 afternoon. Thank you for coming. Presentation if you will. There is a lot of information to disseminate. We're going to go pretty quickly because we would like to mostly hear from you. So if we say something that you want us to circle back to when we get into the Q&A or actually the comments, please don't hesitate to say what did you say when back in the beginning. So we have a scripted presentation and some slides behind us that folks will be presenting. We hope that will take about 20 minutes and then we'll be able to open it up for the public hearing to take comments. So I apologize that I'm going to read this. Welcome and thank you for coming tonight and thank you to all that have attended earlier, written or otherwise contributed comments and suggestions in previous Planning Commission meetings. The Commission has been engaged in this process of renewing the bylaws for several years from determining a process to tackle and modernize them to moving to then moving through a methodology in a thoughtful and reasonable manner. It has involved countless hours of volunteer time along the way the Planning Commission has experienced changes in commissioners and changes in town staffing all of which contribute to a broader set of ideas. These commissioners here tonight bring a plethora of experiences, residency in our town, land use planning and GIS technology backgrounds to the thoughtful recommendations in the UDB phase one documents and you'll hear us refer to UDB that's unified development bylaws phase one. These regulations are not final. Our goal here tonight is to continue taking public input on the process on the proposed regulations and bylaws and to use that input to make changes that in our judgment is appropriate. In fairness to the Commission, we need to discuss your input before we can make those decisions. Please don't expect us to be answering your questions or revising the document itself tonight. I'd like to make some introductions. As I said, my name is Martha Stascus. I'm chair of the commission. To my left is Katie Gallagher, our vice chair, Mary Cohen and Dana Allen. Billy Victor is also on the commission and was not able to be here tonight. And for those of you who have not yet met our tremendous planning and zoning team, we have Neil Lightner back here as our planning director and we have Mike Bishop here at the table who will be here for about 45 minutes and then has to depart as our zoning administrator. From the public hearing notice, I just want to state the purpose of this meeting. We're here tonight to convene the first of two public hearings to obtain public feedback regarding proposed updated zoning bylaws, the unified development bylaws phase one. The second public hearing will be held Thursday, March 14th, 2024. These bylaws supersede the town and village of Waterbury zoning regulations as amended through May 16, 2016 will refer to those as the 2016 zoning regulations. It's only for the downtown mixed use neighborhood, campus, commercial industrial, residential one and conservation flood plain zoning districts depicted in the zoning district map. And they are included in section 1611. The zoning districts in phase one are bound to the south of I 89 north of the Winooski River and the east west by the town boundaries of Bolton and Middlesex. All of the requirements of the 2016 zoning regulations with respect to application processing review procedures including but not limited to the zoning permit issuance and design conditional use site plan and subdivision review continue to apply in the UDB phase one zoning districts. Any development that including that requiring site plan review shall meet in addition to section 301 the standards and requirements of these bylaws. These bylaws supersede the will supersede the interim bylaws for the downtown zoning district that were adopted in April 26, 2021. Once they go through and are adopted by the select board. So we have a process that we're going through. Okay. But we rather just be really clear this is only for the phase one section which is this downtown basically the downtown area and you'll see it come up on the maps. Who's next, Mary? We really appreciate you all coming out tonight. And if you have a question or comment, we're going to ask you to, you know, kind of take turns keep to a two minute time limit. If you if a question comes up that all those little facsimiles of an index card pieces of paper, if you'd like to leave a comment that either we don't have time to get to it, but I think we probably will with the number of people here today. If we have we're going to have a two minute time limit, as I said, if you have more that you want to say, you can come back. We have a sign up sheet for speaking, but I don't know if we really actually need to do that with a small crowd. So we were kind of prepared for various sizes. It's all unknown, but this is Martha said this is the first of two public hearings. And because it's an official public hearing, we really need you to state your name and part of town that you live in, if you'd like. And what I'm not sure what's on the screen behind me. Okay, all right. I've been riding her. Good. So the key information is, you know, Neil Lightner it as an email and telephone number, if any questions come up for you. And as Martha said, we're still working on this. So we consider input. We've already made some changes from our first informational sessions we had in the fall. And our hope is to be able to turn this over to the select board in April. We have, we're gonna, we haven't, I was gonna try to try to talk about the components, but I think without seeing what they are, it's just a bunch of words. But on the town website, we have those. I'm just gonna read from here. Yeah, there you go. It's a little different. So I'm just I should watch Dana. Okay, my apologies. So background for the revision. There's there's some good information on the town website about why we're doing this and sort of what our overarching goals and objectives are. The draft document is there for you to read and look at. And then there's a slider map of illustrating the proposed zoning district revisions. And when we say slider map, you can look at part of town, a street, your own property, what it was zoned at what it currently is zoned in and what we're proposing that the zoning changes are. We have also a link on our the planning and zoning website that will direct you to story maps and storyboards and some illustrations, some of which you're able to look at here. The dimensional standards, these were done by a consulting group, SC group, who's helped us with public outreach. And we were able to do that through a bylaw modernization grant from the state. So I think that's all just logistically, I will be the timekeeper, but we'll try to go through the questions and comments. Get everybody in. Dana? Yeah, yeah. Okay, great. So as I'm gonna stand up, I can't sit down. This is the phase one area. So we're not talking about the entirety of town. So just to clarify again, you're bringing back to the map. There we go. So phase one area is primarily downtown area, you can see bound by the highway and the river. And then it does extend out. So again, bound by the highway and the river. So that's a phase one area that we're talking about. Next slide. So the the background and primary goals of this are essentially to become in line with the 2018 town plan or pre existing regulations were 2016 town plan was posted to 2018. So this has been an ongoing process to basically update these bylaws to be in line with the goals of that 2018 plan. We did pay special attention to that plan when developing these bylaws. So if you have any questions, that's a great document to read. But one of the things that we really wanted to do in this is, you know, it talks a lot about housing density and commercial vibrance in the downtown. So that's a big part of these bylaws. There's also compliance with recent state activities. So S 100 or Act 47, which is a housing act, we're not going to get in the specifics of that this evening, but that does include special provisions for downtown areas like ours that are on water and sewer provisions primarily for residential development. And so again, we're trying to come into line with recent legislation with these bylaws. As I increased housing