 working today, so we're relying on yours. Okay, good. My notes. Welcome to the Monday April 2nd meeting of the Montpelier Design Review Committee. Staff and members introduce themselves. My name is Sarah McShane, and I provide staff assistance. Liz Pritchett. Steven Everett. Eric Gilbertson. Hannah Smith. Peter Feather. Unless anybody has anything to offer before we get going, do I hear a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Seconded. All in favor of the agenda. Raise your hand. And we can move straight to the first applicant. For anybody who's not been here before, we are advisory to the Development Review Board. We will listen to your application, move it forward to the Development Review Board after our vote. The first applicant is for 73 Main Street, Mainy Family LLC, KPH Healthcare. Is anybody here? Yeah. Okay, go ahead and come forward and have a seat. I can pull up another chair too. And describe your new signage. Okay, so it's for the former Montpelier Pharmacy, putting up new signs for Kenny Drugs. Can I just get your name? Stephanie Frans. Follow your last name. Okay, thanks. That brought his own cage. It's on that sign now. Correct. The only thing that's changed is the name. Right, I mean it says Kenny Drugs now. Correct. They're coming in after the fact approval. Oh, I see. Both signs are just the... The both, yeah. I just understood. Yeah. Usually that's a problem. The comments, questions. The door sign is the door... And over here, yes. I think the...actually I think it looks better than the Montpelier Pharmacy sign because that was a long, thoughtful letter. So this is a shorter or fewer letter. Any other comments? I can go through. There's a set of criteria that we use for the design of the signs. Number one, a preservation or reconstruction of the appropriate historic style of the proposed projects in the historic district involves a historic structure, acceptable. Harmony of exterior design with other properties in the district, acceptable. Compatibility of proposed exterior materials, acceptable. Prevention of the use of incompatible designs, buildings, color schemes or exterior materials, acceptable. Compatibility proposed landscaping is not applicable in this application. Location and appearance of all utilities, no change in the lighting. Right. Inceptible. Recognition of and respect for view quarters and significant vistas including gateway views of the city's state house, acceptable. Conformance with city's gate placement and design recommendations, acceptable. Compatibility with subject property and adjacent properties, acceptable. Not obscuring the significant architectural details, acceptable. Consistency and uniformity of multiple signs, not applicable. Illumination, not applicable here other than the existing lighting. Penance and banners prohibited, not applicable. That's acceptable. Individual letters, fixed painted or engraved directly the building structure encouraged the sign and the sign banners acceptable. Under our new regulations, signs, your recommendations are just provided to the office and then the permits issued. There's no going to DRV anymore for signs and simple alterations. For this project, your permit will just be issued in the coming days. Sign that just above my name. It might take a few days to get it issued but otherwise it will just come to you in the mail. So you're free to put it up any time. Just hand that back to me. Thank you. Thank you very much for coming. The next application is 415 Berry Street over Lake Park. Mr. Genie, come forward. Was that for your protection or ours? Both. If you're eating it, buddies, we'll all be protected. So did you find the dogs? I did. The dogs. It was close. But I made it. Dogs take off? My dogs took off, yes. And so I was calling Sarah on a panic because I was both A on the committee and B presenting in words that I wasn't going to be able to make it and I just feel terrible. But here I am. The dog came home or you found it? Oh, I found them. Yeah. And they were like, oh yeah, just I was here. This is fine. And so that was annoying. This dog used to run away, but it got more and more if it just waited to come home. Yeah, normally they do, but I had to be somewhere. So I was like, you know, trying to be somewhere. Do you guys have paper of what I'm hoping to do? Yes. So this is actually, I've been away for the past two weeks so I didn't get to finish this. This is an incomplete application in that I have been asked by Chris Lumbra to also put in a ramp. So in this drawing has no ramp. So I guess mostly this is just a, hey, this is an idea that's happening, any thoughts, comments, suggestions. And then I'll probably have to redo the drawings that show some sort of wheelchair accessible ramp as to how to get into that business. Where will the ramp have to go? I mean, do you have an idea of where you are? Yeah. It feels like as you're entering the building to the left, there's sort of a long sort of space there. So did you look at the stairs at all to see how they're, they seem like they're not the right rise. There's something wrong with them. Yeah, I know Jesse wants to replace them. I mean, I think they're pretty well. Pretty well shot. Yeah, pretty well shot. And I didn't, I did not check their rise and run, but I do know that they're. You get good to do it at the same time, right? It would be good to do it at the same time. I think he may want to do it sooner rather than later though. And I don't quite know how all that, what his real plan is there. But if we can, we can do it at the same time. This project is not a foregone conclusion that buddies can, you know, so we're trying to see if we can get the permits to do it. And then there's some negotiations between Jesse and buddies as to whether they can financially make it work. Have you thought at all about the ramp? I haven't thought too hard about the ramp. That would get, that would give you a ramp into the, well, that's the point of it. Yeah. My thought is the ramp, what I have thought without doing any hard drawing is that it would probably be some sort of switchback that would allow to enter that landing that's at the top of the stairs there. Level, I think that's close to a five foot radius at the top of the stairs. I don't know that, but that's my hope. I think that you're all at up the same time. It's to the right of the stairs. Oh, I see. Right there. So we're just, the deck would be on top of it? Yeah. Another question I have, is Chris talking all about the grading you're talking about because that's very climbable by kids. Usually they don't like that. Yeah, no, I don't think he cares about that. You know, I did all the railings at Aegean that are all horizontal. There's no, there's no code that precludes just as long as you can't get a four inch sphere they don't care if it's vertical or horizontal. Just don't attach iPads to it. Right. No, I bet. No, that's good. You know, that's a building code. And insurance recommendations also, four inch spacing. Yeah. Anything commercial residential is fine as long as it needs some. Yep. Can't remember the shape of the building, exactly the roof line, but does, if you had the ramp here, right? Yep. Is that a... That's the gable end. It's the gable end, though. That's better. Yeah. Okay. That's right. The sign's up there. Yeah. Okay. Look at their new sign. So just counting the risers, seven risers, I'm sorry, five risers at seven inches, about 35, so about 36 inches. So you need 36 feet of ramp. Yeah. It's a big ramp. So you'd have to start at the stairs and go up there. Yeah. I haven't made that one. I haven't dove into it, but yeah. The other thing you can do with a bulkhead, actually, we've built one of those, is painting so that you can have a folding... Yeah. Yeah, we'll probably... ...the deck itself, actually, you can't just suck the room that lends up, so you can access the bulkhead if you need to get everything out. Yeah. Last thing you want to do is have to start pulling the screws out. Right. January. Right. Right. Chopping joists. To get some new equipment in the basement. Right. Exactly. I would almost think about doing it coming at the ramp from the other side. From... Out towards the closer very... Go to Berry Street and do a switchback over on that side. I think the problem with that is losing parking. You know, there's a lot of parking. You can come in the front door, you're saying? No. No. Just move the ramp to the Berry Street side of the current. I think that'll do it. Right. That's what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah, to the side. Switch back over here. But still entering through the front door. Yeah. So as you're going up the stairs, on the left-hand side to the Berry Street side. Yeah. Is where I was thinking it would go. There is like a strip of green there that isn't necessarily parking. It's not very big. Parking's always been an issue there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. At the moment it's basically proposed to go basically over where the snow bank was and not lose any parking. If you can sort of see in that photograph where the rubby gross snow bank is it's basically where the deck goes. There could be lots of outdoor dining in there. Trying. Probably might change things. Right. Yeah, that. The other thing I know it's an additional expense but it doesn't do it at the same time as the ramp is that with this roof line here it might be possible to extend that roof line out over the ramp so that any weather gets diverted away from the ramp as well. Yeah. I mean it could be the design of the stairs. Yeah, I wonder. Yeah, as long as it stays above the windows that aren't drawn in there. But yeah. Yeah. Just a thought. Yeah. Or at least allow a provision for it. Yeah. Could be added. You know, you've got some sort of troops or something out there to support the work. Yeah. Yeah. If you get the roof that's the inside of the roof you get all the snow dumping down where it's the inside that I suggest. Yeah. Over here. You mean in here? Yeah. When the roof line here is like this so it dumps this way and then forward to the front. Yeah. Yeah. So you wouldn't get much on there other than just what falls. There's nothing sliding off of the roof on top of it. No. No. It's what you're doing now is kind of a preliminary review or... Yeah. I mean, because I don't have a ramp drawn on here I don't feel like that's a complete application but... You want to do that as a separate application or would you just like to table this and then come back with a ramp idea? Yeah. Right. You could add, like you could table this to the next meeting and then meeting after and you could come back with a revised drawing showing the ramp or you could just have that as a separate application whenever you know and move forward with a seating area without the ADA ramp. You know what I mean? Yeah. It seems to me that with the steps in bad shape and having to put a