 630 and went into executive session we're now out of the executive session and continue it on with the meeting of the select board at roughly 705 and the first thing on our agenda right now are the minutes of July 13th 2021 is there a motion? Move we accept the minutes subject to modification. Your second. Second. Page one. Page two and page three. Hearing no corrections then all those in favor of approving the minutes so July 13 2021 say aye. Aye. Aye. The opposed. One abstention Jeff. So now move on to public comment. Is there anyone in the room I wish to make any public comment? Please identify yourself. Sorry. Please identify yourself. Okay great. Hi I'm Kaylin McCamp. Hi everyone it's exciting to be here in person tonight. I'm Kaylin McCamp I'm a five-year resident of Williston and I work in UVM's Office of Sustainability. I'm a member of the community group Sustainable Williston as well and I'm joined by other members tonight and I ask them to stand up with me now. For the last year we've been focused on the adoption and implementation of the energy plan. When it was being considered by the select board last summer we gathered 94 signatures on a letter in support of the plan emphasizing the need for an energy coordinator and committee to enact it. We have some of those signatories here tonight too so if you aren't a member but you signed the letter we'd welcome you to stand as well. Climate change is primarily driven by human beings burning fossil fuels as an energy source so that's why we keep talking about climate change when we talk about the need for this plan and the coordinator and committee. In the year since the adoption of the plan we've seen devastating climate events near and far making climate change even more impossible to ignore and the need for action at all scales painfully apparent. So finally tonight we're also joined by some newcomers to this effort who aren't included in those signatories but also support the creation of the energy committee and hiring of a full-time permanent energy coordinator so anyone that applies to can also stand. I think we're kind of standing room only here. So last meeting's future issues document said that the energy committee might be a topic for tonight so that's why we're here. We see that that got postponed until September but the because the final agenda's only come out a few days and advance is hard for the public to get organized for the right time. So we wanted also to show you because we know that it can be hard from a zoom screen to see how much support there is for this to show up tonight anyway and show you just a small sampling of residents who support the creation of a formal energy committee and hiring of a full-time permanent coordinator. So we know that existing staff are taking on what they can of the energy plan and while we commend and appreciate that it simply isn't enough. The plan has 71 pathways or initiatives and a lead entity is identified for each of those. 12 are the pathways are assigned to the energy coordinator and 15 are assigned to the energy committee. So that's almost 40% of the plan assigned to lead entities who don't yet exist one year into the plan's adoption. There are however two pathways that the select board is listed as the lead entity for pathway 1.1 hire an energy coordinator and pathway 1.2 establish an energy committee. So we together tonight urge you to follow through in your leadership by beginning the formation of an energy committee immediately. I do see a lot of potential volunteers here and including funding for a full-time energy coordinator in the next budget. We look forward to participating in future select board meetings where this is an agenda item hopefully soon and we also welcome any responses or reactions you might have tonight. Thank you so much. Thank you. So it's the board's intent to fully discuss the issues probably not until September when we have for formulated a plan to go forward on all of the issues that you discussed and probably some others as well. So the town manager will be working on that and will be bringing forward a document sometime hopefully by mid-September and I expect a room full of people again at that point. So thank you. Is there anyone else who has any public comment tonight? Yes, sir. If you'd please identify yourself. I wasn't on the program, but it my name is Ken Grossman. My wife and I just pre pandemic put a place over on south road right across the street from mud pond and I wanted to just tell you how grateful I am and my wife is to be here in Williston. It looks like a terrific community. I just want to mention a couple of specific things. Tomorrow there's a woman coming over from a program. I think it's called Blue to teach us how not to let all the water running down our hill doesn't wind up in Lake Champlain and there's no cost to us for talking to her and that's terrific. That's a good thing that as a greater community you do. And then I got a letter in the mail from a woman who is the conservation planner for the town of Williston and she invited us next Wednesday to walk around mud pond which we've done a hundred times already anyhow and she was going to share with us a plan for some do overs on mud pond. That's going to cost some serious money and we're really grateful that you're going to make the effort to do that because it's worth it. And the other thing I'm grateful for is all these folks behind me and I think you should listen to them and set up that energy committee, get that energy coordinator because that issue is more important than the water running down into Lake Champlain and more important than preserving mud pond. It's everything. Do the right thing. Thank you. Any other public comment tonight from people in the audience? Any public comment from people who may be watching on the TV? Brazil? I don't see any terror. Nothing? Nope. If not then thank you very much for coming. You're certainly welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting or parts of the meeting if you're interested in that and we'll be going on with the rest of the agenda. So thank you all for coming. It's been a long time since we've had a room full of people. Thank you everybody. So we'll proceed on then with interviews and appointments and tonight we have a candidate for the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission representative from the town and to consider the appointment of that individual. So Andrew Watts if you're here please come up to the table and I'm glad to have you here and you're interested in the position. So we do have your application and extensive resume as well. Perhaps you just tell us briefly your background what you think you're qualified to do this job and you're interested in doing it. I must be chair before that. Yes. As a full disclosure I don't consider this to be a conflict of interest but I am and Andy is an assistant attorney general. He works with the attorney general's department within the agency of human services and I'm actually the chief of that division so I'm not his boss but I'm his boss's boss. But anyway I don't have I don't have power over it. But I just wanted people to be aware. People are uncomfortable with that. I'll recuse myself but I don't see it. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. A closure if anybody has any problem with that. Nope. No. Very good. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you Mr. Vice Chairman. I guess I'm here maybe perhaps I prepared myself a little bit too formally. I didn't mean to come over dressed. Members of the board thank you for having me. Mr. Wells as well thank you. About a year ago I really expressed a desire to want to be involved more in a volunteer basis in the community of Welliston. It is something that has always been important to me to be able to give back to the many I have been fortunate to have many opportunities in my life and I have spent the bulk of my career in government service and I do believe that I consider myself to be a servant of the people but I also want to be able to step outside the role that I have in which I'm paid to be able to give back to the town that I have grown to love so much and the community that I love so much in Chittenden County and the Burlington area. I had some trepidation about getting involved during the pandemic just because I didn't really understand. I've never been on a public board. I've been on a private board before but I really wanted to be able to wait until I could be substantively involved in person at least a bulk of the time hoping fingers crossed that we don't go back down the road that we went over the past two years but I do have a background. I am an attorney. I've been licensed to practice since 2005 the bulk of which as I said has been involved in state government if you can tell by my accent I am not local. I moved here from Tennessee a couple years ago. My wife and I loved the area so much that we reached out and I found a job and Mr. Kenney is correct that he does work in the same division and is our chief but I really love my job and I'm not just saying that. It is a wonderful opportunity to be able to truly work and assist persons with mental illness that is the focus of my practice and being able to I've often said I work with other people and we have adversarial court hearings but we're not really fighting we're fighting for what's the best way to help this person that might be mentally ill that's a pretty good position to be in that there's not a bad guy you know and so all that being said before I went to law school I have a background in logistics and transportation. I worked for a trucking company for a couple of years and have just a generalized interest in being a part of I'm not an engineer but being a part of an organization that can truly foresee and plan the future and and be able to adapt to the changes and and hopeful the population growth that we are experiencing in this area I note in particular one portion of this committee that or the commission is the corridor study of I-89 which I think Williston is a huge stakeholder in that and as that goes obviously that's a long-term project but with the growth that's seen in Williston and and perhaps the additional growth that's going to be going on down around the Taft Corners area obviously the roads are going to have to be adjusted over time there's going to have to be changes in infrastructure obviously aging infrastructure we are aware of that with the tragedy in in Miami just a few weeks ago but certainly being a part of something that would be able to help not only beautify the area but also help keep things safe increase commerce and be able to just make the area even a better better place as far as from a visual standpoint that's important to me and I believe that I can bring that background in particularly as it pertains to Williston and I know understand that this is a county-wide agency there's many representatives and I certainly would do if if I were appointed to this position would would carry the the goals of Williston to that committee but with the secondary goals as well of beautifying Chittenden County and and helping our other communities and sister communities in the area in the county achieve their goals as well and it in a nutshell I really want to be more involved in the community and I feel like this is a good way for me to start thank you very much interesting enough our last representative to the RPC was an attorney as well questions from the board randrew i'm sorry did you say it's okay to call you is it okay to call you Andy please call me Andy yes thank you thank you any I guess my my bottom line is is what do you see what do you envision the role of the representative to this community to be and how how do you anticipate their own well obviously I I have spoken with mr wells I understand I would certainly want to get my pulse on the select board's goals and speak with mr wells and understand the community's desires which I'm not in the position to have that information yet if I were appointed I would certainly want to make time to be able to understand what the goals of Williston are and be able to take that and apply that with the interest of course of of the county-wide commission but be able to have our our own individual voice and to make sure that our voice is carried out so that you know I don't want to say that any other community would step on Williston but I would want to be able to be in a place that I could be an active voice and a professional voice that would be able to carry the boards and the towns goals forward how I would do that individually is as issues arise I'm going to consult with with Eric I'm going to consult with the board if necessary I consider myself one of the things that I'm best at is communicating I in my opinion I'm not good at a lot of things but I can communicate and in my experience as an attorney I believe it's important obviously one of the most key elements of being an attorney is being able to communicate if you have a message return the message immediately as soon as you can don't leave people hanging get that information back out there and provide concise and accurate information so that people can make a decision you mentioned you thought this would be a good way to get started my opinion if you want to start the planning commission might not be the best place to start because that's a pretty heavy so my question is sorry the heaviness of the role I've done some research on the role I understand that it involves work I can do it I've been a prosecutor for 14 I was a prosecutor for 13 14 years before this I've tried everything from driving under the influence cases to triple homicides that take a month I can do this okay so after doing that full time you're okay with spending a couple more hours in these I'm just I understand the question is a concern yeah and I would not be wasting your time if I didn't think that I could do this and what impresses me about how you're presenting yourself and what is the homework you've got it certainly seems like you know what you're getting into I just want to make sure I want to give it from your mouth I appreciate the concern and I would rest assured that I would not be applying for this if it was not something that I had not researched and was prepared to take on okay any other questions well before I ask this one just a little bit of explanation is for some reason this for me tradition it's it's a conflict of interest question and I will probably learn something tonight from the way you answer it but the question is is how would you recognize a conflict of interest and what would you do about it in what regard what what kind of conflict would you suggest well it might actually be somebody you know who either through personal you know friendship knowledge you know I don't exactly know that's that's fair obviously as when someone practices law and obviously legal conflicts of interest are not always the same as board members conflicts of interest but I believe first of all that if there is a potential conflict I'm going to disclose that if I feel like there is even a potential of that the first contact I would