density, diversity makes it uses combined uses on the same parcel within the same building. Again, we want to give people flexibility and diversity in the downtown. That's so important for us. Smart growth principles is something that's been consistent in Vermont development for years. But we're trying again to densify in a way that makes great use of space, while also recognizing that there's some challenges, notably flood resilience. After 2023, I don't know if you're like me, but you have PTSD from flooding. And so we want to recognize that we need to do something about that to the greatest degree possible. We do have flood hazard regulations that are pre existing. Those are part of these bylaws as well, not specifically addressing the needs. Can we go to the next slide? So we did try to simplify. So we're limiting the number of zoning districts, we're actually reducing the total number of zoning districts. And so we're kind of combining a lot of uses and things like that. So we're trying to streamline this process for the average user. Really, one of the things is that we're giving people a bit more flexibility to build more on their parcels, smaller parcels, we're giving people the ability to build a bit higher than in the past. And so I really encourage you to look at the dimensional standards, you know, pre post like 2016 versus these bylaws and think about that, we really want to give people the opportunity to use more of their land in this phase one area, if possible. So that's spreading out and spreading up flood plain challenges acknowledging those. Oh, can you go back to sign? God, Neil, we didn't practice, did we? Yeah, no, we go back, back, back. There we go. Okay. Oh, right. And then neighborhoods. That's a big important part of this. This is our residential core. We also want to provide flexibility for certain uses within that that's not just housing. And we also want to provide the development review board with additional clarity. In their process, they've got a big job. And so we're trying to make their lives easier and your lives as well. Next slide. Some of the highlighted revisions, home occupations have changed. There's more clarity there, I should say. So definitely review that. I definitely think that looking at building structure heights, increasing in downtown mixed use in the campus district, really across the board, look at the dimensional standards and think about that. That's something that's definitely changing between 2016 and now. Lot of allowances are changing. We're allowing for more development on lots. We're also allowing for smaller lots, generally speaking. Again, increasing density. We've formalized this new campus district before we had a campus overlay. Now we have a campus district that is primarily the state owned parcels. That in particular, we did allow multifamily housing in that district. Again, in recognition of the fact that we do want to develop more housing in our downtown area, and that is a relatively large open space to do that. Not going to get into S 100 requirements. We do have a lot of things there. But there are some things about single family zoning in certain areas. Now that goes to duplex in certain cases. Again, I really don't want to get into the details of that particular legislation tonight. This is more about our bylaws, but that rides on top of these bylaws. So in the other big change here is that in the new downtown and mixed use zoning districts, single family dwellings will no longer be allowed. And that again is to try to encourage housing density in these areas by having more duplexes or multifamily dwellings in our downtown core. Next slide. So really, we recommend review of the appendix. We're calling it the appendix. It's essentially the use tables. So the use table is organized by districts and then by use on each row. And it tells you essentially what's allowed in each one of these districts by use, what size, whether it's permitted, conditional or not allowed. And then there are definitions for essentially all of those uses. So if you're confused as to what something might be, please go to the definitions and see what that is. But review the use tables and also definitely review the dimensional standards tables, as those will have a big impact on development. And those are big changes. That's me. I think that's you. Thanks, Dana. Okay, so we're just going to lie through the different zoning districts that we have zoning districts. There's changes in names that we'll talk about. Dana just went through some of the higher level changes, boundaries, purpose statements. So we're just going to go through the purpose statement, because I think it's helpful to just get that context of what we're trying to achieve for each district. But as we mentioned before, one of the overarching goals of the process was to streamline the multiple districts that we had already into a fewer number and making them a bit more flexible for what people could do on their properties. So one thing I just want to mention as well is that in trying to follow kind of best planning practices, that another overarching goal was to increase densities within our downtown kind of having that core and then have it spread out into, as you saw on the map before, kind of on the either end, we have that conservation floodplain district. And so development is getting more concentrated and more dense as you go to the center of town. Sure. Yeah. So if folks didn't see already on the table, there's the dimensional standards for each of the districts. So those will provide a lot more details that I'm not going to talk about because we talk about it forever. But that is is helpful. And also, as you mentioned, all this information is on the website as well. Or actually, sorry, we can start staying downtown district for one second. So downtown district hasn't changed too much in this that red section just as a note that is also part of our designated downtown. So that's a lot of what the downtown district is based on. And here we are trying to concentrate our commercial or residential other compatible uses in this area while maintaining our traditional pattern scale and massing and supporting a pedestrian oriented village center. Next one, please. So then kind of as we go out on, you still have that red in the middle of our downtown orange, if you can see sorry, the colors are a little mixed together. But that's going to be our mixed use districts. And here we're trying to allow for a variety of housing options. And as we mentioned, a mix of small scale commercial service and other compatible uses. So again, kind of tapering out but still maintaining and enhancing that kind of traditional village character. Next slide, please. So then we get into the neighborhood and that's going to be in those yellow sections. So this is a bit more of our of our residential neighborhoods. Still near our public services, infrastructure, transportation, we're still within this walking distance to our downtown. So we do want to allow for some higher density housing, as well as neighborhood compatible uses. So again, the idea here is is trying to make it compatible with these areas as we're tapering out from the downtown. And then next slide going out a bit further residential one is in those kind of teal areas. Yeah, thank you, Neil. So outside on the edges there, and this is our residential uses and in this more kind of rural setting larger lot sizes, while also trying to minimize development impacts on our environmental quality out in those areas, which if you can see as well, a lot of that is overlaid in blue because those are flood prone areas. Next slide, please. So campus, as we mentioned, this is changing a campus previous campus overlay to a new campus district. And this is the area with the state offices. And here we are wanting to protect those architectural and historic resources that's in that beautiful area, but also support it as a place for potential commerce or housing, multifamily housing in particular, thinking about future potential uses. Next slide, please. So then we have commercial industrial so that's in purple again kind of in on the on the edges, but also the pilgrim park close to downtown. And so here we're looking to support new or expanded businesses in this area that served by infrastructure. And this is including