 Hi, and welcome to What's Up, Wilson, the town's monthly TV show where we take a closer look at things going on in our community. I'm your host, town manager Eric Wells. Last month, the town finished a nearly two-year process to consider a new form-based code in the TAC Corners area and a town-wide official map. There was a number of public engagement sessions, public meetings, and hearings that culminated in the adoption of the new form-based code by the select board this past October. The code became effective later that month, and joining me again this month is planning director Matt Bilanje. Matt and I sat down to take a look at what the details of the code look like, and also thinking about answering some common questions that have come up from the community throughout this process. So, we'll go to that interview now. All right, I'm back with Wilson, planning director Matt Bilanje, who's going to chat more about form-based code today. Welcome back, Matt. Yeah. Thanks for having me back, Eric. It's good to be here to talk about this project. And I know we've talked about this once or twice the last couple of years. It's been quite a large project for Williston, and certainly something our town plan has identified for a number of years. And I thought today we've wrapped up the form-based code process. The select board adopted the bylaw amendments last month in October, and they've become effective later in the month. But maybe we can start out by just kind of looking at the thousand-foot level here just to bring it back for viewers. What is a form-based code at the baseline here? Sure. Well, the first part of the answer is really simple. Form-based code is zoning, and it does many of the same things that zoning in Williston and other communities around the state and country also do. It just does them in a different way. Form-based code is a set of rules for how property can be developed, and it addresses things like where buildings and other elements on sites like parking are to be placed on their properties, and what the design of those buildings and sites is going to look like. What form-based code does that's a little different from zoning is it has a lot more emphasis and a lot more detail about the design and placement of buildings and other site elements than it does the uses that happen in those buildings. So while our form-based code for Williston still does have allowed and prohibited uses in the Taft Corners area, it's a little less prominent in this code than what the bulk of the code does, which is talk about the way those buildings are going to look and the way they're going to be placed on their sites. So it kind of gets us back to hear of why have a form-based code and what was the undertaking for this project, and now that's in place, what are its essentially land use effects going to be on our Taft Corners area, and maybe we should start by kind of defining what the overlay district for the form-based code is in Taft. Sure. So we're talking about an area of about 840 acres surrounding the Taft Corners intersection of Roots 2 and 2A. That's a boundary that's a little bit smaller than the Taft Corners designated growth center, but we're going from 150 feet south of Marshall Avenue north across Root 2, encompassing all of Blair Park, and then across the street encompassing Finney Crossing, the Hamlet, Chelsea Commons, and then coming back south of Root 2, Cottonwood Crossing and the land surrounding Cottonwood Crossing, as well as Maple Tree Place and some small portions of land between Maple Tree Place and Interstate 89. So that's the geographic area where this code will apply. Well, it's certainly an area of town many people are familiar with, whether you live in Williston or come to visit Williston to shop or to work. I think the who went into this project, a lot of people's perception may have been, well, Williston's fully developed, and we know that's not the case. And how would you kind of explain that to somebody what this will look like in terms of development patterns? Sure. Well, you know, one of the reasons that the Select Board and Planning Commission opted to take on this project was based on an understanding that there would be more development and maybe more importantly, redevelopment in Taft Corners over the next many years. So one of the things the form based code allows the town to do is address projects that might happen on smaller parcels of land, of which there are still many in Taft Corners that are not developed, as well as infill type development where you might have the back part of a large street facing parking lot that could actually be redeveloped into a mixed use or a residential building because that parking is not in use the way somebody anticipated it would be when it was built 25 or 30 years ago. So we have we do have some places that could be developed or redeveloped within Taft Corners in a way that when arranged in the pattern of development, the form based code calls for could help the town achieve some of its longstanding goals. So I kind of I screwed away from my original question here. So I kind of rounds it back. Or, you know, why have a why have this form based code in Williston? Sure. So, you know, Williston, ever since the establishment of exit 12 in 1962 and town planning and zoning efforts since then through the 70s and 80s. And in words in the town plan since at least 1990, Williston has said that it would like to see Taft Corners turn into a design conscious downtown with a strong pedestrian orientation. So if you think about places that you like to go and be be a pedestrian, be be on your feet, be walking around visiting shops, visiting friends, public amenities like parks, etc. Those are those sort of walkable downtowns like Richmond Main Street or Montpelier or Middlebury. And that language in the town plan, you know, become a design conscious downtown with a strong pedestrian orientation suggests a transition from the development pattern that sort of predominates Taft Corners right now, which is more of a vehicle oriented pattern where, you know, there's a lot of different stores and restaurants to visit, but you're very likely going to need to drive between them because of, you know, how they're spaced out and how they're arranged on their respective parcels. So form based code is a way to try to achieve that long stated goal. But I think about it in a way it's sometimes helped me through this process of looking at our land use regulations, developments going to