make is with mr. Wells and I would advise him that I'm not sure if this is a conflict I believe that I could exercise very good judgment on whether or not I have a conflict but my first step would be with mr. Wells if it necessary I would come to the board and and have a discussion with the board but without knowing what the potential conflict is it's hard for me to say what action I would take but I am keen on recognizing what potential conflicts are and there is a difference between a potential conflict and a conflict so without knowing an exact hypothetical it would be difficult for me to say exactly what I would do and I wouldn't want to hamstring myself or the board in in that but I could just honestly say that if there was a potential I would raise that issue okay good thank you any other questions if not and if you're ready to make a motion that I'd be willing to accept one I'll move to a point Andrew Watts as the town's representative to the Chittenden County Regional and Planning Commission for an unexpired term through June 30 2022 Mr. O'Sullivan second is there any discussion on the motion quick question Eric has anybody else applied for the petition nope we haven't I've been serving in the interim so to make sure we had a representative for the last year so I had a good conversation with with Mr. Watts and I certainly recommend his good thank you any further discussion if not all those in favor of the motion say aye aye the opposed congratulations we look forward to your hard work thank you mr. I would like the board to know that this is man is on his best behavior tonight he's never called me mr. Kenyan I actually helped you I think mr. vice chairman yeah and then mr. Kenny too yeah I will say actually he's very patient you know I know you're not supposed to say there's there's no such thing as a stupid question but um in the electronic filing that the lawyers have to do for the trial courts these days I have asked a lot of stupid question to Andy and he's been extremely patient and kind but uh and and he wasn't calling me mr. Kenny or vice-chair just what did he call it no well to my face I can tell you that what he says afterwards I don't think there was a hot mic though all right thank you thank you yeah I really look forward to working with the board and and for the day thank you thank you and I'll be back yeah I'll be back soon thanks next on the agenda is the community justice center executive board appointments and Crystal Lee McSweeney is here to give us a little bit of a reminder of why we're doing this tonight and we'll ask that she introduce the the people that are here to be appointed for just a short introduction of themselves thank you so following the last meeting that we had here we presented to you a new set of bylaws to change the kind of the operating structure of the CJC and under that we wanted to create an executive board with membership underneath that and seeing as that was approved by all of you and we went forward with the interview process for people who were interested in filling the three-year two-year and one-year slots and I have all nine members here this evening who have all prepared a one-minute or less bio of themselves I thought it would be really interesting for all of you to meet them and for them to also have the opportunity to meet all of you and share a little bit about why they're interested in this role so I can call the first three if that's makes sense to have them come up yep so for the first three we have Bob Stafford and Brett Lindemith and Melinda Good evening I'm Bob Stafford I am a representative from Richmond I think many of you know me I presently work for the Vermont Agency of Education have done so since 2014 prior to that I have 40 years of law enforcement experience as a police chief in two states with the Vermont State Police and also running the New Hampshire Police Academy the reason I'm so happy to be a part of this group of people is because I believe in the mission and even at my elderly stage in the criminal justice system I see the value of restorative practices and have been on this group participated with this group for the last year and a half presently the chairperson and I understand with the new configuration I can easily be removed from that so I'm not sure if I'll be the chair the next time I I meet with you but I've always been involved in some sort of civic action because I think it's so important to give back to the community so thank you for providing this opportunity for me and hopefully we'll see you in the future Good evening my name is Melinda Molson and I've been a resident of Huntington for 45 years I came here in 1974 my husband I built a little stone house and we've been there for 45 years I'm also the CEO of Main Street Landing I spent the last 40 years redeveloping the Burlington Waterfront and I have served all my two loud I'm so sorry my husband says honey you're gonna hold um and um I am just I've served on many many boards over my last 45 year career and most recently I was just appointed the ACLU Vermont Board and I was just so delighted when I heard about the Williston Restorative Justice Center and was encouraged to participate in this work I really believe that we have to look at humanity in today's world and understand that punishment just doesn't work for folks who do not do not do not do not do criminals you know hard crimes and that we need to take people and help them to move into a better world into a better life and that's what this organization does and I was so moved to be a part of this to be able to listen to the cases and help folks move from where they were to a better place and to have healing instead of punishment so I'm just so delighted that I was asked to join the executive committee I was like wow that's really cool so here I am and I'm delighted and I hope that you accept my appointment thank you and thank you for for being supportive of this work by the way it's your time really says a lot about your time thank you good evening my name is Brett Linda Muth and I am also a resident of Huntington which is an area served by the center I am very excited to be asked to do this I have been working with Crystal Lee sending her cases as a police officer for years and loved it from the moment that I started doing it I've been on the panels as a member of the center since this year doing the actual panel work and not just being a participant so I'm excited to be part of this I'm glad to be asked to be a youth focused member of the executive award because that really is my specialty I'm an SRO as a police officer and I'm also I'm presently employed in Heinsberg I worked for eight years in Richmond PD and I've been almost two years in Heinsberg PD I'm the youth officer in Heinsberg I'm the school liaison in Heinsberg I have four children one is off to college next year in Utah two at the high school level one going into middle school her name is Plum and she's my favorite and so yeah so again I am I'm my life is is very kid focused so that's what I'd like to bring to this organization which I really am glad that I was asked to be a part of it thank you thank you and next we have Maria or Mia Marinovich Ed Tonley and Patrick Brown hi I'm Mia Marinovich I have been a resident of Williston for over 25 years and I've worked for the Burlington School District as long as that I have three children 1715 and 13 and I've always been a part of this community when I first moved here I was a volunteer firefighter and I've been on the board for the past few years and have loved every part of it and I've appreciated the training it has affected me in all facets of my life in a positive way and I feel like my experience as a community member and as a parent and as an educator brings a lot to our board and I'm excited to be asked to be on the executive board thank you thank you good evening I'm Ed Tonley I've been a resident of Williston for the last 28 years prior to retiring a year ago I had spent the last five years as the CEO of Cava Creamery currently I work part-time consulting with him but I've also started to reach out to the community to try to give back more to it I've joined the board of directors for Vermont Special Olympics I have two children with special needs and I know how they can engage in the legal process and the fact that many people with intellectual disabilities end up in in kind of the wrong place at the wrong time so I represent that part of the community as much as anything and I'd love being part of Union Justice Board for the panel discussions that I've been involved with so far I can see how that really does change people's lives and and help them to get the kind of things that they need so thank you thank you hi it's so weird to see you all in person yes and it's really great my name is Pat Brown I've lived in Williston I think 33 34 years somewhere up there we're trying to figure out today and I it's over 30 how about that I retired three years ago as a director student life in the Davis Center at UBM so I was there for 39 years and part of my retirement is repurposing so part of my repurposing was to get involved in a community and I've seen most of you and met most of you in other capacities and in the Chittenden Community Forest Committee as well my interest in being on the board is somehow Christa Lee found me I don't know where to sort of do some work and I actually we did a lot of restorative practice for on campus in dealing with students who misbehaved on campus so coming to what the Community Justice Center does was not due to me but clearly a whole different level of interactions and cases and behaviors that we're that we're addressing so I've been challenged and have enjoyed the process thus far and really excited to serve on the board which is a new a new effort as well and sort of figure out where that's going to go for the future so thanks thank you Pat thanks Pat and then our final free that we would like to present is Julia Longchamp Eveline Killian and Katie keep them in your faces hi I'm Julie Longchamp and I'm a resident of Hinesburg but I'm familiar because I did teach at Williston Central School from 1988 to 2013 before taking my present job which is working as the director of professional programs at Vermont NEA which is the Vermont Teacher's Union so I get the privilege of going into lots of schools working with a lot of educators and I feel the work that I do there is similar in that I'm I'm an educator and I feel being on the board and doing this work is also about education and providing second chances and it's an honor to be asked to be on the board and to be asked to be on the executive council because I do believe in the work and I do believe in second chances and it is so powerful to sit on a board and watch somebody transform their lives because of this process and because of pairing adults many of you know many people haven't really experienced that so I think when we talk about equity and and justice this is a really important committee to be on and I'm proud to be a Hinesburg resident and part of it and I think I'm the only Hinesburg resident on the mix so hopefully there'll be more so thank you thank you I'm Aveline Killian and I'm from Richmond and I've been a resident of Richmond for 27 years I've raised three kids one of whom was in Mr. St. Hilaire's class it's good to see you I am an architectural engineer and associate principal at a small 13 person engineering company that does energy efficiency in Burlington and I am an active member in the Richmond racial equity group that was started in June of 2020 and have worked on the Richmond policing policies and the value statements of of that group and I've also started an equity group with other engineering firms to to work on equity here in in our industry and also an equity group in our internal office so it's equity is is how I got into this this area and I just really strongly believe in giving people second chances not only for themselves but but also for the community that we can really do something to restore and provide justice to the affected community and so I'm very privileged or honored I should say to to be asked to be on this board because I really do feel like the the strength that Crystal Lee and and Brenna bring to this this organization is just so it's moving mountains it's really having an impact on every on on every part of the the process on every impacted party and and and the grace and compassion with which this is done is just everything that restorative justice is about so I am honored to be part of this panel thank you I'm Katie Titterton I live in Richmond I've been there for 11 years I am the co-owner of a family communications consulting firm it's small and I have two young boys ages three and six and I have served on this board for the last five years when I joined I was on a panel with Greta and this is the most important volunteering I've ever done in my life and that's why I'm still here and the mission of restorative justice affects not only the people we serve I have found it affects my it impacts my work it impacts my parenting you can see it improve the fabric of our communities and as a communications consultant I think there's no there's no substitute for what happens when you get people in a room together and around a table together and the transformation that can take place so I am proud to be here and happy to be here and I am also very excited about the restructuring that's taken place I think it's going to really advance the work of this group in our communities and the communities that we serve and also throughout the state so thank you very much I'm glad to be here thank you very much so anything else before we go around this no just again wanted to say thank you for the opportunity I thought that it was really important to have the folks that we're we're recommending to fill these slots come before all of you I know that time is tight this evening so I would just ask if there's any questions that you have either of myself or of the people that we are recommending we would be happy to answer those questions but moving forward if there aren't any questions these are the folks who have shown great interest and who are who are passionate and dedicated and I think would be it would be an honor to work with them and I think all of the communities that we serve would be really really enhanced with their participation thank you for giving us the opportunity to reintroduce or have reintroduced to us the members that you're recommending and the board has really always been supportive of the CJC and will continue to be I'm sure so there's any questions before we ask for a motion hopefully real quick Chris Lee hi um could you remind me what the members go through a vetting process and are the police department reviews and it makes recommendations in addition to you could you just explain it be helpful to me to understand what the what the process was here and what sort of vetting if you will that's probably not the best words the only one I can come up with the nine got to go through sure so so as any any interested party who who's interested in joining would go through an