rampiness in it it really needs to be some integrated planning to make it work better. I'm fine with it. I don't care if it's stable or... Yeah. I mean, I think the ramp should be made to look like the deck so it all kind of is one unified thing and again, I don't... It's not guaranteed that this project is going forward so the steps will probably need to be done. This is... Who knows if it can actually happen but Jesse would love to see it happen so... I guess to me it probably makes sense to table it and come back with the ramp. Again, that's your call, whatever. When you're working there, you don't have to go far for lunch. It's true. I don't know if it seems like people understand what's going on there enough, but that front... It's... You know, this is proposed to be left as it is a galvanized looking thing and then the kind of bar that runs across the top of it would also be like a galvanized kind of... Just sort of like a place to set your burger in your shake while you're eating. Stand up, or would they have tables? There would be one... In the back area would be tables and then in front would be all kind of stools and it would be working out a little bit. So that's sort of a short bar, like 19-inch? Yep. Yep. Maybe 16, 18. Something like that, yeah. Big enough for a plate of pizza. Any lighting? No lighting, then what's already there? Again, if you decide to, you know, that they want any additional lighting, throw something in if you're going to table it or something in. Yeah. Just as a possibility. Right. And then we can... In case they want to add it, you know, you have like two years after. Right, okay, great. Yeah, we'll do that. So they can add it in a year from when they did it and they decide, well, it's really nice but in real I like to be open a little bit longer. Right, throw some lights out. Throw some lights out. Sure. That's a great idea. We'll do that. Okay. Go table it. Do I hear a motion to table the application? A little second? Second. All in favor of table. Go see you at the next meeting. All right. Great. I don't know whether you're going to stay or not but one of the things I wanted to make sure everybody was aware of our Wednesday night meeting. Yep. I hope everybody can attend. Yep. Yeah, at 630 the HVC is sponsoring their first like kind of kickoff meeting to update the design review regulations and our consultant will be there. He'll provide a basic overview of design review and historic preservation in the district and answer questions. And then we hope just to have kind of an open discussion and ask people to tell their like little stories about what they love about Montpelier or a special like memory or a special place or anything like that. And just to get people's comments and feedback. We'll have cookies too, insider. I think your bank deck is a good example of what can get through design review. Yeah. I mean people say it's going to stop me from doing anything and if you could talk about that for two minutes it would be great. Yeah, happy to. Which project was that? The Asian. The Asian. Oh, we're great. I mean it is amazing. I get a lot of feedback from people about how did that ever get through design review. They love it and they think it's great but we have this horrible reputation of like stopping every project. Most of it. I can look at the last three or four years and it's not that very different. Well, yeah. There are a lot of people. Yeah. I think the purpose of this, I'd share the preservation commission and I want to have a really open process so nobody can come in and say well I didn't know about that. I didn't have a chance for input and we're purposely doing the input right at the onset. We haven't even drawn the boundaries yet. So I don't know how much things are going to change. I think currently it works pretty well but a lot of people think it doesn't. That, there was that, got canceled because of the snowstorm. Some guy that was doing a TED talk about sort of. Oh yeah, that's rescheduled for June. June. Okay, great. Like creating a sense of place and sense of community. Yeah, and just sort of like intentionality around creating their place. Yeah. That seemed like a really good thing. I'm sorry, it got canceled. So, good. It's in June. Good. Great. Thank you. Well, I don't mean to move on to the minutes. And for June the 19th, I will present. I want to move those. You don't have the year right though. You don't have the year. Those are like 10 months old, right? Well, they're old. Yeah. Because we haven't had the same three people here. Right. But now we do. Yeah. We haven't had a list. So, we need the three of you to take a look at it. This should maybe get some a Guinness book of longest-lived minutes. At the three of you, take a look at it and if you like it, somebody make a motion to a book. Well, my memory is so crushed from last June that let me see. I'm not sure about the spelling of that word or I wasn't there, but... Where did you say it? You had numerous chance points. There's a lot of information about that, though. No, I don't... They do look really familiar, so... I would move to approve these minutes. I'll second. All in favor of approving the June the 19th. Yay! I don't want to let them go now. And then we have Monday, March the 19th, which was not too long ago. I have some here for that in another meeting. So, Liz, myself... They came back with pretty good drawings so you could understand what was going on. Oh, this was the... Band door. Motion to approve. I'll second. All in favor of the minutes from March the 19th. They are approved. I'll clear the board. All right. Does anybody have any other outstanding minutes? Whoa! And then I had the election of chair and vice-chair. We were supposed to do it back in January, but I forgot to put it on the agenda until... Nations from before. I'll nominate Steve as chair. Oh, so sad. Where'd you come up with that crazy idea? Mostly because I don't want to be. He does such a good job reading through all the criteria. It's handwriting. It's spotting. It's inconsistent. I second that motion. And we want to elect a... nominate a vice-chair who has returned the favor to the particular nomination of his vice-chair. That's okay. I'm going to probably... I'll second that. All right. I'll second that. Okay. All in favor of Eric as vice-chair. Raise your hand. No changes. The next meeting is April 16th. And I'm not sure what's on the agenda so far. I don't think we have any... Well, I guess this project, if you're ready for that. Other than that, I don't know of any others that are on the agenda. I did meet with an applicant today that they might come through for an informal kind of feedback, and be ready for the 16th. Okay. I'm going to stick around for development right here. Okay. Does anybody have any other comments, questions, or anything to add? Wednesday, 6.30 in this room. Yup. And we're not expecting a really late meeting or anything like that. We hope to have it atop like an hour, hour and a half or something like that. And if you can only stay for a few minutes, don't feel obligated to stick to the whole thing. The... The thing that... The way the city set this up, I don't know how this happened. I think the planning commission is, you know, if you start preservation commission writes the rules for design review. And I don't really like that. I mean, I don't want design review to be a real part of this through the writing. And we're going to have a pretty open process where we have some working sessions. I think you know, I think the current thing works pretty well, but I think we want to be a little clearer and try to set some, you know, say, try to do some definitions of, you know, what is compatible. But, you know, so that it's a little more clear to the applicant. I think that's really what we want to say, you know, is to make things easier for the applicant than what we're looking for. It's David Raphael, right? It's pretty good, I think. Yeah, he's yeah, he's he's got some pictures that Sarah sent and, you know, it's obviously going to be an accuracy for design review. I'm going to invite Ben Hoffman. Good. So, you know, that's good and some other people. And Sarah's done a great job of sending stuff to the Planning Commission, the mayor, the new mayor and all of that. Yeah, we hope for a good turnout. How do you all have anything to add? What are your emotions to adjourn? It's a little... Second. Second. All in favor of adjourn. Make sure you're handing me the adjourn. The plan or the whole new plan? The hotel? Good evening, folks. I'd like to call this meeting the City of Montpelier Development and we're newborn to order. My name is Phil Zallinger. I deserve as chair. The other members here this evening, to my right are Jack Hulling, Jane Volvanda. Sarah McShane, staff. Roger Crayons. Kate McCarthy. Thank you. We need to identify the five voting members since there's only five members in attendance. We will need the five members who act in conjunction with any action taken tonight. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? Motion by James. Second by Kate. All those in favor, will be signified by raising their right hands. The agenda has been approved. Comments from the chair. I'm going to ask the members of the DRB of what their sense is regarding the application for F-100 State Street. Is it your pleasure to go into a deliberative session once the record is closed? I would think it's certainly complex enough. Is that a motion, James? Yes, so moved. Motion by James. Second by Jack. All those in favor, the motion, please signify by raising their right hands. Thank you. Next item on the agenda is approval of the minutes on March 19th. I was not in attendance, but Dan was here. Jack, Roger, James, and we'll put Dan's on here at the seating. But Jack, Roger, James, and Kate. Move the minutes. Will they be accepted as a printer? Second. Motion by Jack, second by Roger. All those in favor, the motion, please signify by raising their right hands. Next item on the agenda is continuation of review of the Project 100 State Street Capital Plaza Corp. Good evening. Good evening. Before we begin, I see there's some other new folks here. Anyone who's been sworn in previously to give testimony on this matter remains sworn in, and those of you who have not appeared or testified previously, please raise your right hands if you wish to testify. You saw me swear the evidence you're about to give on the matter on the considerations of truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Thank you. This has been a serial presentation. I'll tell you what happened in the last installment. The DRB approved the grant of the variance. The siting garage structure south corner of the parcel leaves still on the DRB's agenda site plan, design review, and traditional use review of the project. I'll do this. Over to yours. Thank you for your time this evening. I guess for the benefit of the public and to