happen in this area. This process really allows the town to set the rules and help for the look and feel of the area to achieve these pedestrian design conscious elements that have been in the town plan. And if you let development happen, some of those goals could be achieved, but by having a standard set of rules and a code to follow, it creates cohesion, especially with the relationship to the streetscape that gets built in here. Very much so. So another thing that form based code does and particularly does well in Williston is it's not imagining the building in a vacuum apart from the street or the street in a vacuum apart from the building, but rather understanding that the public's experience of the place really happens where the building meets the street. It happens on the sidewalk. And so both in terms of the design of the buildings that would be required at street level and the design of that public space, the sidewalk and street frontage. As the code describes those things, it's really intending to create that place that you would want to be, that you'd want to be out and about in and that you would experience as a pleasant place to be and that would make that what we call in the code the public realm and attractive place that you'd want to spend some time. We had a lot of discussions and great public engagement that really looked at kind of the differences between today or formerly under the zoning that predated the now the new form based code and what the form based code does. You know, a lot of elements with the look and feel of buildings. Building height was a topic that that was discussed quite a bit through this process. I think it might be helpful. You might be able to walk folks through kind of the before and the now kind of these key elements to the development rules and what form based code changes for these. Sure. And you know, you're right. We can start right off with building height. It was certainly one of the most heavily discussed elements of the code and of the current situation. And it is changing under the form based code. So our old development by law set a building height limit at 52 feet and it generally allowed for three or four story buildings. And, you know, we have some of those in town that were built under that code or under construction under that code. The new form based code has a variety of allowed building heights from sort of less intense at the edges to more intense in the middle of the area. And the tallest of those heights include five stories. So there's an additional story there that there's also some interplay between that allowed height and the desire to encourage pitched roof buildings and the allowance for an additional occupiable story within a pitched roof on top of that fifth story. So in terms of number of feet, four stories at 52 is the old five stories at 64 is the new. But there could also be a pitched roof on top of those 64 feet that people might see in certain situations if somebody is able to put a building that large on their site. I think that's a good point, too. You know, just because the rules allow that maximum density and that height, there's a lot of other constraints on a particular site. So if I, in a way, I think about it, this isn't just an open field concept where there's going to be five story buildings on every site. There there may be sites where a five story building is feasible, but there's elements like buffers and parking and how do how does that interplay happen? And how would you respond to somebody that thought there's just going to be five story buildings everywhere for every new every new construction? Yeah, I mean, the first part of the answer is five story buildings are not allowed everywhere within the form area. And so there's there's just a hard stop in a number of places in Taft Corners against that. But the second part that you alluded to is that there are a lot of other site requirements that come into play on a site where somebody might build a taller building. And the big ones in the code are we still have minimum parking requirements and generally we're seeing people who might be interested in developing under this code are still going to rely some on surface parking. So when they have a piece of land, they're going to use some of the land to build a building and they're going to use some of the land to build parking. And they might put one level of parking under the building, but probably not more than that. And most of these buildings will be residential or commercial or both and will demand some parking where you're you're running out of just as a developer, the parking you need to create before you're running out of stories that the code would allow you to build. In addition to the parking requirement, we have this new element of the code called minimum open area. So we are requiring in the form based code that 15 percent of the developable area of any lot be dedicated to private open area for the residents and users of the building. Some of that might be able to be achieved on the building itself in the form of a rooftop garden, but that comes with its own extra costs and challenges, most likely it will happen on the ground. That's the way we see minimum open area requirements playing out in other places. So again, you've got this site. You want to put a building on it. You're going to need to use some of the site for parking. You're going to need to use some of the site for this open area amenity. And all of that affects how many dwelling units or offices or retail spaces you can create. And ultimately that leads to some natural limits on building height. But as I'm interpreting it, you know, we talked about some smaller lots within fill development. Those likely wouldn't be as strong candidates to check all these boxes to have additional height. But if you had a larger lot where you have more room for parking, more room to meet that 15 percent open space requirements, you know, the investment that people want to make to develop the property. Those those might be a more likely scenario for a taller building depending on the project. That's that's exactly right. We would much more likely see that taller building happen in as a component of a master planned site that also included buildings of some other sizes as well, where there where there was some opportunity to provide those other things like parking in open area more collectively. So the higher building height gives people some design flexibility, but it's by no means