interview process myself with another member of our team Brenna who's our staff member they also go through a full background check through the Department of Corrections and also a background check through the Williston PD and they check for you know VCIC and child registry to make sure everybody is clear on that and what we we did is we put together a small team of folks we called kind of our work group if you will and we defined really what the executive panel and board would really be responsible for doing and we put that out to all of the current members of the CJC and people who were waiting to be appointed and asked who would be interested in that process and these are the folks who who came forward and who have shown I think just great passion and dedication to that process and so we opened it up to all 35 members and these are these are the folks who came forward okay good thank you any further questions for crystal Lee I just want to say I'm very pleased to see that you have such a great representation from the serving towns I know that that has been a something you've made a really concerted effort to get more representation outside of just Williston so I just was that is that something that you were was intentional or was it just you know these are the the folks that came forward yeah no Bob Stafford and I really took a concentrated effort to really want to expand into the service areas that our grant covers and wanting to make sure that people were educated about restorative justice the services that were available and so we we put some information out we did a couple of informational and educational presentations and folks came forward and as as you heard Brett Linda myth was also instrumental in bringing some of this forward from Hinesburg as he had experienced from Richmond and then bringing that into Hinesburg as he started to venture there yeah thank you thank you I'd be looking for a motion I'll move to appoint the community justice center members listed on the memo dated July 27th to the executive board for the term length specified Baron second sorry discussion on the motion hearing none allows in favor of the motion say aye aye they opposed they abstentions congratulations to all of you keep up the wonderful work thank you very much let's move on to the noise ordinance variants requests and we will be having Jake Borgeson from the USDA joining us by zoom and Eric would you like to lead off where we're at tonight yep just one moment Terry I guess I think Jake connected here Jake's getting connected but I cannot update the board and since the last meeting the board gave me some homework I went and gathered some more information on this request I did two field tests of sound decibel levels using the noi the pyrotechnic noise making devices for the bird dispersion on the 14th I went to the solid waste district to Grew Mountain compost and Dan gave me a demonstration at varying distances there the same areas where when the board of the site visits about 450 feet away a quarter mile away and a half mile away those readings are listed in your memo and then last week on the 22nd Jake who's connected this evening assisted me in doing a demonstration at the site that's under consideration for this variance this evening Avenue B I think a cell facility what we did there was I observed at 375 feet a quarter mile and a half mile and at the solid waste district we just used the device called the the banger the ladder of the of the two and then on Avenue B the banger and the screamer were both deployed and I took readings there Jake can speak to it this evening but their USDA's thought is if the use of this is granted the screamer would would likely be the device used with with more frequency to remind the board the noise decibel threshold in this zoning district is 90 decibels and then just understanding where where this effect may be on the different distances in the area what I did to collect the decibel samples was I I found a highly rated application for my phone and I used that in in these areas to record the rules upon it the board had also asked another possible about other possible mitigation strategies in my conversations when I took these readings with solid waste district USDA the state of Vermont and Kasella there's a consensus among those groups that having a variety of tools to use to mitigate birds at their facilities was was a best practice to use for example solid waste district they use these devices with a monofilament grid a fake eagle and rubber seagulls Kasella a noisemaker with a call of a predatory bird is used devices to deter roosting on buildings are in place and they're currently exploring pricing to use a monofilament grid I also look to see if there's other data that was collected in other municipalities in south broughington regarding the noise level and with multiple inquiries staff could not find anything south broughington didn't have anything available USDA relayed that this was the first demonstration where they had readings take place I would use these devices that's the update information after the board this evening I'm happy to answer any questions and we have Jacob connected here for for any additional information from the USDA any questions for Eric yeah at this moment how far along are they in exploring the monofilament cost and the difficulty of putting that in yeah I'm uh I had a conversation with Kasella I wasn't sure you know my conversation indicated how far along they were I just understood they were in a process of obtaining what the pricing may be did any of the other facilities that we've had contact with use just that and the eagle and that kind of thing um the banger nope um in terms of what I learned from a solid waste district and then Kasella their other facilities they use this blended approach and the the pyrotechnic noisemakers were were part of that part of those tools utilized okay one question I have Eric is I'm looking at um for everyone is I'm looking at um Melinda Scott's memo July 8th and in it she mentions the very end of her memo she talks about how U.S. Fish and Wildlife need to go through a NEPA like process if they were to do something like that so I think my question is for Jake and the question is is does USDA need to go through a similar process environmental review process when they are proposing to use a I'm going to use the word that's in the memo uh to the use of pyrotechnic devices does that make sense hey Jake did did you hear that question if um I see you connected if you want to try on muting yeah I can I can answer that question Eric um I I do want to thank Eric for coming out and you know doing some of those readings because it is valuable information for all of us to have like I said it is the first time to my knowledge that at least in the the USDA Vermont office that any uh any decibel levels have been recorded on pyrotechnic utilization so that that's good information for us to have and I do want to thank him for for taking that under his wing as far as environmental impact goes and and um with any sort of NEPA compliance within our USDA Vermont Wildlife Service office yes we we follow all certain guidelines for NEPA compliance um and everything that we do including pyrotechnic utilization throughout the entire state of Vermont is covered under our current NEPA agreement that we have which is gone out for public comment um not too many years ago at this point but yes as a as a federal agency we are obligated to be compliant under under NEPA and and that covers the entire state of Vermont for our USDA office okay good thank you Terry I also see um Joe Gay from Kasella who I spoke with about the model filament is is in in the meeting and Ted if you want me to connect him to any more information on on that timeline I'm glad that he's uh on the the line as well maybe he could answer the questions that were asked yeah I think you can hear me I'm gonna I'm gonna connect you here just a moment Joe you just need to to unmute and you should be connected here Joe are you there might be something on the audio I see you're unmuted Joe we just can't hear you on our end here might be a microphone issue so I on the radio now so maybe we'll we'll go back to Joe in a few minutes so we can get him connected while we're waiting for Joe any other questions that for uh Jake so my question is is really regarding the timing during the day that these may be set off and wondering the feasibility of restricting the timing of these to outside of you know business hours possibly in consultation with the you know child care facilities that are nearby doing an outside of their operating hours is that would that be feasible would it be you know beneficial or would would you know that kind of negate the the effects and the use of of these pyrotechnics being restricted in that way you're you're muted Jake if you're there I would say we're up for all possibilities as far as you know suggestions go and collaboration with with all partners involved here I think that is going to limit us quite a bit you know as as the primary entity involved in this situation you know we certainly work primarily on Monday through Friday schedule which obviously I think would conflict with the primary time frames of the of the neighboring daycare facilities as as well as the other industrialized areas of that that community area of Williston as far as the timing goes it with the events of birds the birds are going to be there primarily as that facility is under operation which coincides probably closely I would I would guess I'm not sure what the daycare hours are or the center hours are under normal operations but I'm I'm guessing that's probably going to conflict with similar scheduling between the two facilities any other questions for Jake at this point I'm not sure if there's anyone in the room that was it was just to make a statement or ask a question regarding the issue yeah if there is not is there anyone on the line that would just do yeah I've got a couple people on the line Terry so I can connect them first I have Lauren Bergeron Lauren I'm going to connect you here just a moment hello yep hi awesome thank you I um I do have a um a statement prepared so I I've been a licensed educator at Williston Richmond Center for the past five years and our early learning center celebrates its 20th anniversary this summer and I'm currently even looking for homes in in the Williston area with my husband tonight unfortunately I would really like to object to the use of these devices across the street from my classroom and the classrooms of very young infants to five-year-olds ultimately there are children who are with us for more than half of their waking hours per week in the years which 90 percent of their brain development occurs in opposing to this tonight it's not that I have not considered the information that has been gathered even within this past week although I can't help but feel shook by the fact that children have once again been left out of the equation and I feel responsible to give a voice for them again there are over 200 children in less than a half mile radius on a given day I must highlight that there is serious danger on both sides of the equations here and I ask that you continue to seek and work towards other mitigation measures as educators it pains us to see what our children are already going through I believe we have a renowned teaching team but often we are the only spot left for a parent to put their child in care or with it being the very busy work area that it is where the closest to their work with our field and our industry struggling we're already in fear of appearing political or deterring business by speaking up about the noise pollution that's already present in our area but with being post-covid we are down three classrooms and nearly half the size that we used to run it as a center the lack of funding and the dire need in the field leaves us at a great risk I understand that after the testing from last week it may seem silly to keep dwelling on this issue in the future it could be considered to better connect earlier and have us a part of this conversation sooner so we could talk through some of these details with half of the state's childcare for birth to five not reopening after the pandemic we'd love to be considered an asset to the town of Williston despite the decibel levels being similar to the decibel levels of the traffic nearby I need to highlight that it is more complex than simple simply considering the detail of the decibels children will always hear the cars and the trucks throughout their entire life and the youngest children will learn to form those sounds and words and sometimes even their first sentences off of the joys of what we observe from the rooming and the zooming and the wheel wheels of the traffic that's nearby us we utilize a lot of that in our learning environment even to scaffold what we've seen with a truck or an 18-wheeler to build the symbolic play that helps to build a better cognitive base but it is loud but the sounds are expected in the eyes of a child instead of debating the particularity of the volume here when we are with the decibel levels I really want to consider the the part of it being expected versus it being unexpected because exposure to the unexpected over time can cause damage because of the fear response that's occurring perceptions in the unknown threat to physical safety and incongruence in the environment are three of the four threats that the brain is constantly and automatically wired to scan for and in reaction to these events will release the cortisol that acts as the flight or fight response continuous release of this cortisol damages our hippocampus so what i'm asking is that you ask yourself to consider more than just the simplicity of the noise pollution but more the impact of the neurobiology on our youngest citizens in the town what will this impact have on the future of your community there are children in every classroom that take an average of 15 to 30 minutes to recover after the jets pass by us at many times these teachers covered with upsets and upset and in distress children and all care and learning activities go to a halt out of the blue what fear will be caused in the eyes of the child by the pyrotechnics this will impair learning and development including speech language and language related skills such as reading thank you for considering this additional voice i could have started this with a list of other qualifications i have a nearly completed masters in education or 500 hours of training on this topic in the past five years but i really wanted to center this around trying to put ourselves into the shoes of the children when we're balancing and considering what we could do and what other possibilities there are thank you thank you lord so somebody else who wishes to speak got a couple more folks with our hands up uh courtney howard i see you next i'm going to connect you right now oh great can you hear me yes we can oh great um thanks lauren for for speaking up on behalf of the children i spoke i don't know a few weeks ago i'm a mother of a toddler who attends ej's kids