but you could see each other. It was a stone's throw, so it wasn't right next door to you, but it was there and it was really nicely done. So that kind of inspired the possibilities and they were retailing for around $289, $299. So, you know, it's affordable, especially if you have a larger home and you wanna sell it and, you know, be able to have some of the assets. So, anybody? Carol? I just said that the idea of a single floor has come up several times. I just wanna suggest a single floor isn't necessarily necessary or even desirable. That stairway means exercise. And unless you already have a problem that keeps you from using such stairs, that exercise is there whether you feel like going down to a walk or not. I mean, it's true, but it's just based upon the survey results that people seem to want single level, but single level living. So, you could have a second floor that was a studio or a guest room or something, but that adds square footage that you're not gonna have as a livable square footage that you would use and then that doesn't become quite so downsized. So, that's all. Yeah? I was in a conversation about, it was mentioned at the Redstone building. Right. Was there available and that there was land around it? We've talked to, we've had conversations with the state and the city and they're just not ready to move on anything at the moment. I mean, it's gonna be years before it happens from what I understand. Yes? So, this meeting has provided a nice range from renting to buying, different sizes, different incomes. But I think it's one thing that hasn't been mentioned. And that is one of the important things about the rezoning that's going on. And that is rezoning so that there can be infill building within, I'm clear, within walking distance of downtown, not only infill new construction, but infill divided some of the larger buildings. Well, define infill. Define, I'm not an expert in this. Infill means that, well, it can mean one of two things. It can either mean a double lot that can be subdivided. And then, where you, under the current zoning, you can't build, because of density requirements, under the new zoning, you'd be able to build. The second thing is, it means being able to subdivide a large Victorian into two apartments or even three. And this is an option that, when you look at how many people own homes, if they're putting their owning homes in Montpelier, they may find that they actually have a home that they continue to live in, and crap, and not share it, but actually subdivide it and create it. Yeah, sure. I mean, that's entirely possible. I don't hear some people who may be talking. Well, we probably just haven't run into those people who are doing it. That's all. Okay. We have time at the end for some more questions, but thank you, Kerry. Okay, thanks. We'll get back to you. Yes, the, actually, I think Kim can correct me, but I think the new zoning will allow any house in Montpelier to be turned into a duplex by right. So that- Not any house. No, that's the current zoning. Okay. A number of houses. More houses than under current zoning. So it's ready. So most houses, according to some of our counselors. So, just briefly, we're gonna touch on the subject of co-housing. John Ryan is here, who knows a lot about co-housing, and he is also going to talk about something else. This'll be very brief, and then I'll tell you about a couple of co-housing projects that are happening now. Where's John? Here. Here, okay. Just a couple minutes. Great. I will try to be brief, and it wasn't my intention to actually talk about co-housing, though I had taken three groups larger than this through the process of creating co-housing communities in Massachusetts over a period of time. And I am interested, I believe it is a viable concept for folks who are older, and one in which it's possible to do it in combination with a multi-generational group of people. But while I was inspired, totally inspired by that, the needy gritty of thinking about the housing itself, the size of it, what four things are on in the light. It also occurs to me that in my life, I have often seen that we often jump to solutions more quickly before we think clearly about what is it we're trying to solve. And so one of the things that has inspired me as I reach what I just learned from the survey to be a new form of life, I am called semi-retired now. I didn't have that before. Was what really brings purpose, what brings meaning to the next 30 years of my life? If I'm going to hope to live for 30 years, why? Is it just to get up in the morning? Are there other things that I want to do? And there are certainly other things that I want to do and I think we all do. And what we're trying to talk about here is really coming to terms with the first step of the courage that this book really inspired in me. And I hope all of you have read this. It's really a marvelous book. It's called Being Mortal by Atoka Wandy. And he really talks about the courage of the people who inspired him in thinking about the end of their lives in having the courage to see the truth of their own experience. And the truth is we're all mortal and we're all getting older. And we're all going to ultimately need more care. And we're all going to need to have other ways of expressing our purpose in this world as we lose some of our physical and even mental capacities over time. And I'm really excited about embracing that in a positive way. And I'm interested, as I said, I've had the good fortune in my life to spend my life helping others do things they've never done before in a variety of ways. And I would really like to offer that here in this place that I have lived for the last seven years. And so the way that I've thought to do this, I'm doing it with a friend of mine and colleague, a woman named Polly Nickel, who many of you may know who lives here in Montpelier, and who ran housing programs for VHCB for 30 years of her life. And so where we want to offer is the opportunity to step back a little bit from the, where is this place going to be? What's it gonna look like? To what is it that aging success plays about? And I have a belief that this group of people and any part of this group of people has in them the wisdom and the capacity to think through the questions of how we do this