help remind the Board, I'll quickly go over the site plan again. The project proposal that does is at 100 State Street, the existing Capital Plaza complex. The project contains two principal parts, a new five-story, 81-room hotel to be operated by the Capital Plaza Corporation under the Hampton Inn & Suites franchise. Also included in the project is a 230 space parking garage project that we're else comping this. There's a calculated value of 176 spaces, I believe, required for the project. So in addition to the 230 spaces of the garage, there are 56 spaces on the surface. That's still a big number, 56 surface spaces, including access to the back of the existing hotel and some surface spaces for the businesses that are in front of the Capital Plaza. There's a couple of air places and several offices for various functions. Of course, the restaurant and the hotel function. In that review, I think the development, the work that has happened on the project since the last time we presented to this Board has focused mainly on the execution of the parking structure and also in forming a cooperative relationship with the folks at Christchurch Episcopal Church, sorry. We have been in an ongoing series of discussions with them that we hope will result in a memorandum of understanding between the parties. I expect that improvements that are required on the church property in order to facilitate development of this area in general and this project that the church also has plans for a future project that at some future date the church will come forward with an application for improvements on their land. Some of which may be predicated by this project but all of which would be entirely sort of contained in their own application. That may or may not be part of the larger application to develop apartments on the back of the church property. We don't I don't think there's a firm timing on that yet but that's certainly their expressed intention and so a lot of our work with them has been just dealing with nuts and bolts issues. We're going to ask that that process continue apart from this process. We we're not asking for an official sanction on the MOU or anything like that but I think that is the vehicle that we're using to sort of tie off all the loose ends between ourselves and the church. There are still information that needs to be collected so the church has their consultants their consultants are cooperating with us and our team of consultants to iron that stuff out and I think we've made a lot of progress. We're not at 100% in that MOU but I feel like we are at a point where the project is ready for approval. I mentioned that the largest changes to the project were in the detailing of the garage. Part of that was intended to accommodate the concerns of the church if they were built in an apartment building on the back of the church building but the biggest innovation that's happened as I believe is the introduction of a living law system as part of the exterior skin of the garage and the garage you see show how that's intended to work. I also brought you a copy of this section here. Is that better? I think it's going to be better. I'm so sorry about that. Did you have a sheet in your set that looks like this? I handed out colored copies tonight. I didn't know if you got color black and white. But that's intended to show how the garage is labeled L101 landscape sections. And that shows the relationship of the parking garage to the bicycle path that shows the relationship of the parking garage to the church property that's the most important thing in this elevation on the top of the page telling how the design of the garage has been modified to incorporate living materials as part of the building. So, I actually have a sample of what that system looks like how it goes together. So this is the principle. That's used as a framework for living things to grow on. The one condition we got from the advisory board was very positive about this and I'm sure you have their comments separately but they did impose one condition in their approval and that was that we incorporate more evergreen materials into the plantings on these green walls essentially including some Boston ivy and some other things that hold their leaves year-round. The landscaping plans the schedule submitted addressed that change. The hotel building itself hasn't changed a lot since we've seen you last we've continued to develop the interior of the thing but it is still a mixture of stone and brick and some siding all the colors are essentially a variation on a theme of white. I did bring an actual sample palette composed of materials showing the buff Indiana limestone and a smooth finish the white brick and then we're going to have white siding the only other component is we'll use black for all our window components and for the roof components of the Ansar roof where the dormers are showing up here. I'll acknowledge that while we have shown signs on the application materials that we're not seeking approval for signs tonight that if you granted approval that would include the signs since it did matter to the staff. So we need to address the site plan issues tonight and hopefully if we have time I guess we still have to go through the conditional use determination. I do have a limited time frame with our landscape architects so if any of the members of the commission have specific questions about landscaping I'd like to move those up in the order of things but other than that I will mention a couple of last things Ron Lyon from Dubois and King is here he's been in regular consultations part of the public works I'm going to invite him up to say a few things about where things stand with public works and all the various plumbing issues and other than that I think I would like to just answer questions see if there's anything you need from us in order to feel comfortable making a decision. Thanks I guess our preference is to go forward in a linear fashion our jurisdiction derives from specific provisions in the statute so instead of just jumping around or from one to the other first I'd like to ask if there's anyone here who has any general statements to make about the project do you want to do that now? I didn't have an agenda to know where that fit we're making it up as we go along just identify yourself Stephen Whitaker 26 years I used to serve on a regional planning commission I've been to planning school at the Woodbury College program I have some overall comments I want to acknowledge the intense effort that's gone into this project and attempts to make it tasteful and I want to point out some areas where I don't believe it does fit as well the parking garage I'm not fully clear and I haven't been able to get an understanding here today of the relationship of this parking garage to the hotel as a unified, permitted project because my understanding from talking to the city manager's office was that absent the city's participation in the parking garage financially it would not get built and yet you're potentially voting on approving a hotel that depends on the parking garage for its parking so I'm not going to claim to be a lawyer hoping you've got your head around that issue but I think that's the wrong location for a parking garage I think that we have a very logical it's just going to take some more work by our community leaders to use the the deep well from the thrush down to the sheriff's office for a parking garage that fits much better and less intrusive especially in Brattleboro Mr. Riddiker, I can interrupt your pathologies since you've been on a regional planning commission and you have a degree you must be familiar with the premise that the DRB acts on the application that's submitted to us we don't redesign projects nor do we really want to take testimony from city residents who wish the project were redesigned or wish a parking garage were being erected somewhere else on someone else's property so if you could really please address your comments to the application that's before us the application appears to not fit well with the new transit center anticipating train traffic and less car traffic coming into town in effect going to have a big ominous five-story back end up against the transit center and that's doesn't seem to be well thought out in regards to anticipating a future where we are more dependent on train travel in and out of town passenger train travel through the city of Montpelier those plans are in works with the Vermont agency of transportation to and from the junction and from Barrett and my point is that should be a key concern because this entire facade faces the parking lot not the train station and in fact there's barriers extensive barriers I see on the backside of that I'm not trying to redesign it I'm trying to say that the blocking of the views of town the architectural mandate dictated by Hampton Inn in Suites I'm even a Hilton honors member so I've stated plenty of these but it's not in keeping with Montpelier's architecture it's being dictated by a franchising entity that might not be the franchising entity ten years from now or twenty years from now so I would exercise extreme caution on those points but I believe that blocking our view and pushing a five-story behemoth up against the river and bike path and transit center is this might be more appropriate in the site where the existing hotel lives now rather than crowded in between thank you Mr. Chair is it appropriate for me to ask a question of the applicant in response to this or would you like to take all testimony at once and then process it I think this is probably the appropriate time I seem to recall testimony from one of the early hearings that you were given as the my words right as the franchisee you're given autonomy over design do I remember that correctly and is that true? That's correct and if you were to go to Hilton's development site and look at what a standard Hampton looks like this looks nothing like that the traditional mixture of brick and limestone and the sort of traditional architectural elements that we brought in were specifically my thought process as far as what I felt was appropriate in Montpelier given that it's a city with the vast majority of its building are over a hundred years old we didn't go with something modern we decided to go with something traditional I'll address the rest of his comments as we go through those specific parts of the criteria but that's some misleading that's not true statement My question was not to endorse or not endorse the feedback but more to check my memory and the facts of the previous testimony so thank you for confirming that Step forward please My name is Nate Stearns I'm an attorney at Perkinson Carter Scott McGee I'm working with the Christ Episcopal church to help them analyze the current project and the impact on their property in response to what Mr. Rabbitot said I can confirm that we are working