club and um thank you for doing all the follow-up and the testing with the noise and the decibel levels and so forth um have a quicker point this meeting and that is um i like the suggestion a lot of working around um some of the business hours um and while that may not be totally feasible i also think that if these are to be discharged then we need to really consider discharging on the weekends when businesses are not in session um because obviously there are uh consultancies and all kinds of other businesses operating along that road so um even if you could take those two full days saturday and sunday and run the pyros then that would be two more days of saving the kids from being frightened um interrupting learning and so on and then also um interrupting the businesses as well so i um a big fan of dispersing them on you know non-traditional business hours and pulling that into the weekend and that's all i've got so thank you thank you next i have matt i saw you in the chat so let's find you here looks like we're having a tech issue matt i apologize it's not letting me connect your audio on on zoom here if uh you want to type your comment in in the chat we can certainly read it that way um next i have a christina inside christina can you hear me yes we can thank you hey this is christina gussie i also spoke last time um another parent of a child that used kids club and wilson resident um unfortunately i wasn't able to join until eight so i missed most of the discussion tonight but um i like some of the comments were just made and um was also wanted to ask if we did if you did grant um this temporary variance um if there could be any constraints added to the variance um like a cap on number of times per day they could be used or um you know i think that was just a great suggestion that was made about um you know certain times of the day or certain days of the week being added to that variance to minimize the impact for these daycare centers and all the children that are in such close proximity so um thanks for considering those you know additional um constraints thank you anyone else on the line the last person i have is kate um okay i'll get you connected whoops wrong person sorry jill i forgot to throw my mouse up tonight so it'll be easier to mouse a lot of people in the chat hey there my name is kate matina um and i'm also a parent of a child who goes to wilson enrichment center and um i'm just like to echo what i heard more and say about um the fact that the predictability um piece is such a big one i'm also a teacher an elementary school teacher in burlington and just know how important being able to project things are for children and you know a big a big issue with the other noise from the f-35s is that you know we don't know when they're going to fly and how much stress that it causes and as i like sit here on my back porch and i like you know it's been these hazy days in our area and these beautiful sunsets from the wildfires and you know we hear the noise coming overhead most of the summer i just i just like really urge you to think about what kind of community we want to live in and thinking about the noise ordinance and the decibel levels and the unpredictability of the sound you know what where you know what do we want for our children to learn in and for you know our teachers to teach in um and i hope that i i know that it's an important problem to solve and um you know i don't deny that but i hope we can continue to think about the monofilaments or other solutions timing of the explosions so that it doesn't add that other layer of stress to the children and the teachers and the people who work within earshot of this thank you thank you that the end of the people on the uh on like the zoom yep no more comments on zoom i just like to add that uh on the july 22nd uh i'm testing that was done i also was able to listen uh a little bit uh for those of you who don't know i live probably about a tenth of a mile from ej's daycare center uh was the the woods in between me and there and probably two tenths to maybe a little over two tenths to the the facility on avenue b and uh so i was interested to uh just hear what i could hear from my back deck and uh i could hear uh the bang from the bird bangers pretty clearly not excessive noise but when i was on the back deck i could not hear a bird the screamer if it if it went off at that point um and inside the house i heard the second one that's just a little blip type of thing so i decided that would it only takes me about two minutes to get to the uh the daycare center uh so i was over there uh for the next uh round of um shots uh i did if a screamer was used i never heard it uh the bang was uh probably less than there was on my my back deck but the thing that impressed me more probably was when i parked my car directly across uh the from the daycare center on avenue d there was a truck in the parking lot right next to my car that was doing a lot of backing up and of course with the beep beep beep which was long louder and certainly longer in duration than the shots and if this is going on uh all day or at least part of the day it makes a big difference there's a whole lot of noise that goes on uh in that because it's an industrial area uh as i was turning around it was followed out by a tractor trailer truck so there's a lot more going on there uh which most of the people have said that they recognize there's a lot of noise uh in that neighborhood so any other further questions on the subject for jake or for anyone else if not if we're ready to take a vote on it uh there is a suggested motion that would need to have um some time limit on it if we don't have a motion we'll be bringing this back again at our next meeting so particularly a draft language but just rather a suggestion should the board craft a motion a duration would would be a suggestion for that motion so just a point of order if you will if a motion is not made another you know one option would be not option but if nobody feels comfortable making a motion this automatically comes back to us next week is that some point in time it'll be back because we don't have a decision on it we need if we have a motion we can either vote it up or vote it down okay at least we have a decision then you have a decision okay all right just want to be clear yep and remind you that the conservation commission uh did vote to approve the variance but with a one-year limit the thing that's causing me us over all of this is the um in fact this seems to be the first the first line of action that they're doing um there are other things that and haven't been tried yet now you know if if this is those other things are only done in conjunction with the noise makers that might change my opinion although it might not change my opinion if that's just because well that's what we always do if you know i hearken back to about seven or eight years ago with um richmond had a issue with blueberries uh blueberry farm on richmond hill and um the select board there uh and i know this is a former richmond boy um the the select board was confronted with the neighbors being very upset because they were sending off loud cannon sounds it's not this but they were doing it uh to scare off the birds so the birds would need the blueberries and the um one of the one of the people actually recorded it um in a reasonably good system and then it goes off every like 10 minutes and he was in the select board meeting and he played his recording so every 10 minutes there would be the sound of a cannon going off in the select board um and his point was well made that you know would you would you want that to be going on um it just if i guess what i'm thinking is if there is another way around this i would i would want to know if there is um and if there isn't then might be inclined to a um test period i don't know if i could be for a year last time but i just that's that's where i'm coming from because i want to i would like to see this done working for many i do understand that the decibels are not um they don't don't seem to be massive um but still like to see i'd still like to know more about whether an incremental approach can be done if this is if this is the cheapest way for them to do it and that's that's a legitimate business thought legitimate business goal but if it comes at the expense of neighbors when there is another affordable way to do it that would be just as close to as productive taking care of the problem then i i would say no to the ordinance change and right now i'm not ready to i don't know i don't know the answer to that question my big thing is not just kind of the duration it's it's back to you know ted's line and you read it earlier just some type of a schedule possibly i know we can't control the population of the birds when they're going to be there the exact moment in time but i i know you know it's an industrial area as terry said business to start early sometimes as early as seven or seven thirty and that's usually before you know maybe a day car is fully up and running you know they have scheduled break mats something that they could have preparatory to prepare for for these unexpected that's uh educational language that we we deal with a lot at school and i think this is yeah i'm i'm not i'm not comfortable um and i know i read that earlier with one year i think that's that's a long time um and i just think there's possibly some other options and or schedules that could be looked at um and that that's my opinion but um yeah i'm just not comfortable with this right now i think i'm in the same place as as both ted and and gordon um in terms of um i i feel at this point there are other methods for bird mitigation that have not been fully explored including the monofilament um and would not feel comfortable granting variants um without those other methods having been explored fully um and then if we were to grant variants at some point in the future um you know if those methods had also then been unsuccessful i would want to know that um you know that that a schedule had been had been worked out in that um again you know as gordon said something you know in conjunction with the the the facilities that are in the area um to to mitigate the effects on the children show so is there more information we can gather then in the next several weeks then from gisela and from us da um i i'm not i might if the board wants a couple more minutes to see if jake has any additional information to share on those points or i can certainly follow up with him after this meeting and see if there's anything additional and so it's me like we would like to put this on hold at least uh for um probably a few more weeks to get more information okay i'll uh i'll have another conversation and we'll begin uh together so i i'm i'm liking the idea of postponing a decision concern is is um in a couple weeks or whenever we take it up again we're going to be essentially in the same situation uh we're not going to have information that clearly leads us to a yes or no uh type type answer either individually or as a group um the big concern for me here is is the um childcare facilities um they're located in a noisy place to start with you know avenue or off of industrial avenue zoned industrial and what i'll probably never be able to understand at least enough to make a decision is what is the impact of this additional noise on those kits um if we're looking for information that would probably help me come up with a yes or no vote that's it i just really doubt that information is available um i guess with that sometimes my thinking happens as i talk so as i'm talking it's leading me to conclude that this is probably a case where i'll have to be conservative and say no because i just don't know what the answer is to that impact to that legitimate use in that zoned area um you know on their key clients and people we people who are particularly vulnerable it would probably be a multiple year study to study the effects of the noise that occurs right now then if we were to allow a variance to see what the difference would be in another year so yeah at any rate uh i think we're at the end of our discussion period for tonight on this subject and we'll move on to the stormwater maintenance agreement with the bittersweet homeowners association and christine doherty or wastewater stormwater coordinator is here tonight to talk about this thank you chair vice chair i'll select board members christine doherty stormwater coordinator here i am bringing forward today a agreement a stormwater agreement that would like your support and approval on essentially what is the memo had stated the state has made a determination that town owning impervious surface within the permitted boundaries of bittersweet community that we should be listed as a co-permitee on their general operating stormwater discharge permit and in doing so we are in doing this agreement and asking for this agreement to be in place we're essentially putting into writing what our practice and our policy has been historically but given the nature of having to be in a permitted situation with the state agency we felt it was critical to have this these understandings spelled out and the you know the boundaries of responsibility clearly didn't delineate it which this agreement would do any questions for christine regarding the your proposal what's what's the difference between um who is going to be responsible for what forward is broken down in the agreement differences between maintenance the routine maintenance that town will be solely responsible for and any other kind of made so if i understood the question correct we're trying to get some clarification on differences between maintenance to the town would be responsible for and other generally categorized maintenance of the stormwater treatment practices right so these systems are constructed of usually different segments the town right of way it contains primarily the stormwater pipe under the roadways and the catch basins along those roadways the town you know maintains those cleans those outs other portions of the of the system would be the catch basins the actual outfall structures and and those lie on the HOA's common land and would be the responsibility of the HOA if the town gets involved with maintenance and things of that on those on those properties and we need additional agreements and maintenance you know maintenance agreements and that easement access access easements excuse me and and you know i think it will cloud the the permitting requirements and who's responsible for what actions if we don't have that separation yeah okay thank you christine what might be helpful is to understand a couple years ago we went through a whole somewhat contentious process of determining that homeowner associate the town of willis then would take over homeowner associations stormwater systems if they brought them up to current standards in fact i believe we are now the permit holder for those systems different permit is my understanding this is a three acre permit which is different than the stormwater permits we were talking about then so my question is is what is the difference