manufacturing and in some cases, allowing for new multifamily development. And then next slide, please. So this is the final district. This is our new conservation floodplain. It's that light green that's on the edges and also on the south side of the campus district. And so this is floodplain areas that are largely already undeveloped. And so we're just trying to make sure that we are conserving that land and maintain it in a primarily unimproved kind of natural state. And I think that is our last slide, although I do want to mention that we also have a design review overlay district that already exists. We're updating that and there's new location boundaries across the downtown in mixed use districts. As well as the campus. Thank you. It's all inclusive of the downtown of mixed use in campus. Can I have a point of clarification? Where where are the boundaries of the downtown? It used to just be Patchellers Street to Parkway down North Main. Now is it all the two miles? No, no, no stretch. Okay. See the red area in here. So it goes from the I can't reach up there. I need to give me a street. Main Street. South Main Street. Yeah, to the roundabout up there, just shy of it. The bridge all the way down to Park Road. This is Park Road. Here's the park. Okay, train stations. So it's downtown, the village, the downtown. So so we're we're conflating. So this is this is where we have the slider map. Okay, just hold on a second. Let's put up the slider map. What's really what's what's going to create a little confusion here we understand is the fact that we have reduced the number of zoning districts. Okay. The other thing that I want to reiterate is the storyboards what we call storyboards around the room are all the districts that we're we're talking about tonight. So when if we break up early or if you have some questions, you can go look at those in particular. But yeah, there you go. So hold on. So the solid red is downtown. The orange is mixed use. The yellow is what we call neighborhood now. The blue is the new campus district. Purple is commercial industrial. And then this green is called conservation flood plain. And I want to note that the conservation flood plain parcels are we looked at the specific parcel ownership and they're basically GMP and the railroad, their utility and town old parcels. So we're not impacting a private residence parcel because the flood conservation flood zone district really has no development in it. Right. Okay. And we didn't want to impact any private landowners. So before I just want to give the board the commission another chance to wrap up any other comments and then we would like to circle through the questions that you folks may have. We're small enough. We had planned that we would like you to come up to the podium. I think if we can do it just sitting, we're fine with that. But we need to just do it on an orderly process because we're also taking notes on the comments and so we want to get the comments recorded. And I would ask that you not expect us to give you a specific answer or adjustment. We're really here for a public hearing, hearing you folks. Okay. Mary. So the term downtown is used in three different ways for this part of town is my experience. One is there is a state designated downtown district and that is really separate from our town zoning. There is and so we have part of our our current downtown is state designated and some of it will stay within the red the downtown. Some of it is mixed juice. Some of it is you know all the downtown is not in the state designated. So they don't totally overlap. So that's one down. We have a zoning district that we're calling downtown zoning district. We also have there is currently in the in the current regulations. There is a downtown designed overlay district and we're proposing changes to that in terms of the conditions and the the bylaws what's allowed what's what has to the DRV has to consider but we're not calling it downtown design review or just calling it design review overlay district and we have matched that to the boundaries in this section of town that zoning district downtown zoning district mixed use. So we we don't mean to confuse you by saying that there's you know I think an easy way to answer this is are you talking about the mile long village and the zoning areas within that from essentially okay because you began by saying you're only going to be talking about the downtown since I am on South Maine and it's mixed use. I thought be sure I shouldn't even be here. No no no that's why the downtown gets confusing. The discussion well let's be clear the discussion tonight for Kathy the discussion tonight includes everything from the town boundary of Bolton to Middlesex to the Wanooski River to the interstate. Okay that's the area of Waterbury town that we're talking about okay and it's the zoning districts within that phase one we call that phase one. Okay thank you. Sure good question. So I would how are you so you don't want the podium? You just want to follow on people? I would say if you have a question at this point we could we could raise your hand if as long as we can hear you um you have to state your name and we'd prefer if you just give us an idea of where you live so we can put it in perspective. We have a hand behind you. I'm Jeff Boyle and I live on High Street and I just want to first of all thank you guys for having me and I appreciate that you took into consideration a lot of us citizens uh ideas and put put High Street in some of those other neighborhoods and the neighborhood district that was awesome. Jeff I'm going to ask you to stand up. You may need to come to the podium. I get this all the time. Especially in my life. Fine um no but thank you for taking into you know citizens uh comments and tweaking the the zones and taking High Street and putting that in the neighborhood district. I really appreciate that. I'm sure my neighbors do too. Uh going back to we're just talking about just like what are you considering downtown and what's the downtown district? So the all is the all encompassing downtown phase one is that gonna be is that gonna have it like a downtown overlay district to it for a design review? So the there is a there is now we're proposing a design review overlay district. We call it the draw just to give a romantic name. The design review overlay district will include all of the downtown the red downtown zoning district. What happened to our map? We're getting back. Okay. The the downtown zoning district the mixed use zoning district and the campus zoning district. Okay. Okay. I guess my only comment to that is like some new away from that case and then show the impact. So this so just to clarify just to like show you again. Oh there it is. Yeah. This area town battery to town battery river to highway is phase one. That is the that's what's included in these in this bylaw update. So that's phase one. So when we talk about what we're updating we're updating all of phase one. There is an area the downtown zoning district which is part of this and then there's what we colloquially refer to as downtown this general area. So just so we're clear phase one downtown zoning district overlay district is in ranch here and encompasses mixed use downtown mixed use and the campus. Does that clarify? Yeah. No. Okay. I'm good. Yeah. Great. And so I guess my comment to that is I know I've mentioned this in past past meetings and I'm just gonna continue to mention it. I really I'm I'm the first to not tell anybody what to do with the property and I really hate that that I have to mention this but I feel like the entire phase one should have some sort of design review process in place because I feel like it's I think it's good that we're we're decreasing setbacks and increasing height limits to allow to allow us to to build more but I think if we're building more we're amplifying whatever comes into our village and we went through all this process to become the historical downtown Waterbury district. What what historic value do we have if we don't have any design constraints to protect the natural aesthetics of our village and the perfect example of that and I hate to be to be the dead horse but you know the the nine needed up on High Street Hill Street that's that can only get bigger and more amplified and in my opinion more