on a Memorandum of Understanding it's not agreed to yet there are a number of details that still need to be worked out and they relate both to the potential for a future housing project by the church and so we appreciate the applicant's willingness to work with us on thinking through that process and how that could integrate in the future but also the impacts on the property just as it exists today I do want to walk over to the site plan the church currently has a right of way that comes through the existing parking to access their parking area which is shown back here so we're concerned with what some of the impacts on the project might be on how that right of way gets maintained and how the project integrates with the existing church property in particular there's a proposal to lift the grade where the parking garage is so that there would be roughly a 4 foot differential between the church's parking area and the grade at the entrance to the parking garage Paul Boisbert is here from Engineering Ventures he's been working with DuBois and King and Mr. Rabidot to work through some of those issues and I don't think anything's changed since Friday the engineers had a meeting on Friday to talk through some of these issues there are some details still to be worked out I guess we can hear tonight if any of those have been addressed in the last couple of days at some point it can either be now or it can be after the presentation we would like to just put those concerns on the record as they relate to the access to stormwater ADA access things like that well as I'm sure you appreciate there are private property rights over which the DRB has no authority and the right of way that was granted to the church by either this owner or predecessor and title are measured by civil law not by the zoning ordinance and certainly to the extent there are elements of this project that might have a direct impact upon a right of way we'd be happy to hear it if it's relevant under the zoning ordinance the criteria that we have to measure the project against but also as you know there's other forums for differences of opinion between adjoining property owners as to whether there's an encroachment or an interference with the rights that arise under a right of way or an easement so although if we neighborly we like we take a lot of extraneous evidence and testimony in these kind of matters I guess we'll take testimony probably when we get to those issues but we like it to be addressed explicitly to the criteria under the ordinance not to whatever kind of disputes might arise between adjoining property owners understood and we're here mostly just to as you suggest talk about the relevant issues just to get those on the record some of the details that go into the site plan are going to impact us in a variety of ways and the impact upon that property under site plan criteria is that's admissible testimony and we're happy to take that and we do very much appreciate the applicant trying to work through this process collaboratively with us we just thought it was prudent to come here tonight great thanks any other general statements what I'm going to suggest is that we conduct design review of the project that's an area of our jurisdiction that's isolated I think from the other issues that arise under site plan and conditional use I understand our materials indicate to us that on March 5 the design review committee voted 3 to nothing in favor of the project with several recommendations one is that cornice materials at the top of the hotel building will be a darker color compatible with the Monsard roof material color to better address compatibility with adjacent building and forested hillside background is the applicant in agreement with that recommendation we agree with that has this design been modified to incorporate that not all the rendered materials are but we will incorporate it in construction drawings on this color selection the second recommendation was so you were there the word preference is used which it's not exactly compelling language but it's preference for green wall plantings to be evergreen for better year round appearance the planting schedule that was in your package reflected that change James is here to comment on what those plant material changes are I'm not sure if anybody is curious to get into the weeds on that but it was my weeds come back under lines Boston Ivy was one of the ones the English so those materials have been changed on the schedule members of DRB wish to take testimony as to what the findings are going to be there will be slightly different planting schedules depending on solar exposure but we will incorporate requested evergreen plantings has the applicant given any thought to ensuring a future health and virility of vitality of the plantings well I think proper soil preparation of planting and stuff will help but I think our biggest set in this regard is is that we have the Hilton Corporation who will continue to maintain franchise jurisdiction over this thing and they routinely come through and do property improvement inspections and if landscaping is dead or otherwise they'll force the franchise eat and replace the materials plus we'll have, you know, there's going to be on-site management here this is unlike an apartment building there's going to be a desk staff and hospitality is a little bit different in an apartment building they sort of need to maintain their good looks to keep people coming in the door but I think there's enough corporate oversight on this that it should be fine if the board wants to establish a bonding requirement or something like that that's certainly reasonable so somewhere between bonding and things should be fine there's got to be a better solution we have a standard permit condition having to do with maintenance of any required landscaping, is that right? under-site plan, landscaping and under-site plan, yep the next design review issue that design review committee raised was and I'll be honest with you, the other members of the board I'm not sure where the design review committee imagined it had authority over this subject but they're suggesting an adjustment to the scope of the proposal that a memorandum of understanding with the proposed Christ church project should or will address the raised elevation of the parking lot the maintenance of the parking garage and its green wall and coordinating the church project parking access issues am I alone in believing that that's not within the scope of the design review committees? authority? I agree with you Mr. Chair yeah and I think you write on is there an argument to be made that it is a design issue or an aesthetic issue we've talked about it mostly so far in terms of the function of the site and that's how I have been thinking about it as well but it's so ambiguous just it doesn't give us any direction it's I would be very hesitant to include any kind of a condition that went to the on basis of the recommendation from the DRC that that addressed the raised elevation of the parking lot maintenance of the parking garage and perhaps its green wall and coordinating the church property parking access issues I just I think we'll address those other issues under site plan and conditional use but I'm very hesitant about addressing them under design review agreed I don't even see any way to adjust that to me so I don't think it's out of place but earlier we took a vote to deliberate to adjourn and go into a deliberative session when the records closed I suggest we continue that right now and the applicant or the party's don't object I guess we'll close the record on the design review element of our project review I don't object to that so we'll leave the record open in case any other evidence comes in that impacts design review but I think we need to move on from design review so if I understand speaking for the applicant and the design team we're committed to pursuing this memorandum of understanding as a separate civil matter I agree with your sense of where it belongs in the process but I don't want to in that sort of complaining about that or whatever challenging it I don't want it to seem like we're going soft on our commitment to them but from your perspective I can talk. Moving on from design review elements of the project go to site plan elements we just can't hear you back there if your mics could be down we'll be talking more especially the gentleman at the table because it's really helpful testing Sarah based upon our we have a very comprehensive report that's provided to the DRB by Sarah as the zoning administrator and she raises she directs us and raises important issues about the project the site plan questions that you raise are fairly discreet if you could raise them the comments you have in a serial fashion and then we'll ask the applicant to address them and we can move on from there yeah most of the items that I pulled out as staff comments are mostly minor inconsistencies between the landscaping plan and the civil site plan or the engineering drawings some of the things just they're not consistent and like I said they're relatively minor one item was snow storage the location of snow storage was shown on the landscape plan and then the engineer drawing but they didn't match as well as I think the loading area that was one item to be discussed in previous drawings there was a loading area which is required under the ordinance but then on the on the site plan that I was provided four weeks ago that was omitted so that's something to just to talk about DPW has provided comments I don't think they raised any major issues there's a few inconsistencies about I think the number of parking spaces and the application site plan just to have it be consistent of we know exactly how many existing parking spaces are and how many are proposed and I think some of this I see it from my eyes because in two or three years we as the city want to make sure whatever is potentially approved is able to be we can administer it right so I think even though some of the issues are seem kind of minor I think it's important to what if approved whatever plan is succinct so the landscaping was sent on several occasions sent over to the tree board and they provided comments we've had several TRC meetings one issue that will one outstanding issue is the floodplain approval which is outside of that's regular or reviewed by the floodplain coordinator and through ANR as well but that's outside the DRB's review but otherwise I think most of my comments are relatively minor I'm going to start with one issue and that is the there's a one-story rear addition to the hotel and the zoning ordinance says that the minimum height requirement in CB1 is two stories however up to 20% of the building footprint may be one story applicant needs to provide the total building footprint in the footprint area of the addition to ensure that conformance with this