something that's required or a mandate. Or as we said, you know, we don't think it's necessarily likely to happen on most sites. Kind of goes into my next question here is our pace and development. So that this new code adopted, you know, we're going to have a number of new buildings in the next year. And I think we I know we've got some constraints there. So if you could go into some of our our management constraints and how we pace our development. Sure. So I mean, the first part of the answer is no, I don't think we'll have a large number of new buildings in this upcoming year. Go under construction because of the adoption of this code. Williston has Williston has some limitations to the pace of growth related to our residential growth management system, which is which is still in place for this area and does limit the number of new dwellings that can be created, including apartments, you know, on a on a 10 year horizon. And sort of underpinning that growth management system is a very real constraint that people who want to create new uses in Williston that are on the town sewer system need to purchase from a limited pool of available wastewater treatment capacity. The town plans its use of that limited capacity. It has available to it over a long horizon. It doesn't make it all available at once. And obviously, setting aside or purchasing that capacity to build a building comes with a cost. So there's a couple of things there that are just very sort of mathematical constraints to the pace of development. And in the end, both residential and commercial, when we're talking about wastewater capacity. And then there are just a whole bunch of other things that, you know, as planners, when we watch a developer go through the process to try to get a site developed or a building off the ground, we know that there are any number of other site challenges, financing challenges, marketing challenges and all of those other things that means that not every project that's feasible under the zoning necessarily is built. And all of that over time results in a pretty sort of natural regulation of the pace of growth. So we do hope to see some new buildings come in under this code. You know, there was a real attempt by the Planning Commission to strike a balance between all of the things the code is asking for that are increased requirements over what the old zoning asked for. At the same time, the goal was not to make it so hard to develop that nobody ever would. And you know, if I had to predict, I think it's going to reflect that balance as we as we see people come in for permission under the code, that it'll be a very similar pace of development to what the town's been experiencing over the last 10 years. There's a number of elements and aspects to this and how things play out. So it's I think it's you're in this every day. And I'm in it working with you a lot, but just kind of these large macro categories that the town's put in place just helps helps our future planning in all elements of services here. Mm hmm. So how will these projects be reviewed? I know it's a little bit different, but it's it's still an open and transparent process that that garners public participation to as these projects get reviewed. Yeah, so the Farm Base Code chapter sets up what's called a project review committee, which is a staff committee consisting of myself, the fire chief and the public works director behind the scenes when we're when we're staffing something conventionally through the development review board. This is the same group of people who get together and talk through the various needs that the town has when it's considering permitting a new development. The difference here is that it is an administrative process that does not ultimately go to a public hearing before the DRB. Instead, we will have public meetings of that project review committee when it when it sits down to consider a project under the code. So we've created a home on the town's website similar to how you would navigate to the DRB page under public records and documents. There's now a home for the project review committee. When we receive an application that we believe is complete for review by that committee, we'll announce it on that page and we'll announce the date of the project review committee meeting and how to access it. It will be available for online and in-person attendance, just like any other public meeting. We will also continue to use the mytaftcorners.com website to announce incoming applications just for the foreseeable future because people after the last few years are used to going there looking for information, but we'll put it in both places. That also means we'll make those application materials available for the public to see before a permit is decided on. So building designs and site designs and a written staff report from me or my staff that says, you know, here's the requirements of the code and here's how the project aligns with that code or here's how it needs to change in order to get an approval. So, you know, the workload and what we produce for information and review on the staff side is very similar to the DRB, but it's a meeting of a different body at the end of the day and a permit process that will happen more administratively than what we would experience under the DRB. So it's, you know, it's different. It's streamlined a bit with these more with the way the code is written is very discreet about number of elements. You have to make sure they're a zoning administrator. And if I'm a member of the public, I can come and listen if I want to. Absolutely, and you'll be able to read along and understand, you know, as we review something under these standards, how that review is happening. And we're, you know, we're really committed to making that user friendly and making sure that folks can understand what the requirements are and how the project is being reviewed under them. I think we just have a minute or two left, but I didn't want to skip the other major element of these bylaw amendments, which is a new town map. It's an official map. So if you could talk about what that means, Sarah. Sure, well, you know, going back real quick to what we talked about before about how important it is to the creation of that pedestrian orientation in the downtown is what happens between the building and the street. So part of the form-based code is an official map that in Taft Corners functions as a street map for both existing and planned new streets and really asks