atrocious if we don't have some sort of guidelines to constrain how we're building in the design behind that process for these other districts okay also we just finished how I need your help we we just updated is the is the drive online no no requirements it's part of it oh it is on yeah so be sure to check online because it just went up recently I mean this is an inner process for sure there are design review overlay district criteria and I suggest you look at those specifically and if you have comments on those with respect to the neighborhood zoning district let us know okay all right and I think we said it it's on page 31 of the I want to look at the whole document well that's true you said go find it so I'm trying to tell her to um uh wait I think Mary said this before if you don't provide a comment here tonight written you can always send it to Neil uh online you can always email it to Neil or drop it off at Neil he just loves getting that all right um next I have a question yes sir could you we're gonna say oh I think you can hear me yeah well my name is Lloyd Stennis I'm on 10 Randall street quick question on downtown apartment option am I reading this correct that it can be six doors 60 feet but it says that there's six I'm just asking a second for clarification yeah and we did go through this a lot and in terms of readability of the bylaws a story is dimensionless it's not there's no number of feet typically associated with at least oh we can enforce so we just went with actual dimensions but yeah 60 feet is the height limitation in downtown okay just in the downtown zoning district not in the colloquial downtown sorry a property if that met the minimum requirements somebody can buy that property tear that property down and build that size property correct 60 feet 60 feet oh that I'm just clarifying yep we we also thank you we also have more extensive of requirements for demolishing any property within within the design overlay district clarify I'm sorry I took some medication my mouth is very dry so I apologize um the design overlay district includes a component night you want me to do it yeah yeah thank you so the design review overlay district includes a section about demolition and the requirements necessary if you propose to demolish the building okay and and I don't we don't need to go into it here but there are specific requirements you can't just come in and wipe out a building and put something a little harder yeah okay especially it's in the store that's that's our point yeah but that would also follow up with what we talked about with properties that are damaged or not being taken care of that's right thank you I'm gonna stand over here because when he was talking in his back was too it was very hard to hear yeah yeah I have a couple questions one is um I live in a community that you now have changed to mixed use but yet high street is staying um in the neighborhood we have 10 single residences down there they've been there forever now and now it sounds like for example mine's a single residence if I sell that house that means somebody can't use that as a single residence anymore change it was yes they can use it as a single residence okay it would be a they can't change the they can change the use but they couldn't go back to it it becomes what we would call a nonconformity right so it can it's allowed to continue to exist to be what it is but if someone wanted to do something fundamentally different with it they couldn't necessarily expand it into a larger single family dwelling or something like that so it doesn't preclude the use it preserves the use as a nonconformity and then going forward if someone wanted to you know build something different single family dwelling and mixed use wouldn't be an option for them so duplex but it could be a duplex okay the other problem I had was that and there's a huge difference between the setbacks in the neighborhood district and the mixed use district and the biggest one is the front and I know I've been in up your meetings where you keep telling me Kathy there's no most people would you know build right up to the front anyways maybe during the historical time that was you know when the roads were smaller that probably wasn't the case but I did send you guys some pictures and I talked to Neil about what's happening on my end of town first of all everybody has to back into the street okay we moved spent several thousand dollars moving our carriage shed so that our tenants could come in drive turn around and because of that we lost lawn space a lot of the places down there don't have any lawn space and now you're saying that they can pretty much I think park on the lawn right I mean what's to stop them from doing what some people have done already and it created a parking lot on their front line which looks terrible okay that's a time attack so I got the notes sorry I'm taking notes on it all right I've got them thank you Kathy this is great information did you get the pictures though I didn't get the pictures did I send nobody got them I believe I believe I did see those I think Neil sent those to us I follow the question driveways are included I was reading that can you clarify what that means it says drive boys included an updated bylaws does that mean what are you looking at this is neighborhood zoning okay it has a right in front is that mean you calculate the driveway in the square footage of usage is that what you said the way that the dimensional standards network is that previously in the 2016 regs we had a sort of a density requirement right and that sort of limited or dictated to some degree development now we went in the direction of doing a simpler lot coverage so saying that in any particular zone for any particular lot you can have x percentage coverage right and so it ranges anywhere from like full coverage in the downtown right district to less included in that coverage calculation lot coverage calculation are essentially any impervious surfaces and so we use the state's definition of impervious surface but essentially that's any development so buildings but also driveway footprints parking lots patios are also included things like decks or not so anything where rain doesn't soak into the ground right is now considered part of lot coverage so if you had a relatively small house and a relatively large parking lot or driveway that could impact your lot coverage and vice versa right you know so I want to keep that greens we want to have some green space here right so that's why we're maximizing the lot coverage that made sense thank you sure please further by north main street here there's a current mic merchant thanks there's a current overlay district is that going to apply to the new zoning exactly that how it's written now the design design review yeah overlay district will apply to the downtown district understand that use as written no no we have new proposed here we have new regulations new regulations right so once the select board either approves or disapproves of these proposed bylaws this is what will take effect it doesn't take effect until it's approved by the select board are those online too the current it's page 30 page 31 is the design review overlay just a second did we answer your question yeah I just I find that a lot of that can be rulings on on the overlay district can be inconsistent like is it so clear that they can't be like are the rules the rules or I mean there are there are there um can you get like a like I know you're headed so there are it we've tried we took that we had a lot of conversation about specificity versus not uh pink color versus siding and those are and their materials right and so I really don't want to comment on the specifically you really need to read them but if there is an exemption in there specifically to pink color that's the one that always sticks in my brain siding roofing okay whether it's a routine maintenance whether it's a significant we try at the request of the DRB quite frankly was to be as clear not to use descriptive adjectives that say you know major change minor what constitutes a major change right there is a room for variances there is there right right so tell us if you want to what page is it on 31 it starts on page 31 we we tried to be both more specific and not as prescriptive right and arbitrary right