district height requirement is met that that little tray that slides out of the back of the building is with swimming pool and we didn't pick up on that as part of your regulations because we thought we clearly had a five-story building so we were compliant but the architecture was because it's a 10,000 square foot footprint and I believe that the portion of that building that sticks out on the first floor is 31.5 feet by 20 by 31 so it's 630 square feet out of a 10,000 square foot footprint so it is less than 10% does the 10,000 square foot feet include the parking garage? no parking garage has its own footprint if you were it would only make it more compliant this is true in addition can you advise us what the proposed height of the hotel roof deck is it's shown as 56 feet it should include the there are several data elevations on the building because we wanted to make sure the building didn't come off as being sort of monolithic so there are three different roof deck elevations the highest of which is at 156 feet to the deck and if you refer to page A200 in the architectural drawings you'll see they're all labeled there that 56 feet is to the structural deck and then you can see there's a little bit of parapet that sticks up above that and then the other roof decks are at 153,4 and at 151,6 and that is it's based on a imaginary first floor at 100 so it's 56 feet from the first floor to the surface of the roof not including the train elements and the mechanicals are all beneath the carpet there wouldn't be any above the 156 elevation we're doing a type of mechanical system where for fresh air that's going to be enclosed in the closet inside the building for performance purposes the only thing that sticks up above that is the extension of the elevator which is a code requirement there's also a little extension of the laundry chute which is also a fire code requirement and you can see those again on page A200 in real life they'd be in the middle of the building an elevation form they look like they're right there but in my opinion is the average person standing on the state street won't see those elements the city's department of public works did raise a question about work in circulation as it relates to access to Taylor street the essence of the point is that it appears to run along the edge of the parking areas parking spaces so it runs across the front side of the hotel and there is a short section of these parking spaces where those parking spaces cross the side it's not a sidewalk it's a hatched walking area is it not put a special material there or cast a concrete sidewalk if he's looking for better demarcation there is another sidewalk that goes along the back side of the hotel also on Taylor street it really gets back down right here so public works is right in terms of their comment I guess the question is about that the suggestion is that the preferred design would be around the front of the parking spaces rather than behind the parking spaces so pedestrians wouldn't be walking on the front side of those parking spaces dpw had wondered whether or not it could be redesigned so that the sidewalk follows I don't know how to explain it but right it certainly could be there's a room for it there there's a small retaining wall on the hotel side of those spaces so we potentially have to lose one spot just to come out enough to put in a parking I mean to put in a sidewalk there whether it is doable one issue that we thought it was not ideal but in some ways this sidewalk provides a design line I'm sorry I can't follow you just from Taylor street normally not why by the railroad tracks tend to not follow the road coming straight to the hotel the hotel in front creates a line that takes an investment on the design line so we may have this configuration on the sidewalk behind it so it's not ideal to have some different conditions as far as the location itself the design lines on the other hand if you delineate that as a walking area then that gives pedestrians the false sense of security that they're safe in that area and that's not communicated to those who are parking in those parking spaces I think that's where the changes would be really important to look at some changes in that texture and coloration you've decided on this section we generally defer to the input and advice of the Department of Public Works their suggestion to us is that the preferred design would have the directed walking area to be at the front of those spaces rather than at the rear of them I don't want to be argumentative if it's a small detail if it's the sensitive board they would like us to do that in a manner suggested by DPW that will stipulate that we will I think another factor we might contemplate leads into the next item we'll probably discuss which is snow storage the area that we're talking about is delineated as either temporary snow storage or snow storage depending on which diagram we're looking at I'm generally in favor of the sidewalk doing this new configuration that we've been discussing if we did do that would it undermine the snow storage or conflict with the proposed snow storage location I could see a point at which the snow would pile up high enough that it might start spilling onto that sidewalk we wouldn't want to put any kind of fence or physical barrier there because the idea is to get people onto the sidewalk this came up I think at the staff level I think probably there are technical review meetings that the project provides more parking spaces than required by your ordinance and so we felt that we could take spaces out of service for snow storage on a temporary basis but operationally the hotel wants as many of the spaces as they can get so I think the practice is now is that after they get the initial site opened up they remove the material from the site alright Rich you guys ship snow off the site right now so these blocked out spaces aren't intended to collect all the snow from an entire winter they're intended to give them some place to pile it up until they can remove the site I can imagine there might be times when that snow piles over on that side I think that's probably true of many sidewalks yes alright so that's not as big of a conflict as I might have thought given the temporary nature of the snow storage consideration I would add again in favor of this reconfiguration is if you have people who are very petite or children or wheelchair users who are going on that as designed now that would add an extra hazard for drivers who are not expecting traffic behind them so I think this change is probably very positive for a number of reasons Sarah had called us with her concerns about some of these inconsistencies I did direct our engineering team to get with the landscape people hiring that out I believe that those changes have those corrections have been made if you think it's useful I'll invite them up to describe you know what they did if you'd rather keep moving okay with that as well but we did get heads up on these issues and the plans as they exist now I think our primary objective is that the final plans are consistent with the outlines the representations that are made and they reflect the elements that have come from both Sarah and the board so we don't need to go through them if you say that you're going to be incorporated in the plans well we'll look over the plans okay that's good does the board feel about discussing parking lot operations agreement with the city my view is that it's irrelevant we could have a parking lot agreement with the Vatican I do have one note for the record from city manager and it just reads at this point there's no actual plan for city parking we are negotiating with the Bicheras for a possible TIF project but the zoning permit application is theirs and so far does not involve the city it's not unlike the arrangements that we have on main street in the rear of the French block and things like that where the city has leasehold interest around obochats and things like that it's the city in this context the city is just another civil party to an agreement for the use of real estate moving on questions about the mechanicals questions or comments for DRB members concerning site plan elements TPW did have a question about on the drawings it shows a connection to the city's bike path in the corner behind the parking garage and whether or not they're proposing a retaining wall around there one of them is labeled as a temporary wall coordinated our design with STANTEC was undertaking the bike path they're happy we've actually moved on this is the updated site plan we have this take a look at it make sure it's the latest one March 20th there is a retaining wall along here we brought the grade up to where they have to propose bridge and we're actually have included a little of the bike bridge to take a rest and bike repair tools so they're going to amend their drawings to show our grading and are those shown on your engineering drawings as well or just the landscape plan you guys are all synced up after your call I called both of them and said lock yourselves in a room in this plan that I have here temporary retaining wall is actually on the other side towards the Christ Church are there retaining walls put into this plan around the garage and the parking lot is that? the one that we're talking about in the bottom corner there is a permanent retaining wall I'm changing to a different question right so what is the nature of those temporary retaining walls? well the church has a sort of near term problem which is how do we make their existing parking and rear entrance and then they have a longer term which is hopefully if everything goes well they'll come in with an addition on the church to contain some apartments so our thought process to now has been that at some point that apartment building and stuff will do some of the work that a temporary retaining wall might be required until they get around to that bigger project our discussions are focused on using something unitary like a masonry system that can be dismantled if and when they ever go to to build that apartment complex so we're now throwing 100,000 dollars of concrete into a dumpster that's why they're described as temporary to account for the differences of grade required when you build the garage well it's mostly the hotel the plan regulations required us under the old regs which we're still under for this application we had to raise our finished floor elevation a foot above a defined elevation there's a process and the issue of certificate which you have so yeah it's really it's really that floodplain regulation which will apply to their future project equally but there may be a period of years between when we finish our project and when they start theirs so we need to have that settled broadly speaking our attitude has been that improvements beyond our property line on the church property will be subject to a future