and maybe just as importantly is how many of these three-acre stormwater permits do we expect willis then assume the number might be huge and will we have to be co-prim and what would be your understanding of how many of them we would have to be co-permitees on yeah right so these are great questions um you know but they're really each questions addressing different categories within the stormwater permitting framework okay now try to break it down and and separate them out a little to help answer your question the the three-acre permit as it's known as referred to is a general permit for discharging stormwater you know required for properties that actually contain less than three acres of impervious surface but the state rolled into this new operational permit the three-acre permit requirements that were required to be developed and implemented per the state statutes so that's the three-acre permit and we have this operational permit now we're not being asked to participate as a permitee as a co-permitee on this permit bittersweet st away permit because it's a three-acre site we're being asked to participate because we have taken over the roads and within the community and so as the as the agency or the entity with operational control over those roads we're being you know directed to take more of a legal responsibility more of a firmer position in that responsibility but we want to keep our responsibility limited to that which we own and operate maintain so that's where this agreement is coming forward and i again want to separate that from the new three-acre stormwater discharge permit because that is going to have impacts to our community community members here and some of the HOA's what happened historically when we were helping when we we helped other HOA communities developing and upbringing up their systems to speed you know we helped with things like getting grants for those improvements and getting them to meet the current discharge standards a couple of significant differences between that program and what's occurring here is the we're not asking so we're not seeking to take over the entire permits or the entire stormwater infrastructure systems in this request rather this request is to try to limit our permit liability and risk to only our areas of operational control when we did take over the stormwater systems under the Allenbrook flow restoration plan that was a targeted effort by the state to really focus on discharges that were within the Allenbrook watershed this you know the the the standards for meeting that for those for those permit requirements were very specific to just the Allenbrook the three-acre rule as you know was referenced earlier is a general permit so it applies to the state all all permit operators in the state so the impact is much broader and so the answer to your question of how many communities may be potentially impacted in the town of Willis then I unfortunately don't have that number directly it is in the I estimated to be around 15 to 20 likely communities that would be impacted by that but the extent to those impacts and how they're going to be impacted is going to be so unique from one community to the other because they're going to have to make an assessment of what infrastructure is currently in place how that measures to the you know discharge standards established by the state and if upgrades are needed to what extent those upgrades are needed to meet the state permit requirements so it's you know I hope that explain how those are really kind of separated aspects to this bigger question of stormwater so if I could just quickly repeat it back to you to make sure I kind of got a clear clear difference between the three-acre permit rule whatever and the previous Allenbrook the permits that were issued under the Allenbrook restoration plan yes please and it makes sense to have a different town to take a different approach with the three acres than it did with the Allenbrook related permits your guesstimate is and it you know maybe ballpark only is that there's 15 or 20 of these that are going to need to get permitted through the three-acre rule right now you can't determine what type of an agreement if any not agreement if Williston will need to be able to be will have to be involved in any of those those three-acre permit the 15 or 20 that your crystal ball suggests will be seeing in the future so we just have to wait till you come back to us in the future no um you know I can say you know with some confidence there's three or four that the state that we're going to be tied to is called permit teams right but being a three-acre permit really is no different than being under an operational permit in all practical aspects you still have discharge limits which are being established by that permit if you have a receiving water body that has you know restricted discharge allocations to it then your discharges would have to meet those those specific receiving water restrictions the three-acre rule you know where really starts to take application is when we start to look at what those discharges those permitted discharges are going to be and we're looking at measurements of your like your phosphorus and you know what needs to be implemented to meet these discharge limits so if you have three acres or more you have a higher standard that you need to meet you have you know you have to reduce your load more than you would if you had a smaller site it's seen as a potentially a bigger impact because of the amount of impervious that comes off of an isolated area creates a essentially a small hot spot if you will a pollutants a potential pollutants so going back to the co-permitee in question at hand there's and what we're what we're looking at for three-acre permits we are co-permitees on several permits which would do have three acres or more of impervious surfaces and we will we are capturing that and phosphorus reductions associated at a higher rate because of that but again that's going to be a separate issue okay i know that we'll likely be continuing to talk about the three-acre rule and the impacts of that to the communities further down you know over the next probably year year and a half as communities start to have to face those what i can say now is one of the big differences that we'll be looking at between communities that have to make upgrades for the to meet the three-acre permit requirements and what our community members face when really when trying to meet the anlenbrook flow restoration plan discharge requirements is really going to be the timeline on that so with the anlenbrook flow restoration plan there was a there was a almost a 30-year time period to bring all these systems up to speed and to meet the standards the state is not giving that kind of a timeline for this three-acre permit i think a lot of that again is because most facilities won't have to make any significant changes to meet the permit requirements that will be older facilities that may be have been gotten out gotten around some of those permitting requirements in the past that have outdated systems that may be need to be upgraded things like that so the actual impact i think it's going to be kind of spread out and inconsistent it'd be harder for to say specifically but it will be a shorter time here on the state's website they do say that just to give you some idea of the timeline that landowners will have about 18 months to do an engineering analysis and then they'll have five years to implement the approved plan again that timeline's a lot shorter than 30 years that we had with the anlenbrook flow restoration plan and the impacted potentially impacted you know operators are much broader being that this is a statewide regulation permit change versus just the anlenbrook flow restoration watershed okay this is a difficult question to ask so i apologize if i ask it in a blunt way would a homeowners association such as bittersweet have a have a legitimate argument if they said hey wait a second other homeowner associations and we brought our system up to state standards the town took over their their systems and took over the permit why isn't that being offered to us right so it's that's a fair question terry you know i don't know that i have a good answer for that to me i don't know that taking over minutes of these systems of as an ms4 is really the best idea and managing and keeping a stormwater program and the fees associated at a reasonable level as you start to take over these systems and one of the challenges that i think we will face if we start to go in that direction is going to be significant costs associated with that as you can see the state continues to make changes to their permits that that uncertainty of permit requirements being you know possibly changed every five years can really make that pretty pretty impactful from a cost and management perspective currently we you know our ms4 program manages around 30 different facilities of stormwater treatment practices throughout the town throughout our ms4 program that runs our program pretty thin to be honest and and and it takes a lot of resources to do so we are going to be looking at significant cost for for maintaining and upgrading the systems which we do have i think over the next couple of years to meet the phosphorus control plan requirements that are currently we're currently facing and required in subject to meeting so you know the reason why this is being brought forward the way that it is and the direction that it is because we feel it's going to be in the best interest of the program meet the program's objectives keep our you know the program as it is the best that we can without having to really look at expand you know significant expansions and increases in fee structures to meet those demands if we were to do that my interest isn't isn't in the town taking on additional responsibility and cost it's more focused on when you use the word you know an equity question between homeowner associations not between homeowners associations but with homeowner associations might be a way to put that yeah because of decisions made in the past about how we would handle the restoration related permits sure and it's a little bit difficult for me to um really speak to to directly to to the processes of the alamble restoration plans that wasn't here for that but what i can say is that you know that that was not without a lot of a lot of effort a lot of resources to to do that what was done and in thankfully i would say it was probably at a small scale and very targeted what we're looking at with a three-acre permit and the potential implications of that permit are much broader and impact you know everything from industrial developments to to residential yeah my focus would only be on the the residential the homeowner associations the industrials commercial non-residential for lack of better words they're on their own sure yeah okay all right thank you any further questions for christine if not there's a motion to suggest it regardless move to authorize the town manager to enter into a stormwater system maintenance agreement with bittersweet homeowner's association those are a second second sorry discussion on the motion i am um i'm not ready to move ahead on this um myself just personally um i i feel this question of uh are we treating homeowner associations the again these are crass words these aren't delicately phrased treating them differently and and that's of issue concern whatever to me so and because i don't know the answer to that or how i feel the what i believe the answer to that is i'm not ready to vote tonight others maybe so i will abstain so we do have a motion made seconded any further discussion on the motion if not all those in favor of the motion say hi hi those opposed say they and those are standing there are just one chef so we're moving on then to that corner's form-based code and vision plan and uh welcome to all of the planning commission members that are here tonight sorry we're running a little bit late but we've just a little not unusual but um we do have we have set aside about an hour to take to discuss this and so i think i'll turn us over to matt the laundry thank you um thank you for your time tonight to talk about this project in williston um i'd like before i get started to just recognize i have a couple of planning commission members and other project partners in the room tonight and probably some attending virtually as well um kate lamar from the planning commission chair megan cobe vice chair chape and caner and taylor newton from the chitin and county regional planning commission who's really been our staff lead there and thank them for their attendance tonight and all their efforts on this project uh jeffrey ferrell our consultant lead is attending via zoom and there may be some other planning commission members on board via zoom as well i have my phone on the counter here because i'm i asked them to text me if they're having any trouble getting through or want to be recognized or speak matt i've got jeff ferrell alex daily ron bowmer and jill partini uh connected terrific um i'm glad they could they could be here so i want to start tonight um the the goal for tonight um and the goal that lies ahead of us on this project is to move from the public input and visioning stage of this project to what we call the coding stage of this project you've you've seen the vision document you know that it expresses a broad set of goals and touches on a number of different things that the town um interacts with the part of the project that our goal is to move on to is the land use development standards that will be part of fulfilling this vision um so to do that we want to have this time to check in with the select board and the planning commission about what they see in this vision um you have some materials from us you have the most recent version of the vision document that also contains the workshop report which explains our public process and various parties who were interviewed town department stakeholders etc as part of that process and then articulates the complete vision four tap corners as understood by our consultant in developing that process you have received an executive summary uh listing off some of the changes and revisions that have been made to the vision as there's been a cycle of feedback with the planning commission since our public outreach efforts and the first draft of that vision and you have a more recent memorandum from the planning commission describing um four particular areas of sort of friction or concern um with some attempt to contextualize those in terms of where are we dealing with some of just the realities that Williston's facing where are there things that we're concerned about but we know that when we get into the coding phase of the project we'll we'll be able to address them and we want to make sure that we do um and where are there still some things that might need to be resolved so to the select board as you as you read these various documents as you think about those friction points tonight would be a good night to identify any others or provide insight to the planning