right correct many meetings as I've been to I still don't understand what people play these is that you take can you explain it in terms of a few sure we have base zoning districts which in in which I'm sorry I had it clear in my head it's not coming out the base zoning districts lay out just sort of the base of what can be done in that district and then an overlay district is exactly as it sounds it overlays on top of those base zoning district requirements so think about it like a base the base zoning districts downtown mixed-use neighborhood they have a list of allowed uses conditional uses that start you okay and then for example I'm just going to read the purpose statement of the design overlay design review overlay district establishes specific building form design standards and a higher level of review for proposed development for those areas of water very recognized as having particular historical architectural or cultural value so we're and the purpose of that is to protect and enhance those architectural and historical resources to encourage a consistent consistently high standard of design in new construction and renovations to support and sustain the pedestrian oriented downtown and to strengthen the community's vitality and the downtown mixed-use district's historic function as a center for commerce industry government and housing and lastly to encourage the new construction that will reinforce the qualities of the existing physical character while allowing freedom of expression compatible with the architectural vernacular so we didn't want to say you can't have a pink house but if it's not consistent with what's in the downtown mixed-user campus then you're probably not going to have a pink house okay it needs to be consistent with the architectural vernacular of the community so the overlay basically needs additional rules yeah it's to try to maintain the existing I don't know I'm going to use this carefully character of the town but we also have an over the flood plane is regulations are in essence an overlay because and they apply all you know to that FEMA map so we have a couple of related changes are in here are there other questions well wait we got them coming here Mike you want to come up I think I can do it from here as well my name is Mike Hedges I'm William Michael Hedges if you're really getting formal and I live on Henry Huff Road so not in this phase one area but I just want to be involved and curious and I do thank you folks for the very hard work that this is taking to get here because I I know it has um I'm just curious about that overlay review this overlay review area and it just you just stated that it has a higher level of review but it didn't sound like there was any review DRB review outside of that district anything uh let's see I'm going to make this jump make sure I get this right yeah um uh application to the town all applications require site plan approval this would be another level of approval in the applicable zoning districts of mixed use downtown and campus in phase one so my other question is this overlay district how does that relate to the historic designated district they they could be overlapping but they're not we've not exactly because that's a designation outside of our zoning right right we've not addressed we're not making any changes to the historic district if you have a historic yeah districts thank you Mary if you have uh national registered that you know I'm going to say this wrong national registered historic places home you're following those requirements okay we're not addressing that here there's a district as well and homes outside of that and and some other like spot districts yes is that get it question wait let's see do we answer your question particularly sensitive to that historic district when you made the overlay area no no this is to capture one of three zone districts yeah I'm wondering where the the village historical district either you can say you're Valerie Rogers South Main Street thank you I am wondering about the district of the village historical district and also is the overlay district um like more important than the district like which one trumps which they're working tandem they're out of this so think about the base zoning district is primarily what is an allowed use what is a not allowed use what's a conditional use what the use of it what size and what the dimensional standards are that follow that district so we've talked about setbacks we've talked about lock coverage those kind of dimensional criteria and then the design review overlay district addresses more of what are the requirements of the structure or what material when a change needs to be made excuse me when a change when you're proposing a repair or a change to the structure what what can be done and what can't be done so it'll always be like two committees looking at your permit well it's the one it's the different view board that will look at it it you may have two conditions that you have to be to have to be addressed so you look at the downtown district do I meet all the criteria the downtown and then do I also meet the design overlay review requirements in my proposal and and some some towns have a separate design review committee we're we're not there we're yeah we're not doing that so it's not really two different reasons and so the village historical district is encompasses something on a storyboard here or is it the downtown the village like some excuse me about a village historical district I think there's a water very historical district and I wonder where if it's and that's not changed but where is it I'm going to say is it the red it's what it's not so you just identified something we need to address the purpose of this meeting and also the zoning district it's a zoning district and the utility district is also a utility it's another district but that's not our area either right right that's another separate exactly all right so it is complicated yeah I can't get it we're definitely not here to tell you that this isn't complicated it is complicated and it is important and it does take a lot of time so if you're confused join the party it's fine like that's that's I mean we've spent a lot of time with this and there are still points of order that we have to identify and that's a thing I do think I put the village I do think I put EFUD on that map it's just hard to see yeah we'll talk about how that can be represented with the planning it's with Neil and Mike as to how to get that up on the website because it is obviously important to people so yes Amy Anderson 25 North man I have a few questions the first I think kind of talks about what you guys are just discussing the historical district and all the overlays and stuff but we live in the historical district so when I looked at the setbacks being zero and we've always have had a challenge because our house is practically on our property line so I was in one way glad to not have to go through the waiver process but in the other way I was terrified that a neighbor could come in and build a house touching our house but because if I'm understanding correctly the overlay district would protect that because of the DRB process that that just wouldn't be something because it's a historical district that could possibly be approved is basically what you're saying no right no it's not quite if the zoning district allows for a zero setback that's allowed if you want to come in and build something right up to that that could be approved so the design overlay district tells you you don't it doesn't matter what color you paint it it doesn't you can apply for what's the other so we are wanting main street to have no green space between houses is what we're saying so the only district that allows for zero foot setbacks is downtown right so just that downtown so from essentially railroad bridge to park have only parcels touching main street so in that stretch yes we are saying you wouldn't have to do setbacks and the idea behind that is that we're trying to allow for the greatest amount of density in the center so much like steel block and like basically lower stow street has no setbacks between some of those buildings and that creates that contiguous building facade which is you know it's representative of the character of that particular area we're saying