application where the church is the applicant and they have their own consultants but we are working together to sort these things out so that what they come in their stuff meshes with ours and so those walls are temporary but indefinite is that fair they're necessary to build this project they may ultimately go away when the church does whatever it does in the future so there's no reason to think we're abandoning near parking area you're going to raise it with temporary and a temporary level so we have a net of no loss this board will see an application from Christ Episcopal Church at some date in the future that shows is that parking lot put back together and the capital plaza folks to the extent they're the predicate for all this on our participating financially in the development of those features what are we going to have use of those parking spaces or are we going to have a whole to look down for well it's up to the church but it seems to us that right now our discussions are focused on retaining the accessible handicap ramp that goes in the back of the church goes in through the church hall there's a bill code door that goes to their cellar that needs to the access to that needs to be preserved so no, I mean ultimately by the time we get to groundbreaking in November hopefully we'll have that sorted out but our conversations to date have been at least for the next couple of years that has to function as a parking lot and if the project ever turns into an apartment building at that point they may park in this parking garage and their lot will be occupied by apartments that's all still in process but there's no claim to rescind their easement or anything like that it's really just the only reason we haven't come in on something so far is it's really sort of theirs to do but also they've been waiting for the snow to melt so they could get out there and take some accurate measurements of various features that will have to be considered in this thank you I have one question so is the temporary retaining wall that's shown on the landscape plan and presumably the engineer drawings between the lot the 100 State Street and then the Christ Episcopal Church is that temporary retaining wall proposed under this project or are you guys asking for a permit or to be that for that to be part of the project or is that something that we expect a future application on and I only make note of it because right fences and walls do require design review and those those improvements haven't been reviewed by DRC at this point right and it depends on whose land it falls on in the end what I would suggest is that the church has hired a surveyor apparently or they're going to hire a surveyor we let them collect that information and we'll have to come in with some kind of application for improvements on their land even if it's just the restoration of the parking lot probably I'll fold that in there because they all work together we didn't talk about that with DRB the temporary retaining wall you've depicted that on the applicant's land so we have an idea of what it's what the size of its face one of the section shows the relationship with the parking what material the wall is going to be made out of no just the relationship of the grade change in section D 111 scale we had a detailed meeting with Engineering Venture on Friday the group's goal our goal there was to try to bring that change of grade down as much as possible but in order to make that determination they have to finish the survey work on the church this would represent this section D on L-101.1 that would represent kind of the worst case scenario so it would be a temporary retaining wall not to exceed yes like not to exceed what I would say probably by site datum elevation probably the top of that wall 2, 5, 24 5, 25 that's right and then just between 3 and 4 feet is the height of that wall still came for the far feet of elevation change as you go across the parking lot I'm sorry it's to account for the 4 feet of elevation change that the far end of the church parking lot where the handicap ramp is at elevation 523 drop in that right in front of the entrance to the proposed parking garage the rim elevation on that is 0.4 so the dramatic change of grade is that dramatic more elevation it's going to be 527 so things will build up right in this corner here expect to go from 524 525 down to 523 so it's only a couple feet over but the slopes aren't tremendously bad we just need to work to make sure that they meet a accessibility guidance so circling the wagons whose challenge is it the church or your together but the design of the parking lot will come in a separate application from the church to the extent that these two projects come together along a common boundary issues may come up during the design of the church's side of this that requires to come back to this part so the DRB doesn't have any other questions about these site plan issues and I'd like to ask the neighbor because they're all relevant site plan questions and yes please can you identify yourself for the record we did a chance to meet with start beginning talking about how these things work so the plans as we've seen so 525 at the high point which is the church property the parking lot is 4 feet lower so there is a 4 feet that affects a number of things from the church property doesn't mean that just can't be worked out possibly but we haven't gotten that point yet and we've really we've been talking about a possible future project that would be another process we're trying to figure out most immediately is how to keep the church functioning the way it needs to function right now so 4 foot grade change is a little bit of a challenge for the church and the parking lot to make that again how that gets used I guess we're going to then get into these as criteria more specifically no it's the site plan it's hard to go from one criteria to the next so it's just a generic discussion yeah ADA access for the church currently from the front of the state street you know in this direction is all and then access into the back of the church here so we just need to work through and make sure we still have ADA access that the church is only ADA access and that needs to be maintained the plan that Regards referred to we did talk to them about potential to drop grades that would be much more workable that hasn't really been worked through yet so if there's an opportunity there then do that process but we don't really we need this to function Paul let me ask you a question is the handicap access to the rear of the church is that by individuals navigating the parking lot on their own well it would be from the state street that is that's been accessed from there through the center of the parking lot not ideal by any chance not ideal would it be fair to say that slight increase in elevation here that might make it a little more difficult for folks for ADA access by by pedestrians yes the slopes that they've shown on their plan does meet the slopes along on the grave here do meet ADA requirements from my review then we just need to work through how that translates across the church itself it's not as if a perfect plan is being upset by this project it's not as if a perfect plan is being upset by this project well it's not perfect but that is what they have I understand the church predates ADA you understand that get to other topics we're under the tent we're under the site site plan tent here we're creating a high point the memorial garden which is a I think the storm system is being worked out but I hope it's at a point where we can fully weigh in on it I think the potential for the drainage system from the capital-positive project some high elevation there so when the water has to be during a short duration of 5-year event the potential is there to sort of start the system and start moving water in the wrong direction for the memorial garden can you identify where that is so you're testifying that the application materials as they're now constituted don't adequately address the storm water yeah I haven't seen anything fully address that so I guess I would qualify that by saying more than adequately describes what happens at 100 State Street it's virtually silent on what happens next door on the church property well I've never seen a storm water design that didn't take into account joining properties and we've made provision in the engineering plans for connection points for sewer, sanitary water we've shown in our engineering design valves and connection places where the church can plug in but all I'm saying is that the improvements on the church property will be shown on a church plan and that will include whatever storm stuff has to happen address this I'm sorry I'm getting a disconnect here I'm hearing from the neighbor that once we know what's going on on their lot we may have to modify our things a little bit but we know what's going on at the memorial garden now we don't have topography for that memorial garden nobody's prepared a survey of what's going on it anticipates what happens to surface water at the boundary does it not yeah right now the church has just sent water across the hotel property and into catch basins of that parking lot so the church is directing flows off of their land onto our land so are we going to equalize if we go up four feet? no I know it Rod do you have anything to add here? I do have a civil engineer yeah we have started talking about it I don't want to mischaracterize it I'm not trying to mislead anybody I think it's there's some details here that are based on fairly fine grading issues in the memorial garden we have on our site plan discussion with EPW putting connections on our new live is quite deep actually it's 12 feet in that area so we know that it's a solution to that it's reasonable to tie into our line I think one of the things that we're looking at is that this memorial garden goes towards states and goes back towards our garden we really don't know that I think we're not meeting several discussions with alternatives we're just looking at we need to put some in this retaining wall or any curb adjacent parking we need to put some relief areas and placement just cuts so there's several areas in storm drainage and I think we've got all the answers it's just we need to get down to the details it's really important that we understand what the church just thought some of these detail ratings we're very close to the solution it does take some very detailed surveying we can talk about and the schools could be trying to get the survey from the DRB's perspective we're very experienced at understanding how joining property owners can collaborate upon issues of common concern to them but and we certainly encourage the neighbors and their engineers and perhaps their attorneys that you can collaborate reach a mutually agreeable solution but we need to make findings affirmative findings about