commission around that i'm going to be really brief and i'll probably be deferring to some of the commission members or consultant team for some of the answers tonight but we're at a critical point in the project where our our really big goal here is to move on um and develop those land use standards because as you probably noticed around town um development's not waiting for us so if there are things in here that are seen as desirable um it makes sense to spend our energy moving on with that coding exercise so i'll stop there i'll open it up um and fire away i mean let me know where you want to start who would like to be first is there anyone i guess i should ask you from the standpoint of is there a structure for this this question answer to the floor is wide open i think for any question you wish to ask and hopefully we'll have an answer so i'm on page 12 and um it was the hands-on design work workshop that happened on the 24th of april and i'm looking at the part that says what the citizens say um so my question and i'm going to preference that with there i think everybody all wills most wilson residents could probably look at a part of taff's corners and say geez wouldn't it be nice if instead of what got built there this got built there and this is what we're hearing as some of what the residents want to see at taff's corners so my question is how how does form base and what excites me about form base code is it provides an opportunity for those changes to happen i guess my question is is how and what is the incentive because wilson isn't going to be doing the actual funding of the changes it's going to be developers or property owners what what is the incentive that pushes them to come up with a vision that the residents are more interested in versus maybe what the economic model they're pursuing says is the right thing to do does that make sense i think so let me let me try to start answering and let let me know if i'm getting there sure um so the form base code as a project including not just the land use development standards and not just the regulating plan or the map of street types that would that would be the main work products for the planning commission there's a lot more in here you can think of it as a comprehensive plan for tapped corners in fact we'd anticipate eventually adopting a version of this into the comprehensive plan so it provides a whole lot of organizing principles there's a section towards the back of this plan before the appendix called overarching issues that that starts to talk about some of those and some of the maps and the appendix inform this a little bit as well some of what you see in what the citizen said is about wanting mixed use wanting more housing wanting changes from auto-centric to people-centric well those things are a lot about buildings and streets which is which is where the coding exercise and is going to go but some of the things that we heard were about community spaces green spaces public spaces reutilizing parking areas and big box areas etc and some things that a land use code can certainly enhance but it won't it won't get the town there all by itself so within this plan especially when we talk about green spaces creating opportunities for those community spaces things like that it probably won't work if the approach is to say to the developer community you do it there there will be some need for partnership here another regulatory item that will work in concert with this is our official map which is a another project we've been working on by which the town can identify critical public lands that are not today public but but the town feels it needs to be so some of your green spaces some of your important street connections and layouts would be contained in that and an official map at the end of the day is only as good as the town's will to actually put it to use in other words when a development comes in and the developer says i'm going to put my access street here are you ready to say well no the official map says it needs to be here because that makes your development of a piece of this you know 987 acre multi owner master planned growth center so am i getting in the right direction i think so and i know i like the concept but i don't have enough knowledge to know what it is specifically in this that i that will cause me to like it you know the understanding the foundation and i guess maybe one one question out there is is there a concrete a simple concrete no pun intended example of form-based code versus um is it use-based code is that a good way to describe our current um yeah i mean ordinance there's a spectrum and and somewhere along that spectrum what we do in Taft Corners lives we do have a lot of what we would call performance standards if you want to build you need to do this or that other thing we call it the five of nine in Taft Corners you have to pick five of nine elements to provide on your site and so an example i can provide of the end result of a performance standards based code would be the what we call the lot 30 project Panera bread Verizon wireless Aspen dental that's a project that had to meet those performance standards in Taft Corners it includes multiple uses it includes wide sidewalks public art small urban park um and multiple stories and so it ticks the boxes um but one of the one of the things you know i was i was here i participated in the review and approval of that project um one of the things that's interesting about that project is it um has some shortcomings in terms of attempting to be uh a street frontage along route two way which is you know 165 feet of right of way or something like that and it's challenging the buildings were built they have some architectural value to them they have that wide sidewalk between their street front and route 2a and a green belt and they have entrances that face route 2a they address that street and every one of those entrances from time to time has a little note taped on it says don't come in this way the doors locked because where do people come in they come in from the parking lot and on that parking lot frontage is this small street merchants row that was constructed as part of that project uh has parallel parking has sidewalks um but it just has big curb cuts into the parking lot um you wouldn't be walking along merchants row and necessarily feel invited into those buildings and so as that project was reviewed and developed and as i've kind of walked around it and thought about it um i've thought maybe the opportunity for a streetscape in that scenario was actually on merchants row rather than route 2a i don't know if i'm right about that but the tool that exists to organize buildings along streets regardless of ownership or or sort of who's developing when is the regulating plan and the regulating plan is foundational to the form-based code so when you look at other streets in taft corners either existing or proposed or proposed to be extended in some cases like right avenue and that's one of the visualizations you have there um thinking about well we'd like to make this street a place um that takes more than just being able to take the boxes of those performance standards it it takes the organizing principles that live in something like a form-based code um and also it means that you know that multiple owners may come in and develop at different times with with different goals but if they can all meet that standard it becomes a place without having necessarily to have been all designed and developed at once okay you you mentioned um route 2a is is it possible for the the presence and i don't ever see them going away of route 2 and 2a tune it seems like the volume of traffic on those roads and the need for that 165 foot right away to handle that volume of traffic is always going to be i don't know what the word is a barrier is always going to be an obstacle that's going to make it hard for for instance uh tafts corners to feel pedestrian friendly is is are those two roads showstoppers or are they something that yeah they're not great but we can work around them more of the latter and and i there's some examples in the vision remember so you know there's there's an image of a sort of a more boulevard type conversion of route 2a in there it's not one of the areas the consultant team selected to focus on as remaking it into a classic american main street but within that right of way of route 2a there's a ditch section on either side a very sort of rural highway kind of configuration and then those wide sidewalks or bike paths so there there are ways to work in route 2a and you see some of that in the vision on route 2 we actually had a more vigorous conversation about the eastern end of route 2 from taft corners past healthy living and and maple to replace excuse me and whether that should be a main street type configuration our consultant team recommended uh to focus on some of the smaller streets mostly based on the newness of the development along that corridor you know then healthy living is a nice building but back of house faces route 2 there's a there's a portion of that building that you know doesn't have a lot of windows doesn't have a lot of character um the Shaw's parking lot maybe the Shaw's parking lot for some time um there's a there's a wetland adjacent to that that our team felt was a little more challenging to deal with that said there there was some um disagreement about that on the planning commission and I think at least some words that the town does want to continue to pursue the pedestrianization or or making more humane of those state highways uh is a goal and you know we did have preliminary conversations with folks from v-trans about how should we address these if these are the town's goals and um you know the answer is is large taking them over um make them class one highways take them over as other municipalities have done with state highways within their boundaries and there are some price tags that come with that some maintenance liabilities and some other things um and there's also a sense that maybe today as opposed to 20 or 30 years ago there's more willingness on the part of v-trans to do some things to those rights of way without the town having to take them over so you know not so much a land use development or coding issue but a definite component of the vision here and something for the board to think about if you imagine this as part of your comprehensive plan what sort of work plan does that lay out in terms of the town interacting with the state agency over the next many many years if it's a stated goal to um calm those state highways in some way okay Chairman can you use the mic please Chairman Caner from the planning commission and um if I could point you Jeff and others to the memo that Matt sent on page five because I would hopefully wind up here anyway in the sense that it says phasing and the role of town government which is probably an area of concern for you and under the facts to consider the third fact to make the area a place there must be significant public coordination and support such as municipal stormwater shared between properties and purchase and maintenance of public spaces as we already do for streets um it's basically the cost of density there's a complexity cost when you have density and you need more services trash can't just be left on the curbside the same the you wind up with more maintenance and more services when you have more density and to me that's an important area for you as a select board to think about what direction you want to give us in working on this um the example of route 2a or route 2 is a huge one and I'd rather maybe think about smaller ones first um and for instance what you wind up with is you wind up with a cottonwood crossing and finning crossing and half farms you wind up with a developer a sort of concept of how their thing is and their storm waters all within their land and everything and what we're trying to talk about here is do we want something that has some more uniformity some more it's feeling a place as a whole and if you want to achieve that you need a certain amount of density and a certain amount of municipal involvement and that has costs and a lot of other things and so I really think the role of the town and how tap corners evolves is an important one do we want to keep having each developer do their own thing in their own style or do we want something a little more comprehensive and that's what really to me that's what this is about it's an interesting observation we have these they're these two developments with crossing in their names but it's difficult to actually cross between so sorry and I don't mean to dominate please others let's let's pick on um you know the walmart home depot hypothetical you know we we know they're immensely popular in terms of shoppers people going there there are huge destination um but you know that they they are not what you would consider down if uh pedestrian friendly that type of thing so help me understand how form-based code can help you know achieve these goals for that type of property does that make sense that question yeah um a couple of things uh to pick on walmart and home depot for a minute if you look at the very last map in the appendix that the character area is map um and hopefully you have one that's color um walmart and home depot are mapped in this area called tc big commerce so these character areas they're not really quite zoning districts but they're they're acknowledgments a little bit of what the situation is on the ground and where these various components of the growth center fall along sort of the evolutionary spectrum um so you know we're recognizing we have a part of the growth center um that's that's built out suburban residential um and and is likely not going to be sort of marked for a whole lot of change from that it's it's there it's built out it's um you know not not likely to evolve and we have some areas with some focus um the the the orange core cap corners flex core area um and and then the sort of the general retail around that so big boxes will evolve um because some of them not walmart and home depot are in that core walmart and home depot might evolve too um but with their remoteness their proximity to the highway the sort of large lot nature of the site it's not an area that's identified as critically for that evolution as some of the areas that are more central um to the growth center doesn't doesn't mean we won't you know address them but they're they're probably going to be there for a while um they might transition from retail to a more warehouse sort of configuration in the short term we do have adjacent and around them though a number of areas identified as natural areas so you see some green there in half of the harvest lane circle adjacent to home depot and walmart property we have some natural features of streams and wetlands there um and so we can use some of that undeveloped land um around them to also provide a transitional area and some um green space opportunities and you know to be clear when i'm talking about this i'm i'm talking about land that somebody else owns not the town of williston and that