that new development in Taft Corners be arranged in a coordinated pattern that will lead to walkability efficiency and, you know, the kind of place, again, that you would want to be. Because we are using the official map in Taft Corners, it was also an opportunity to bring in the work done by the Williston Mobility Committee a couple of years ago to look at other desired paths, trails, sidewalks, and new street connections townwide. So the official map that was adopted as part of the form-based code, it looks a little different in the form-based code area. It's a little more fleshed out, but it does also encapsulate a lot of long desired path and street connection and sidewalk facilities in a different way that really lets the town, whether it's me as administrator or the DRB looking at a subdivision, make sure that those desired facilities are integrated into new development. In other words, when we look at a new development saying, well, is there a desire for a bike path that makes a connection through this development? Is there a desire for this street and this development to connect to another development, et cetera? So we do also have that map for the whole town now. And that's the first time Williston's had an official map. It's a great baseline. It's something we can work with in the future as the town's needs inevitably change. And really glad to be able to bring that tool to the town as well. A lot of exciting elements in the planning world here. I know it's been a lot of work by planning staff, planning commission, select board, the public. So it's been a culmination of a very thorough project here. Something the town's been identifying for years in its town plan. Absolutely. And yeah, we're very grateful for all of the hard work that our citizens, elected and appointed officials and others put into this project. We could not do it as a staff without all of that uncompensated participation. People gave their time very willingly to this project and it made it better in a whole lot of different ways that I think are gonna show up in the kind of development we see coming out of it. And we've kind of painted the broad overview of all these elements, but we've got a number of materials online if someone wants to go and learn more. Where would you point people if they have more questions? I wanna read the nitty gritty details a bit. Sure. So a couple of places, we do have the adopted code up on the My Taft Corners page. And as I said, mytaftcorners.com will continue to be a home for incoming proposals as well. But we've also created a home on the town of Williston page. So from the public records and documents menu item on the main page under agendas and minutes, we've created a home for that project review committee. We'll continue to put things there as they come in. It says form-based code certificates of conformity and project review committee on the menu there. If you go to the planning department webpage, we have a home for the zoning bylaw there. The form-based code is appendix F of the zoning bylaw and its maps are listed under that as well as well as the official map. So there's a home for the bylaw there. We also have some resources right on the main town page under news briefs about the new form-based code with some links to help people understand that. And we certainly also encourage citizens and interested persons in Williston to reach out to the staff by email or phone to ask any follow-up questions you have about the process. In addition to putting application materials up on the website when we get them, we'll also be using planners corner and some of our other outreach tools to announce those things far and wide to really make sure citizens understand the impact of the adoption of the code. Very good, Matt. Thanks for joining us again and all the work that went into this. I appreciate your time. Thank you for having me. And we look forward to talking about what comes out of this code in the future. And we're back. Thanks again for Matt for joining me this month to walk through that. There's certainly a lot of good information available online to check out if you're interested in learning more. And of course, either call the planning office or the manager's office. If there's any other questions you have, you'd like to discuss further. So finally this month, I wanted to do our community notebook segment, just have some general updates to provide. Our community center scoping and library assessment steering committee, first meeting is going to be Thursday, November the 17th. So new committee that's gonna be tasked with looking at the future of these town facilities, exploring different options for the library space and potential new community center space. We've got a great consultant team on board that will be helping us with this project. So I was excited to get this underway starting in November. And everyone in the community should be aware we'll have a great robust community engagement process as part of this project. And you can look for more information early in the year on what that's gonna look like as we plan it and it starts to take shape. Also wanna thank everyone for voting on this past year election day. We had one local town meeting article asking whether the voters wanted to support forming a new communications union district. The goal of this would be to improve broadband coverage, bring it to homes that don't have access currently. That's about 140 homes in Williston don't have access to considered broadband level internet, 25 megabytes per second download and three megabytes per second upload. So this group is gonna start meeting. It's a new government. There'll be a board member for Williston and the four other communities who are part of it. Be working initially to understand the needs and all communities for broadband access. And then working most likely with telecom providers within RFP to try to procure services and work to move this along hopefully in the next year or two. Then finally the fiscal year 2024 budget process will be upon us here shortly. There'll be public meetings in December and January as a select board works through a transmitted draft budget by myself the town manager and here's from all department heads on proposals for next fiscal year. So lead us right up to town meeting and on March 7th of 2023. So that's gonna wrap things up for this month on what's up Williston. I'm Eric Wells your host our town manager. I'll see you around town and thanks for tuning in. Take care.