we'd like to potentially see that extent so that's the logic behind where you're talking about like literally outside this door the places that are the like where my house is six houses on main street you're talking about having them house house house touching each other potentially yes and it's not house it's not a single family house it's also a district that has business and commerce and government and churches and you know other non residential functions so we're trying to attract folks to the downtown the commercial side of that the grocery stores it's not all residential but the parts that are you are changing the bylaws to allow houses to be on top of each other is the clarity on the hill yep that's correct thank you and then from understanding this it could be up to five units as long as you have four thousand square feet of property four thousand square feet is the i mean a lot minimum so four thousand square feet is a lot minimum yeah and then it's not necessarily up to five units it's dictated by lot coverage so again like in the 2016 zoning regulations you did have density so it's dwelling units per x square feet right so now we're going to a simpler measurement of essentially lot coverage so in the downtown area you can have 100% lot coverage so again mimicking sort of that like downtown feel where you have buildings and development covering the entirety of the lot so that would be allowed and then as far as the number of residential dwellings that's essentially dictated by the development that's intended there so it could be commercial first floor additional dwellings up from there so what prevents so what decides like previously you had a 20 20 thousand square foot lot to get the density of more than three units so now you're saying i couldn't understand the clarity from that are five units allowed or not five units would be allowed okay that's more would be allowed as well yeah because it's essentially again it's just lot coverage got a minimum lot size plus any setback requirements and height so those those are kind of the guard rails in that in any zoning district right those are the guard rails thank you my third question is are there grandfathers for things that are already existing um such as um like it sounded like there was but the example that Kathy had with single family uses and i was also thinking of people that have businesses and the requirements i read about you know soundproofing and between the floors and stuff if you're not doing something new you don't have to go back and invest money correct right correct and then what about short-term rentals now i have to put in a permit for a short-term rental that already exists in my property no no so in our new zoning violence we do have a definition for short-term rentals and you can see that there's nothing in this particular document about registration or permit right it says it's a permitted use so if you don't have it permitted does that mean you can't do it that's oh that's it that's a fair question no it means that it's permitted it doesn't mean that it means a permit it doesn't mean it need right it correct that's that's a that's a typically you have to submit for permit to change use and if you are changing use from residential to something like short-term rental you would have to submit we do we are not requiring a permit for a change of use if it's allowed in the district i just would recommend that you would add that in so that we can that it's clear it's more clear it's more clear yeah okay i see your thank you those are good questions appreciate that yeah kathy looks like they have you get to come in kind of piggybacks actually my enemy is saying and and i it has to do with the setbacks on the sides etc i feel like in the beginning when you had that boston consultant she was thinking like we're going to be a city like we don't have underground power etc so for example if you look don't if you love people to build it up to the lines how are they going to get to the electrical meters how are they going to get to the pipes you know the host bits and stuff like that my son lives next to somebody and the line is very close to his house and the guy wouldn't even let him go over there to have the house painter's paint and so he had to check with mr. lashby and basically the state law is your trespassing if the guy tells you not to go over there so i think you're going to create lots of legal problems for people that can't maintain their houses my husband's a fireman he's been on for 56 years how did they get in between i feel like there's just some logistical things that everybody that is still in the zoning laws that are related to when you had the bostonian girl come here and we're not a city we don't have underground power down south main or north main it's only in the middle and i just so i really would like you to revisit those and put more you know more than four feet between houses and if you want to see what it looks like go down to south man and you'll see where they have to go like this between their houses and i don't think that's what you want to see oh thank you one of the one of just generally one of the things that i the planning commission has looked at as an underpinning is how do we maximize growth housing in particular in the e-fug district where there is there are well that's what we're looking at but we're also we're also trying just sort of relaying some of the things that we you may or may not agree with it but that we really did consider and spend a lot of time on finding the right balance the other piece is there are a lot of small lots there are a lot of lots that are right up next to each other and if somebody wants to just change a window they got to get a permit because they don't meet the setback so we're trying to reduce the paperwork that really doesn't change what homeowners have to do i realize you know some part of the mixed use there are bigger they are bigger lots and more space between the houses but a lot of other um aspects of our mixed use they are right up on each other so we're trying to we're just trying to find the right balance actually couldn't you couldn't your grandfather um those people because what happens is a lot of people did something to their property and maybe whoever was on the zoning commission wherever that time let it happen and it affected someone else's i'll give you case in point when the doctor's office was built they put fill in and put it up i got flooded in july and i got flooded in december and both times it was from water coming up that um the doctor's office got it from behind this time on that side and it just and we keep thinking oh yeah we have these great zoning laws and you don't i don't see anything in there that says let's look around the place where you want to have something built how does it affect the other people near you and and that scares me because i'm seeing that you know the ambulance is going to be down there at least this time the town is now finally going to take over that ditch but they didn't before and we've been flooded twice and i one of the other things i said a long time ago was why aren't you looking at the parts of the village well there's the whole village is in the flood plain but it's not created equal are you getting your house spot out are you one of the ones getting your house spot out on the end of are you on it lives on the end of union no i'm on a part of the hill okay some union the end of the industry right that's your brook and when uski comes together my place where 175 acres are drained off the interstate comes down that ditch into a way too small gold and when it gets full it backs up to everything there's there's areas in the town that get a whole Randall street get a whole lot more waterer than other people that are in the flood plain like this and the back to the street who maybe got three inches every time there was a flight and i don't i just feel like i'm having been listened to and i've been coming here for like five years and sent letters and documentations on people i'm getting it so please please i mean my husband wants a move can see everything question do you have a specific change that you'd like to see within these setback requirements yeah i would like to have me what they were when we are too so 2016 regulations you'd prefer that they