the site plan and it's design with all due respect I don't think your testimony suggests that this project by itself that there's a deficiency in the stormwater design of this project it may have implications for the joining property but is it your testimony that I guess I'm not quite sure I don't see I'm a view model we want to we want to feel confident that it's in that condition Paul when were you engaged by the neighbor when were you engaged by the neighbor so have these plans been how long have the plans been out of the oven I'm just thinking about some of the stormwater again not fully but unless you disagree by how I've seen it I guess design is the point and it's acceptable to how the project works we agree with the saying yes we believe this is an exceptional standard it's going to be from the state this state property we don't details that design I think there are couples this isn't I think it's design things are public works I've been in meeting with them actually do our system to allow drainage of the church property we get but it's lying in the property quite well so they can connect to it so I think we could slide with everything we can to what the church property design is understanding the mission cooperation I think that's coming so I think we're we're a couple we're close to saying here's a solution on our project addresses everything the church would have and I think quite honestly work towards that because I I should put this line in we should work with the city and the church make sure we do have a system that works for our neighbors except that the department of all works is the primary concern is with the infrastructure of the city's infrastructure and forward-looking they anticipate stormwater from other sites in the area as well which is what they customarily do in all instances but as the DRB we're charged with taking evidence on site plain elements of this project and we will take evidence from a neighbor that suggests that there are potential difficulties with stormwater exiting this site onto their site and if that's we have a different measure of whether the plans are approvable at least there's one member I think that's where this is a little different than how we design we do have some cooperation in the church quite honestly I think most of the church plans early in our design was housing with the plans of the church and it wasn't a tremendous amount of questions saying that they would do well for the church private office that wasn't housing where we were directly I don't think this was a correct direction was to put the church saying it's got to be something that works for the church but now and it's going to be submitted but church involvement not church involvement there's a lot of them there's no question I mean we understand that parties aren't at loggerheads we just need to make our way through the evidence and the record as it stands right now so go ahead Paul you have other observations not just I mean that they get to do a strong permit but we know water around here thank you when we went through technical review we were left with the impression that the level of completeness of the stormwater design was about 60% we didn't have to be 100% complete to go through this process so I apologize if we haven't nailed down some of this fine-grained stuff it was just our understanding of how the process worked I understand and unless you have an impact on the neighbor then the issue wouldn't come up because everyone freely acknowledges it and the data production process is ongoing to solve those problems sir I think DPW was just making note that fine-tuning of the utility and stormwater designs some of that stuff happens below ground and there's some minor changes that can happen through their permitting process but from the board's jurisdiction and the board's authority I mean looking even at conditional use and how the project impacts the off-site impacts let me also ask about the retaining wall that we see along the really it's along the common boundary of the church do you think this falls sufficiently is this temporary retaining wall of sufficient breath and scope to trigger DRC review and the one along the bike path I think is permanent it's the temporary one is between Christchurch but then there's a new one along the bike path that is permanent I believe how long is the retaining wall along the bike path 50 feet but it's more of a landscape element is it provided as this for seating the idea is that we're going to raise the grade of the bike path instead of having a retaining wall between the bike path and our access to the bike path we're going to bring the bike path up to our level so it's free access to the pedestrian so it's retaining the grade to make the bike path more accessible so Sarah when I can just recite what the ordinance says that fences and walls are subject to design review that's I think it's 709 or 305C put a place mark there and move on any other comments or observations about site plan issues Kate did we want to discuss the loading area was that on our list or are you still going through that list was it going to go through it one by one all site plan issues I didn't know if that was what the board wanted to review based on Sarah's comment on page 13 of the staff report I'm only raising it because I think it was raised earlier and Sarah's one so this parcel is obviously in design control the ordinance does give the board the authority to grant waivers for off street loading areas at one point there was an off street loading area I think closer to the Taylor Street intersection but then that was omitted on the plans that I reviewed so there's a couple things going on now if you visit the project site you'll see that there's a portion of the building that people park underneath and new grain is going to be raising over here we've got a little retaining wall here around that area so that that becomes kind of our work yard dumpsters are intended to be underneath that enclosed space so they'd be screened from the public by the fees in the building there you did mention that this cut out in the curb here is a loading and off loading area but that would be for cars, buses that would be for hotel gasses because right now what happens is trucks pull in off of Taylor Street they just sort of park right in here and they offload into the hotel by this series of doors here I think there is going to continue to be the occasional truck traffic that comes onto the site these particular spaces in here will largely be used by employees so I expect that there will probably be trucks in here still but the large work area most of the work stuff is in this sort of work yard that we're creating here I'm just going to go out on a limb and suggest that those parking spaces are not likely to be used by employees but more like management this is just so close to the building that it would be a shame if they can file use those parking lots I wouldn't be surprised if you had a lot of Bouchard as marketing here just a guess the Hampton in itself does not have a restaurant or a commercial laundry in it it serves breakfast a prescribed list of breakfast items we don't anticipate the new hotel requiring a lot of additional truck traffic most of these franchisees just go to Costco and buy bulk stuff but the existing hotel and certainly the restaurant that's there now will continue to have the level of traffic to Hampton and you said the laundry for the Hampton and the suites is on site they're going to consolidate and have one laundry for the two properties so the laundry facility and the capital flaws will be doubled curiosity satisfied about parking and loading spaces they're now indicated on the plans was that a question Kate? not anymore I was curious about whether we needed more information or needed to actually delineate the parking and loading spaces based on the staff comment but those spaces have been delineated yes thank you so any other issues comments about the site plan I'm hesitant to move on to conditional use review because we have an outstanding site plan issue and that is whether the temporary retaining walls are walls that are subject to the review and comment jurisdiction review of the design review committee not obviously we don't have primary jurisdiction over those matters those go to the design review committee first and then they review and make a recommendation to the DRB we're not wed to their recommendation although we defer to them regularly I would feel very uncomfortable about initiating review of those walls at the DRB level and I understand what that means about the progress of the project and but I don't I feel like we're in we're in a box canyon there's nothing we can expedite they have to go through the process of collecting the information we discussed earlier at the same time there has to be some concord between parties as far as what those look like the retaining wall so although there is testimony that there's somewhere between 3 and 4 feet you can't really design them until you know what's on the other side of the wall I don't know why I around it I mean other than the issue of a permit that doesn't that specifically excludes those walls otherwise the other option is that we go away from back at some point and we have the answers I'm a little uncomfortable about that just because I don't control the process of collecting the data I understand your situation Do you guys have any plans for like materials or anything like that could you develop those to present to DRC at their next meeting or we could certainly talk about materials you know because I think we've been talking about sort of off the rack unitized retaining wall system which could be anything from stone or dry lead stone or it could be one of those masonry products but to get accurate vertical control I'd love to settle some of these other issues with our neighbor I usually rely on DPW to provide like just a technical kind of review of things like that so if you had any of those details I would forward them to DPW for their comment So it's unlikely to be just poured concrete No for two reasons a poured in place foundation retaining wall would have to have a counter for it you know big footing that goes out into the ground and we don't want to do anything that hands into the church property because we're likely to run into interred remains like to run into what interred remains I think there are fumation urns and stuff in that memorial garden right so the memorial garden isn't just a peaceful place I think it's not a euphemism but the other thing is as I mentioned earlier if they do do a project in the future that's strong likelihood that the retaining wall in this location would get demoed in favor of the new apartment building we want to use something we can take back apart and reuse somewhere I guess I'm interested in exploring all possibilities even though this may not actually