needs to be thought about in plan four and and all of those other things including possibly purchased but that was the that was the thinking around specifically walmart and home depot um but there are other big boxes you can think of the you know ac more marshals area bedbath and beyond pet smart center that are in that core area um where a code will likely anticipate more evolution and more you know bringing of buildings to the street okay so tax corners is primarily retail although we made efforts to try to make it a mixed use but it i think it's fair to say it's primarily retail and with that comes um large parking lots which is you know it's kind of one of those you know the spiral downward spiral and you need the large parking lots support the retail but it's the large parking lots that create an image you know a feel um that type of thing how how is that addressable and can form base code help it yeah um you know part part of it is about where the parking lot goes some of it is about reducing the parking lot size in exchange for street parking or structured parking or shared parking these are you know tools we've we've engaged to some degree in williston already and you know you can certainly see a difference between the healthy living parking lot and um you know i know it's a different scale with the hannahford parking lot or something like that in terms of design size pedestrian islands uh shade trees etc but but a lot of it's going to be about that location so you know my my imagining merchants row is becoming a pedestrian friendly street hinges on basically flipping the parking lot um from one side of the site to the other and then you have to deal with the parking lot that's fronting on route 2a and how are you planning on handling that that's another coding challenge but you do see in the transmittal memo from the planning commission discussion of parking uh as a friction point um it's it's going to be a long slow evolution from the kind of demand we see today to something different um williston will continue to be a regional shopping hub for a lot of the life of this plan a lot of the new potential exists in terms of residential growth and that's that comes from the market discussion in this plan so um it's going to it's going to transition um we will we'll want to think about um recognizing how we would address you know a large single tenant retailer wanting to come in under this plan and to what extent can we um right size that parking and get it in the right spot on the site okay you hit upon a pretty interesting you know concept which is you know as we all know detail is changing and and i i have no idea where it's going is is form-based code flexible so that as society changes uh so you know the code is adapt adaptable to that and maybe i'm using bad descriptions there does that make sense yeah i i mean the first part is the focus is on form so where is the building on the site what does the building look like along that public realm along that street frontage um what's in the building is is less important if we get form right form-based codes do sometimes try to anticipate and focus retail by doing things like um requiring a retail capable first floor height so you'll see some places that that do that um but i think i think generally communities have anticipated expected or desired more retail than is is usually feasible to get if you look at some of the discussion in the overarching issue section of this vision plan we talk about the market study a lot of residential potential not as much big retail potential going forward over the life of this plan but if you get enough of that residential eventually there's a small retail that comes that does start to want to be part of the picture the you know the coffee shop example um is the the classic one um and you know there may be some streets where it's important to to ask that buildings be capable of that we can regulate use under form-based code there's nothing that says you can't have some say about uses within this code but the focus is overwhelmingly on correct that brings up the main thing i think this is great first of all um not quite sure how to formulate this thought but it it seems that my theory is that the pandemic has revealed that there was technology here for before the tech before the pandemic that allows us to live differently than we were living and that we're probably not going to go all the way back um you know we're having people call in and show up on screens at the wilson select board meeting now and we didn't do that a year ago um i i think this is a really wonderful idea because it seems to me that the box stores are are doing surprisingly well although maybe not standably well for the future um but they're but they they're they're they're hanging in there but i also you know keep thinking of you know bear with me on this scattered thought um i my wife and i went hiking uh uh in um Jerusalem trail which was surprisingly hard um and we've been working out um but uh but that you know we're going by rural vermont and there's a silo and there's a barn and there's a whatever and as a native vermoner i'm saying you know i when i was growing up these these were real places um and this was not like oh i want to build a red barn because someday in 2021 a whole bunch of people that i will now call flatlanders are going to be coming around and they're going to go oh look it's almost like this isn't a real place it's just so beautiful um no that that was economic that was that was uh somebody trying to make money and feed their family and it was an industry um and i i get concerned that you know someday people are going to go by you know williston and say oh remember there used to be a Walmart there uh remember that before before you could just order it and it would show up um and and so i mean i i you know that's not that far afresh but what i'm enjoying about about seeing this come together is that it and i'll i'll be very blunt about this what the hell do i know i'm not not not not the stuff that i'm talking about right now um but it seems like this builds kind of a critical mass of um pedestrian friendly residential aesthetic which will be um amenable to future economic growth so that we're not building you know a big red barn or a silo but then we don't we don't put the grain in silos anymore we do it differently but they're still there oh we could put a cell cell tower on it you know now this this is a um uh this is almost like an economic model for the future because if there are people who are working at home they it's not such a bad thing to have a place that looks like there might be place for a coffee shop and there might be a place for a smaller store that would be something that would be a kind of a destination or a local gathering place or something like that so i'm i'm you know i'm very impressed with the work that's been put into this and if if i'm if i'm right about the economics of this and again i don't know um i i think this is a really good a good way to go um and the the things that are the friction points for poor story building okay i don't know but i just wanted to say that i going forward you know coding all of this it would you know my my hope would be that it would be something that would be thinking about how people are going to live going forward into the 21st century i'm going to ask megan cope to come up and talk a little bit about that because we've had some conversations about both the economic resilience elements of this as well as thinking about creating a place where people are going to live the way they might be living post-covid um with that work from home and the need for spaces to interact with beyond maybe the apartment yeah thank you um nice to see you all in person um i'm really glad you mentioned those things ted because i think that what you're talking about in a lot of ways at the heart of form-based code and um and the flexibility question comes up as well just my enthusiasm for form-based code is really lodged in the fact that it supports people's everyday lives and it allows people to do things that are actually set out in our town plan um that you know we as a planning commission you know our mission is to you know make sure that we're making recommendations based on the town plan so um you know one one thing that's included here is is for instance um having uh well-designed public spaces whether it's an outdoor space whether it's a streets escape that accommodates a variety of transportation modes whether it's a sidewalk space or what's called a door yard right outside a building um those are in my opinion particularly um really essential to the success of this kind of project because not only are they flexible um we know that we can change streets right we added bike lanes to route to somebody out in bike lanes to route to we don't have it under our jurisdiction right now but um and we know that with technology our daily lives are changing a lot as you say quite rightly we're working from home we're getting uh material goods delivered more in order um and at the same time we are experiencing and I think the pandemic really heightened this we're experiencing a more more of a desire to get outside right um to to walk to enjoy nature to um enjoy the scenery that we have here um we want to alter another thing that we couldn't do in the pandemic much was gather and we know how much that sustains us as humans and these again are things that are in our town plan our health amendment includes things like social connectivity and how important that is particularly for elder folks uh as well children I mean really across the age span um we know that getting outdoors it's good for physical health it's good for mental health um our our health folks who helped us make the health amendment um you know we're strongly pushing the argument that better access to outdoor spaces um you know improves lots of different kinds of metrics in in their um you know their sort of dashboard of health indicators and so I feel that you know whether we're talking about more of the public spaces or whether we're talking about things like the density that's achieved by three or four story buildings that also would allow a greater diversity of types of households could address some equity issues that we also know are very pressing for our town uh and everywhere um and you know would also then have some very practical effects and here comes the energy plan right because when we have that density and that concentration of people we allow public transit to be more feasible we allow um you know a much greater uh efficiency of use of public utilities of physical materials uh all of those things so so though you know I'm really glad you had that that inclination Ted and I think um you know uh it's absolutely spot on I think there are tremendous benefits to the to the kind of um approach that that we're embarking on thank you so I'm sort of looking to have people identify something that gives them heartburn about what they've read and that's where look at it's my my own heartburn I think was looking at the town taking over the route 2 and route 2a and that sounds like a long time coming so anybody um not not something this is really gives me heartburn but I just wanted to to get an understanding of um you know whether or not in developing this code um you know things like uh reduction of fossil fuels have been have been considered and you know where um you know kind of some of these environmental impacts you know obviously we had the continued from sustainable will is in here today which was great but in thinking about you know incorporating some of these concerns of our energy plan and all of that and how that will be incorporated into this sure well there's a couple of effects of um concentrating or focusing development pressure in the growth center so um megan cope who is just up here mentioned several of them um when you have a denser population it's more feasible to serve that population with transit we we don't we we we have had sort of a stated goal in our discussions that people who work in williston ought to be able to live in williston it's more of an equity conversation but of course if you really can live and work in tough corners um your your carbon emissions related to transportation are greatly reduced um that said most people um you know some of their carbon emissions comes from getting to and from work but a lot of it comes from other kinds of trips trips to shop to socialize um to participate in government to come to meetings like this all of those kinds of things and so when we uh plan for a development pattern that gets that density where you can walk to the grocery store um a lot of us haven't experienced being in a place where you can walk to the grocery store one of the things that happens is you go to the grocery store more um because you you tend to go three or four times a week rather than the traditional you know big shop filled the back the car um but when when you can walk to the grocery store um you're you're not driving to the grocery store I I walk to the hardware store in my neighborhood most weekends because that's what I spend my weekends doing is fixing my house um but I walk because it's a it's it's it's five minutes and it's a it's a break from whatever project I'm I'm working on and it's reasonably pleasant safe to do that um so you know not starting up the car and all of that um another really big component of something like this is building energy for heating and cooling so you know most of the proposed development pattern under this vision is multifamily which means that dwellings are sharing roofs walls and or floors with one another so from a thermal perspective there's there's just an energy savings um related to that so you know a couple of couple of things there um this plan is really heavy on walkable and bikeable infrastructure so if you just have the density but there's you know cars streaming by that's that's not going to work this this plan deals with that and makes that a place um plans for a place in tap corners where where that's truly feasible because it's not just baseline save um but as an interesting um Jeff's back famous planner does this thing about walkable cities and the walk needs to be safe it needs to be useful and it needs to be interesting um so that's the kind of place you want to create is that answer the question it it does now two quick things one is with um hybrid meetings sometimes the people who are electronic are left for last tonight here i am saying i want to speak but i hope we anybody wants to speak gets to um but i wanted to take a step back because williston has changed a lot in the last 50 years and this plan is trying to look at what's kind of how we're going to allow for what might happen in the next 50 and the planning commission when we have hearings and various things happening most people just don't want change they like it the way it is and they don't want things to change they um say let's just stop development you know no more development and that's a really strong feeling among williston people and so i want to acknowledge that and one of the