were setback to those yeah i i feel like it's just we have a beautiful village and it's look and we're not boston we are very aware of that yes please hi i'm sure or i live on clover lane in waterbury uh so i don't live right in the village um my concern is and it's not really a concern but i'm a little sad and i'm a little disappointed because i'm looking at the amount of density that we're trying to get here in this district and i am concerned about the height i'm concerned about the closeness of the buildings i understand the concept of how stow street is um but what i really want all of us to remember is we are a new england village and i don't know if you guys noticed but anytime i drive in from town from either side i get to see the mountains i get to see the trees i get to see the fields and the more that we cover those up the less we're going to have to see those and we're going to have to go out to enjoy what we currently enjoy right now in the village so i'm a little sad that maybe we haven't taken that into account we're just trying to jam everything in there as much as possible because people are saying we need more places to live my other um disappointment is you know we don't have the campus district yet i know that belongs to the state but that would really be a good opportunity to build a neighborhood a new neighborhood of single-family homes or something like that not every family wants to live in an apartment or in the townhouse they want to have their own space they want to build their own equity when they're renting you can't build that up i think we'd be losing an opportunity to take a lot of the green spaces that we have and turn those into apartments versus building up neighborhoods which the village also destinates thank you share i do want to point out on here that the maximum height of mixed use is 35 feet and the neighborhood is 35 feet it's only the downtown yeah i'm sorry yeah from the village okay i'm thinking of the new one that's going to come up the beautiful trees are going to go today and there goes the view that you've had coming down the street okay totally different a lot of people move here because of yeah the main living is perfect it's an excellent point thank you good points thank you anybody else go for it we just wanted to kind of summarize what i'm hearing here is that there is some interest in having space between buildings to maintain them or to keep views open or water to pass through or whatever and you have an interest in trying to reduce the number of exceptions that are necessary for the d rv to review and type of thing so maybe there's some middle ground where there's four buffer from the property line so that it'd be like eight feet between houses or whatever and then if somebody really wanted to build up to their property line they could apply for that we did hear we also heard from the d rv concerns about distance and setbacks and so that has also been brought to our attention as well for fire safety for example you know so excuse me can i just sorry so all of this is being taken in and here in the same conversation is good for us to hear this is i mean we're all in this together you know and i'm sorry i did not thank you because i do know how much time you guys just spent five years oh somebody else had hi sorry it's amy again amy anderson 25 month name um so i just wanted to because we have this experience where we are right on the property line on one side of our house and the other side um is our parking lot i just want you to take into account uh standing seam roofs and the snow that comes off onto cars and the liability that poses we actually couldn't put a fence up between houses on our property line for that reason it would just be destroyed over and over our neighbor at one time our older neighbor was requiring us to and the d rv said that it's just we can't require it because you're going to require them to fix it every single you know so can i i didn't 100 get that and i want to make sure i get it so when you put houses close together i know that but you have a standing seam roof that i don't my neighbor does they have standing seam roof with a zero and with a zero setback there's no place for the snow to go right it comes flying off right and it and it was one of the requirements in our design review overlay district is asking requiring someone who's going to make a change who's doing something that requires a permit to go before the d rv there has to be a plan for rains now ice removal just ice guard for them snow guard you know that's excellent we're just it just has to be addressed by the applicant that's what we're saying so it's not like somebody could do something with total disregard for their neighbors that's not going to happen the same things they do now like oh we can't have bright lights coming in the windows or that kind of stuff that happened i mean the street lights are way brighter than anybody else's but we well that's the standard condition d rv applies is downcast and shielded yeah yeah we do have that we actually have like design or development standards or other which address lighting specifically and downcast and shielded is a big part of that we spent a lot of time on it and i encourage you to read it's about standards of development section it's right it's the other page of standards of development are if you go to the waterbury planning commission page i know but i'm just 26 under the udb update it's on the top left there's a link that document pops up so we have a formatted document you can pull that off the website as a pdf he's going to it right now so you can see it thanks for the audience that's it has been there for a while um we did just format it so it's much more user friendly so that i'm really super confused and i really felt i'm asking this question oh don't place um is the downtown replacing and combining the um mixed use residential and uh neighborhood so let's let's take a minute yeah that's a really good question let's just take a minute and do the slider map i think that's you put a lot of work into it and we really thank dana for this gis work you would not believe the time he has put into it the other thing and i'll say this credit for that is we made sure that the zoning districts follow current parcel boundaries now so there's not a lot that split has two different zoning districts uh we just i don't say we dana just cleaned up all of those lines and because of the multiple different zoning districts now you can see um that is fewer districts okay so this is the current downtown district okay now if you watch slowly gain is going to go across and the red gets bigger to the north which includes your property sounds like thank you all right does that clarify yeah this is this is online yeah this on the planning commission page it'll be the slider map one thing i would like to sorry um one thing i'd just like to point out we do have a version of this map on our outreach document the story map um which has all these story boards and that sort of thing that particular slider map is outdated so please when we link this slider map on the main planning commission page just use that one for reference that has the most up-to-date zoning districts reflects all the information that we got during the information hearings etc can we take down the other one are they dated let's let's just we're just going to take down the other one so wait i i don't want two maps out there is it we know that we're too dark all right do we have other questions yeah you can really get sucked into that slider let me tell you i can do that i can too yes sir right here just a point of clarification this will drive a lot of others things that need to be addressed correct such as buildings that probably need to be addressed that are dilapidated falling down those kind of things no it doesn't mean it will not do that that's a whole different zoning set of rules that have to be developed so that's more like enforcement where's need or ordinance or ordinance they came or abandoned building or yeah that kind of thing so that this support set but it doesn't drive it right okay so and there are many you know the planning department with uh discussion right um well uh we'll look at other ordinances as uh we have new people as new energy and current on legislation and opportunities