end up being a possibility anyway has the development review board ever approved something contingent upon DRC review and approval of one outstanding item not to my knowledge because it would be hard for DRC to make a recommendation to us if we already approved it I know that sometimes we approve things based on you know pending final plans or pending final diagram showing something we discussed I didn't know if this would be a similar situation pending a final diagram showing a wall that we discussed that was not concrete I don't think that's possible okay there's two walls but they don't say I think there's two walls being proposed am I right there's a permanent wall being proposed and then a temporary retaining wall too yeah the permanent one is associated with the bike path that's accommodating the city's project we're always talking about a lot and that will be on private property right yes do you know the design elements of that the material all of that is that known well not sufficient for your purposes I don't think we know the size and shape location of it but I'm not here prepared to show you what it's made of the color of it no good deed goes unpunished I appreciate you digging around trying to find a way to make this work I have a feeling my head's in the news anyway well problem out of work no good deed goes unpunished because the applicant is sought to accommodate the bike path and ameliorate the impact of the project on the bike path now you find yourself with a wall that you've agreed to create design but nevertheless the other temporary retaining walls around the neighbors property already present us with a loose end so what's the pleasure of the applicant we can continue with the conditional use review tonight I'd like to get through as much stuff as possible because I don't want to come back yet again and find some fresh so if there something they come out of that needs our attention I'd like to ask for a five minute recess then before we undertake review of the conditional use criteria we're recessed for five minutes we're going to return to the we're going to return to the hearing folks we're going to go back on the record so we'll begin with the conditional use criteria conditional use approval may be granted by the DRB only if the DRB determines that the proposed use does not adversely affect the following capacity of existing or planned community facilities Sarah can you supplement sure so outline for just this sure so the application was originally submitted back in November and we've had several TRC meetings I think since that time not recently but since that time we have and police fire department building inspector floodplain all city departments are invited to review and comment and no one really raised any major issues they've been working through DPW permitting to make sure that there's adequate municipal water and sewer and stuff like that I think they've addressed everything traffic reports additional questions were answered that's a different criteria I think between DPW and the information we got at our TRC meetings I think that everyone agreed that it wouldn't adversely affect community facilities the second criteria is the character of the area affected this project is located in the CB1 zoning district it's suitable for commercial retail and other like uses and there's to be consistent with the design of the CB1 district next criteria is traffic on roads and highways in the vicinity we have chip-trip generation distribution analysis prepared by RSG we also have testimony from DPW that I'm not sure that DPW's comments were updated on and so based upon that later review DPW I think has concluded that that it will not adversely affect traffic yeah DBW in their last sentence they stated that we agree with the overall conclusion that the hotel project will result in a modest increase in peak hour traffic which we believe will be manageable and not have adverse on existing our planned facilities I think ERB can also take notice of the development by the city of the joining site on the other side of the railroad tracks and the fact that Taylor Street is going to be reconstructed in connection with that project and so some of the obvious difficulties that Taylor Street presents now will not be continued far into the future and Greg it is accurate isn't it that the Taylor Street exit has been designed to be compatible with the ingress and egress at the transit center adjacent transit center they don't conflict with each other one takes into consideration the other Taylor Street access is already there so the transit center had to take into account the existence of the capital plaza interchange there that's one of the reasons why we hired the same civil engineer to do this project as is doing the Taylor Street project to make sure that that coordination is there next criteria is the project will not have an adverse effect on the zoning and subdivision regulations in effect here in mind we're we're assessing this project under zoning ordinance that's it's about to depart the last project we review under the zoning ordinance one other that spring street one the zoning ordinance emeritus is what we call that and finally the project does not appear to restrict access to or interfere with the utilization of renewable energy resources I think that's a fair draw that conclusion sir do you think it's necessary to introduce testimony regarding the expected noise generated by the hotel and parking garage I think you can probably safely say that it's not going to adversely affect the character or surrounding vicinity standard vehicular traffic moving through a rather close parking lot that's going to be adjacent to a transit center further comments observations about additional use criteria has the general project impact review been undertaken as recommended by dpw the comment from them was a couple meetings ago having to do with the number of projects happening at the same time in that general area and just the need to assure coordination so that all those sites and the surrounding areas could continue to function it says the city manager's office is presently investigating possible options relative to accommodations for just place parking sequencing projections for each of the respective projects is that the kind of thing that continues to be discussed by the construction management team for the Taylor Street project also going to be the construction management team for this project so a lot of logistics in terms of where construction people park and stuff is managed under a single point which we think will help there have been extensive conversations about offsite parking for construction workers and vehicles there's a couple lots that have been mentioned again and again but apparently the city of the state has some parking out for a great year or something so yeah that's an ongoing process and that will continue right on through the project I think it will be intense for a while it's also during the period of construction so it's DPW I think suggesting that city fathers such as it is give some thought to what will transpire during the period of construction that's not a conditional use issue but it was mentioned under the miscellaneous comments so I know it won't affect our approval one way or another but those conversations will continue I'm sure so what's the pleasure of the board my recommendation would be is that we've taken evidence on the conditional use criteria we've taken evidence on design review and we've taken evidence on site plan but we have one outstanding two outstanding issues on the site plan review and that is the final design and configuration of walls in two areas one around the Christchurch property and then in the rear towards the right path I don't think your plans are finalized for those two issues yeah I'm afraid to I have to concede that point believe me we don't like to with the progress of project review either we're very aware of how issues like this can arise on the other hand and maybe going off the reservation here we certainly want to encourage the neighbor to step up and participate actively and promptly and expeditiously to facilitate review of the impact next door so that applicant can proceed with their design we understand the lineation between private property rights and what our jurisdiction is but we also don't like to see private property rights used as leverage in a permitting environment inconsistent with good neighborly relations and proper development in the city so we encourage collaboration between the parties expeditiously um anything further from the parties the applicant we started to talk informally about when the next hearings would be we don't have any time on our April 16th meeting and our next meeting after that is May 7th I saw that in the motion in the draft motion and I given what I know we have to collect for information about a design what we'll have to do I think that would be fine to come back to see you on May 7th does the DRC also meet May 7th? DRC meets on April 16th so theoretically you could go to DRC on the 16th or you could go on May 7th like the back to back kind of thing um I guess I'm going to get with my team and I'll call you to tomorrow work and say which of those dates unless you need to this board needs to continue to a time and date certain we can decide on DRC it doesn't matter for DRC but um for this board they do how the testimony is appropriate that we can close the record I don't think that's advisable because you can't anticipate whether some element of the redesign of this will have a domino effect or trigger changes elsewhere and it's there's no need to close the record and so I think it would be ill advised to do so at this time would be better to issue a combined decision rather than individual decisions is there a motion then to continue this hearing until May 7th I uh I'll make a motion to continue the hearing on 100 State Street to May 7th thank you Roger, motion by Roger second by James any further discussion all those in favor please signify by raising your right hands thank you for continuing until May 7th thanks for your time and patience thank you if you know you'll bring them then that's fine but sometimes it's just hard to keep track of who has copies if you want we can just provide you with the new materials I will be there I'm happy to keep mine and I promise I will perfect and then we'll just provide new members the color coding and the staff reports has been very helpful yes you need a red how are we in business how are we in business are you going to be here on May 7th I guess I have potentially we just have to work out the details I had said that I would stay through the to see this project Mr. Chair are you seeking a motion to adjourn Mr. Chair are you seeking a motion to adjourn is there a motion to adjourn motion by Kate second by Jack all those in favor can you see this little bit