successfully. And from that may emerge a way to do that, where we live, how we live in the physical realm, but really that's just a small portion of what we're really talking about here. So I wanna just, if I may pass out these little information sheets to say what we're thinking of, they are really just salons that we're talking about doing. There's no cost associated with them. And if it's something that you think you could commit the time to doing and participating in, what I will do along with Polly is sort of facilitate the questions that we might be asking ourselves on a bigger frame of what is gonna be like as we age? What do we want it to be like? What are the financial issues? What are the community issues? How are we going to avoid as time goes on with what I call between evils of isolation or institutionalization? And how do we control as I've told Goan that really inspired me with is how do we control the narrative of our lives? And whether you're doing it in the way that you've done, which is really inspiring in its own way, or looking at it in ways that might have more collaboration, I'd really be interested in seeing what emerged from a group of people talking about that. So while I'm, I don't know, you don't really have enough time enough on the agenda, perhaps on a future agenda, I can talk about what I believe are many of the misconceptions, but also the true conceptions of what it's like living in a co-housing community. Having done so for 19 years, and as I said, having helped three of them that are still actively involved in Western Massachusetts, I'd be happy to answer any questions. I'll stay here for a little bit afterwards if folks might have questions about that specifically, but I know you're sort of at the end of your conversation. Thank you. I'm going to pass it around to sign up. If anybody says they'd actually be interested in this, I'll leave it at the back table. A sign up of folks who might want to participate in one of these series of slides. So thank you. Thanks very much, John. If I have a few more. Thank you. A little bit. Thank you. They're actually, we maybe talked about co-housing a little. I know Gail was involved in a group talking about it perhaps at one time. And there are some, there's a great article in Seven Days about one that was built in downtown Bristol, Vermont, as much as the downtown as they have. There are three? Yes. I apologize to the chair, but on Monday here, in the downstairs, the East Opelier Room, I'm going to talk at a greater length about these salons. If anybody is interested or know anybody who might be interested, at least Monday at 6.30, you'll have an opportunity to talk about it more lengthily and happy to talk about co-housing with anybody, family, if they want to share it. Thank you. So I'm just going to mention these. I heard about three co-housing developments right around Montpelier. I'm just going to mention them briefly. This is our final item. There is one that somebody in, people may know, Sandy Vitzium in town. As an architect, she owns quite a bit of land in Berlin, which she is selling, and envisions possibly being a co-housing arrangement between three and 10 families with a big chunk of the land remaining undeveloped and in current use, which is a land program that really reduces your property taxes. So there'd be a shared road and so forth. She brought some handouts. She couldn't make it today, but I've left some handouts on the table back here if you want to hear about that one. In Moretown, there is a co-housing group that is formed. They want to have seven families. They're on a farm. I'll just read briefly what it says. They call themselves Living Tree Alliance. We started with a dream shared of creating an echo village where residents live sustainably together, grow organic food, and share in the celebration of the rhythms of Jewish life and teachings. So I've got a couple of brochures for them and you can find them online to Living Tree Alliance. If you're interested in that one. And then I just heard about one in Calis. I think they've just closed on land. There's vision six families there. I think they've had five already committed to the plan and they're looking for one more, but they told me they're looking for multi-generational situations. They're looking for a young family to fill up the sixth spot. If any of you consider yourself young, seems happy to be after the meeting. But really that's about it. Any final questions or comments? And we get. There's one thing I'm gonna tell the person I would ask, I would mention this company in Vermont called Wheelpad. And what they have done is designed a separate re-standing room where there's a bedroom and a bathroom that has on wheels and you would just drag it up to the house and then you could attach to it. It was designed for a veteran that was handicapped. So that is wheelchair friendly and accessible and it has, what do you call it? Ramps? And you get down to the board walker. Thank you for that, thank you. And so that was something that is on wheelpad.org or .com. So I would mention that. Okay, and for anything here, if you have more questions or want more information about that organization or anything else we've talked about today, our email address is Montpelier Downsizing Group at gmail.com. So any final questions, comments? One here? Yeah, I'm really interested in a double unit modular house that's built by Vermont. And if you look at their website or the Facebook page it looks like it's all about a low income and replacing mobile homes with one of their homes. But they also sell individuals and I went through the demo model a year ago and I really love the feel of it. I love the light. I have to have a light, light, light, light in these long winters. And also it's just totally energy efficient. And like I said, they have the one that looks like a mobile home but they also have a double unit which is off center. So it's not that boxy, but anyway. The issue for me is finding land. But if anybody has looked into it or is interested I'd love to talk with you afterwards. And what's the name? The company is Vermont, B-E-R-M-O-D and... Vermont. Vermont. Okay. Thank you. Good. Well I want to thank all our speakers today and thank you for coming out. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.