i mean it's actually i think really excited yeah um so they're bringing to us uh suggestions and concepts and ordinance proposals that can help improve our town because i i've lived in had homes in ohio had homes in different states with a lot of zoning requirements where i lived in ohio a lot of people didn't like them but it was great because it protected my property protect my neighbor's property and it improved the quality of life you know what to expect yeah i get it even though i had to when i bellish had i had to have it 40 feet away from the back a lot which is okay but it's fine my friend mary had the same zoning issue that we we hear about it that's true i'll make you on your work yeah it's good that we're doing that thank you thank you elissa elissa um so my name is elissa johnson i live on south main street i'm also on the select board um so comment was first just to thank the planning commission who in addition to working five years for the past several months have been meeting weekly um i tried to go to most of their meetings and they overlap with ours but just to say like weekly two two and a half to three our meetings for like years is when these folks have time to just thank you and kudos to all of you um dana allen has also probably single-handedly saved the town thousands of dollars through his game kind gif service and this is also a special thank you for the slider map i'm waiting for that pay check on the subject of budgets follow to your page um if you'll allow it martha only because it's slow just to this general one's question about enforcement i just wanted to say the budget that we have warned for town meeting for this year does include in the proposed budget ten thousand dollars um to do some legal work regarding zoning enforcement just recognizing separate from this conversation today about what bylaws um are adopted the bylaws that are on the books need enforcement unfortunately that often usually requires legal action and just from the select board perspective if we have a town or doing that and town staff are doing that we want to make sure they're in good legal standing to do so so just to say there is a proposed expense um for the community for the community to bone on that town meeting um to have some funding to help support that move it forward and otherwise just listening to everyone i think now i used to be in the drb and for a lot of years actually and it got frustrating because there was no there's no muscle to the regulations sorry to ask the question i don't know randall street we could play it we've experienced that a couple times now that you have that floodplain area can you do things with that the conservation the allowed this is this is what i think is really really well i mean we to kathy's point earlier we really did think about what it has been the impact to the community with these floods they allow i'm not going to get that fast enough but the allowed uses in the conservation floodplain none not permanent no permanent no permanent go in and do things that mitigate possible flooding in the future no you can't build a structure i'm not asking to build i'm saying can you do things with that ground that possible and i'm not an engineer so state exactly right well i know during the floods the crown of the field it can be seen that died so we're permitting the use not this not not the work right okay so there what i meant was that there's no allowed there's no permitted uses in that area and then there is a conditional use of recreation or park or public public outdoor recreation and park okay so we're trying to not put things in the floodplain well you wouldn't want to have my my question is can whoever owns a property to possibly help us mitigate right the flooding in the future so right but that's a bigger question probably a lot of people are trying exactly i think the state is also looking at that yeah i hope so so roger yeah roger clap i live on rental street i'm also on the select board i just wanted to respond to his question we are looking at possible mitigation involving that the cornfield to create more volume for the water to aside and possibly look at ways to restrict the flow of water into the rental street downtown areas just the way that the state did when we did the complex which has protected the state complex from the most recent thoughts thank you are you looking at our way we're looking at the entire linuski corridor and that's a book i just want to add one thing for it happened to us after they redid the road they because they took out so many layers of pavement the road is lower so now we get even more water because it comes out that the drains are below where the river is so it's it's just like that's what i'm saying look at what else happens because it's my question yeah um there's a proposal for a wildlife passage uh the northern end of the town i was just curious if there was a conservation district uh that aligned with that because it's would be silly to uh build a very expensive structure and then have housing or something right there you're referring to the north and the south you're talking about phase two area well it's the north side of the interstate it's going to be connecting the north and the south so um i just wanted to you know the agency built a wildlife passage as part of the Essex project there when 189 or 289 and the housing got built up all around it so it can't be wildlife anymore so i'm just curious if it was conservation district where this proposed wildlife culvert very very possibly we just haven't addressed that at this point we have a conservation flood plain because that was we called it that and it's um we want to call attention to we have a huge flood plain in this part of our tail we know we have other conservation needs we just haven't named them or gotten to what the district boundaries might be but we we're very clear well i'm not things like that i guess i'm missing what mike is saying we got a couple million bucks for feasibility study to look at but is it in the phase one area no no well there's heads nodding yes and so there's a lot of stuff there's not under the interstate that's what i thought that's what i thought yeah yeah oh not not the okay no so hold on yeah so we don't have that um and it would be great to get it from them no and and and part of the reason that we don't have that taken into consideration is that's a relatively recent development yeah and so these district boundaries were set i think preliminarily as many as three years ago yeah and then we've tweaked them recently but only for the phase one area there is a phase two area that's part of the whole unification thing so and that's everything outside of essentially the highway so i think that's good information for us to have can you send that to me yeah the location is where we've got it pretty good yeah we split from the corner around it's a sharkyville road so oh in the the left hand side there neil um it's where sharkyville road comes into route two and i'm not sure that spot and where we're in the highway where it's on the left or it's right near the bullet line okay i didn't know they were moving forward and there we have a story about it in the the um it's going to be going under multiple lanes it's going to be going under the highway and i think also under route two yeah so it's going to be coming into that the green zone that you've you've got delineated them it's a development section it's it's a big it's a big lane that they're going to create under the highway it's like underpass for and then underpass for wildlife it doesn't look like there's any development allowed in this new well that's what i just want to do clarify because if that's where it is but i think your point also is that when we get to phase two we want to be cognizant of the other side of the highway and what is being uh you guys zones are over there you guys yeah there actually is a culvert there that goes underneath um the highway and route two there's a big there and the space many millions many tens of millions of dollars short of actual building it just essentially a feasibility study all the design you can hear about all the design you want to be put together at this point thanks for that miss that's good do we have other comments or questions thank you thank you thanks for coming thank you