ways we as a town have dealt with it quite effectively is by having a rural ag district where we don't allow dense development and having a relatively small sewage area that has residential and and and other zoning and we have designated the growth center in the taff corners area for some time and within the planning commission as well as in the town people say i don't want three and four story buildings you know that's not in my scale and so um we want it to be the way it is so it really is a hard thing to visualize how things could be and still be okay but the fact that we we have pressure for growth and we can't turn that away if we do turn it away what we wind up is just a high cost growth we wind up becoming more of an elite society without affordable we have a problem getting affordable housing because it gets expensive to build in williston and so if we're going to meet the regional demand for housing which is the highest demand right now we need to create multi-family housing and by adding more stories we can do it less expensively and developers will do it and so in a sense we're trying to solve a difficult problem of how do we do what we don't really want to do and i'm speaking sort of as the the heart of williston we don't want density we don't want tall buildings but also we want to keep our fields we want to keep our farmlands open the way they are and we've been very successful like with the environmental fund purchasing and rights and so forth and so somehow we want to preserve that we want to preserve the way the civic village center is but still respond to the growth pressures of the region and we've responded to the shopping pressures in the past so that to me that's what we're dealing with and when you talked about heartburn terry we haven't talked about this in the in working on form-based code but i worry about we want to make it a place at tap corners but what if it then became such a place that it's like sx junction within sx town where it competes as the place with the tap of the rest of the town and um how do we make that have it let it be a dense area that develops and not be in competition with the village and the rest of williston as an identity and so that's where my heartburn is it's i hadn't thought about that but that's giving me heartburn now that you mentioned it too so matt can i you know i think ted was had a good point you know i don't know what i don't know and i can't understand or glean from this what are the liabilities or the heartburn issues that we should be aware of um well so i think as chape and mentioned general discomfort with growth and change um so you know one thing that is is challenging about an exercise like this as we go in we draw a picture a map of tap corners in 2070 under the guidance of this vision there's a lot more buildings in 2070 and some of them are taller and some of them are in places that are open fields today um that's challenging to look at the drawing that we didn't do is the drawing of what we look like in 2070 under business as usual but you know i can sort of list off as i mentioned my lot 30 example all of finney crossing all cottonwood crossing not to say really bad things about those projects but they do represent 100 compliance with today's development standards so if there are things you see in those and you say well as things develop more or redevelop we we know there's going to be this you know it's it's it's like a stream the the pressure we can we can channel it somewhat but we can't send it back uphill the development pressure is there um as that pressure comes in over the next 50 years how would you like to channel it and so what are some of the liabilities um the vision here requires some big asks from the development community to fulfill this vision there's land that needs to be set aside for open space in an organized way the town can participate in that but there's also part of part of that is an ask of private landlords to work with the town to do that it's very likely that achieving this vision will mean imposing a higher and more expensive architectural standard on some new development a lot of the feedback that fed into the commission and staff desire to take on this project was some negative feedback about the look of some of the newer buildings in town flat blocky soviet you know some of the words that that we were hearing in the office well that can be remedied you know with a with a different development standard but it may mean saying to somebody well we don't allow that material on your street facing facade we only allow these other more expensive materials we've done some of that in the past this would do quite a bit more of it there may be places where we say if you're going to build on this site it shouldn't be just a one-story building it should utilize the land better than that there may be folks who would like to come to williston but only if they can have a really really really big parking lot because some spreadsheet that was created in 1975 says they need it and you might say no to them and they might say well then we're not going to come williston in a very informal way said no to rezoning the cottonwood site to allow a target to come in about almost 10 years ago now and i always tell people that that's the hidden story about target repurposing existing space in the south burlington university mall is there was a a town to build that in a place that the town had not planned for it and again only in an informal way but that was all it took the town said no we've we've planned for something that doesn't have big box retail in this site so somebody might not build here because of the development the constraints that this plan imposes on them but somebody else might and i think that's that's just always a possibility so much of the i assume much of the actual review that would be done under form-based code would be done by drb how do they feel about this so we've interacted with the drb at a couple of stages in this process you know the intent of a form-based code generally is to be quite prescriptive you know sort of a go-no-go code that requires very little interpretation so we had a conversation with our consultant team early on about you know some form-based codes are actually completely administrative south burlington city center works this way there is a staff person who can review a proposal for a whole new development site and building and if it meets the standard that person can sign that permit and the project can build in part because of the way appeals of administrative decisions work in vermont they go to the drb what we've recommended is that there be a truncated drb review for anything that comes in under this code and you know our current staff report regime is a lot like this anyway we recite all the requirements the bylaw and explain you know that we think the the project's meeting it or when we don't you know we say we don't so there's the drb will see these we also think because of the evolving nature of williston out of this very single tenant retail heavy environment there will be times when an applicant wants a waiver from some piece of the code and waivers in my mind it can be an effective tool if you codify the waiver that's available and you specify the findings of fact the drb needs to make in order to grant it in other words try to take the subjectivity out of it so i imagine there will be some of that there as well that the drb will need to do so um one thing about the drb is there's a fair amount of discomfort when we get into the realm of regulating taste and architectural style the drb wants to hear from the staff the building needs to be 10 feet from the sidewalk yes the building is 10 feet from the sidewalk yes you may approve um when we get into even some of the things that williston has attempted to codify in the design review district they they're scratching their head sometimes um or they're they're trying to figure out how to get a pitched roof element to work on a flat top building somewhere and it's not making sense um those things will be much better figured out in a unified code like this so what we've offered to the drb is there there may be more of this that's sort of out of your control decision wise but on these things that you as a group have really struggled with there's going to be a lot more specificity anything else a few months ago you mentioned that we built in a new neighborhood at half corners and but williston already has neighborhoods all over the place just like the city does uh that their neighborhoods of maybe like people and so i don't see this as being anything different than we've got already by building this at half corners i worry about infrastructure needs but that comes with the planning process so we'll see what what happens with that any other questions or comments congratulations to the consultants and to the planning commission i'm putting the other a great proposal at this point yeah a lot of work thank you yeah yeah thanks um i'll just close saying thank you to the planning commission the ccrpc and the consultant team i know we have planning commission numbers online i don't know if any have indicated they wanted to say anything um i want to make sure they had that opportunity yeah i know the they're listing why i didn't see any hands or comments to speak um so again our our goal is to to get on with the coding um but eyes wide open and fully communicative to the select board about some of the things that we're wrestling with and that you'll hopefully see the the results of that wrestling match over the next couple of months i do have a hand raised from al cynical listening online you wanted to have a comment um al i'm gonna oops i saw you put your hand down okay it's back okay here you go just unmute can you hear me yes okay i i just wanted to say a few things i was at the planning meeting the last last week and i just wanted to make sure that i had a few you know a few things to say um i i think that this is a great plan that the planning commission is put forth and all the work that they've done everybody jeffrey and his team deserve a great deal of you know hand clapping they did a great job it was a lot of work i i think that the planning commission had a lot of good things to say last week you know some of the things were the streets maybe too narrow you know how do you deal with some of the snow uh the snow plowing issues on on those compact sites and those all need to be taken into consideration um you know the the the plans are all very compact and and it's not something that the developers and the landowners are used to but it's certainly it's it's something that we're willing to work with and i want to make sure that you get input from the landowners and the developers because you know in in the end they're the ones that put an awful lot of time money effort and they go out and take some pretty good sized loans to make these projects happen so you know they deserve to be heard from as well um and i also want to make sure that i'm i'm on record you know there was uh on my property there was a 16 acre park shown and i just want to make sure that uh everybody knows that nobody really talked to me about you know putting 16 acres of my property into a park and then putting a viewing tower on that so i just want to make sure that it doesn't get put into a plan that just shows up and and everybody's expecting a beautiful 16 acre park that was you know on some private owners property and then just for the record i know there was some discussion on the burroke community up on the hill and that may play into that part but i've talked to a a tree specialist who says that you know the burroke community is probably one of the the most populated trees in north america so it's not like it's on the endangered species list or anything and i just want to be on the record to uh let you hear my my thoughts on this and um let you know that i i am in agreements with the with the you know the whole plan overall but those are some of the things that i want you guys to consider thank you thank you so i think we're at the end of our discussion tonight on the farm base code thanks to the planning commission thanks to everybody you attended tonight the consultants and everyone so thank you very much thank you and we're up to the manager's report yes and i'll be very brief this evening late late hour here but uh just to reiterate our muddy brook um cold cold replacement project is about set to get underway next week um so we'll anticipate the closure and the removal of the temporary bridge on um right around monday i'm told and we'll have a closure there for at least three months um expecting it to november maybe on a one lane in november but we'll see how that project progresses it's been a a long time coming and a lot of hard work by um partners city self-projected with us and all the consultants on themselves that's going to cause traffic issues all over all over yeah we're uh anticipate they have a detour in place but you know we're certainly we'll be hearing some feedback on traffic i imagine it happened a couple years ago and yeah has to happen yep the other piece um our consultant team from ap triton on our fire and ems services delivery service analysis project um really making their site visits to town i think they're coming in on sunday and they'll be here monday and tuesday um with the board members who haven't um responded if you're interested in sitting down with an interview with the consultant they they certainly love hearing from you um if you don't have time well they're here that's fine too they can set something up over the phone um later in the week or the following week so well i think lisa may have reached out to every board member from the fire department if we could just follow up with her she can coordinate that if you're interested and tax bills are mailed and payments are starting to come in so grover and iran for sunday afternoon uh together to meet with the uh the consultant on the fire department so there are plenty of opportunities at this point so hopefully you can sign up other residents uh we do have a catering permit to take up tonight yes i got this this afternoon it's for a wedding at the isham family barn on um august 28th um meets all the requirements for use there is from big red presents llc doing business as misery loves company out of a new ski um staff has no objections to this permit application as it's uh it's a use at that facility any questions for eric on that need a motion then we approve permit do i have a second second discussion of the motion all those in favor of the motion say aye aye any opposed we've done that any other business that people would like to rent tonight i have just one we have a momentous occasion happening on the saturday and the town manager is getting married so he will be gone uh miss honeymoon for at least a week so don't don't try to contact thank you very much terry and uh well well i'm away we'll have a chief foley serving as acting manager and surely helping him out i'll i'll be back august 13th is so congratulations yeah congratulations so hearing no other business uh we are adjourned