 Let's call this meeting to order. This is the Tuesday, August 13th, 2022 meeting of the Burlington Development Review Board. And we are going to take up the items on the agenda in the order of which they appear. The first item is our agenda itself. Scott, I'm not aware of any changes to the agenda. Is that correct at this time? Correct. All right. Next item is communications. I think all the relevant communications have been posted on the website that there are any we're missing. No, it's all online. All right. The minutes from our last meeting, I suppose were put out if there's any comments or changes. We should take those, otherwise I'd entertain a motion to approve them. I want to do that. And Scott, how do we've done that? I was impressed there for a second, AJ. All right, I mean... So the practice with the minutes is they get drafted and posted within five days of the meeting. And then at the subsequent meeting... Right, you have to get approved. ...comment on it. They never do. And they're signed and made official. All right. So we'll do it that way. We just need to vote on them. Okay. So the first item on our agenda is a certificate of appropriateness in ZP 22 436, 68 Sears Lane by the Burlington Community Development City of Burlington Treasurer, Brendan Stringer for tree clearing at Sears Lane. Is the applicant here? Yeah, John Magnus with SDI Ireland is here. All right, great. So is there anyone else here to speak on this application besides the applicant? If you're an attendee and want to speak to this application, use the raise your hand function and I can let you speak. I do see a few folks, AJ, but nobody's got their hand raised. All right, well, we'll do it this way. Anybody who wants to speak on this application or intends to speak on the application should raise their right hand and affirm that the testimony they're going to give is true under the pains and penalties of perjury. I do. So I only see your name as the SDI Ireland. So John Magnus, can you spell that? J-O-H-N-M-A-G-N-U-S as in Sam. So why don't you just describe the project to us? We have the staff comments. We've seen it. I think I understand it, but why don't you just explain to us what you're intending to do? SDI Ireland and Capricchi Construction are a joint venture team building the Champlain Parkway. As part of the project, there is a cap plan that deals with the removal and disposal of contaminated soil that currently exists on the project. And this cap plan includes storage sites on or adjacent to the Parkway right away to stockpile contaminated soils during the course of construction. And this exhibit shows a temporary stockpile location just west of the right-of-way for the Champlain Parkway. And in order to stockpile material in this location as designated by the cap plan in the documents, we will need to clear trees and prepare the site with gravel to allow us to utilize this area. The only question I had about it is, what happens after the construction to the area? Is that part of this or not? That's a good question. From the contractor's perspective, we would remove the gravel that we have placed to create the stockpile area. And we would topsoil it and seed it and mulch it. Beyond that, I don't know if there are any other project required. Is the topsoil mulching and seeding part of this application or is that just sort of a standard contractor? It would be part of the Parkway contract based on restoration of the work. I had that question because it's trees now, and when the work's done, it might be nice that it's not just an empty pile of exposed scraped dirt. Yes. How long do you expect the dirt to be on site? Great question. So the contaminated soil is shown in this cap plan throughout the right-of-way of the Parkway. We have to excavate it and stockpile it in specific areas as we are building the project. And then from this stockpile, it is reloaded and it is trucked to the landfill in Coventry, and it's used as daily cover at the landfill. So this will be a dynamic site where there is material that is being excavated within the right-of-way and brought to this stockpile. And then over the course of construction, it will be removed and brought to the landfill. So it will be a dynamic process where there's material coming in and out probably over the next 15 months. Was that 5-0 months? 1-5. 1-5, OK. I was about to say 50. I was like, oh, it's not what I thought this thing would take. OK, any other DRV questions? I mean, it seems fairly limited. And I appreciate the explanation of what happens to it afterwards. Yes, just one more. What is the protection for this contaminated soil or protection against this contaminated soil? So as part of this cap plan, we have to place plastic down on the ground before we place it. And then we have to cover this pile with plastic every night. And as we are removing material from the pile, we obviously have to pull the plastic back to access it. But generally, it's plastic on the ground and plastic to cover it so that it's not picking up rainwater or groundwater. And in the site plan, what's the relevance of the 300-foot radius? I think that's just for information. I don't believe it has anything to do with the specifics of this stock pile. So any other questions? Anybody else? And the board want to ask the applicant? Hearing none. Are there members in the public that want to comment on this application? Nobody's hand is raised. AJ. All right. Well, then, we'll close the application. And given the length of our very short agenda today, I suspect we'll deliberate on it relatively quickly. All right, so that's generally our hearing. Scott, other business is not done in the hearing. It's done as other business. You've provided us, I think, a suite of CDO changes. Yeah. Read them. I think some of them are going to be debated. Before us, I have some questions about the steep slopes. I think we're going to hear a lot about those steep slope maps in the next few years. Well, you know. Yeah. I'm curious. I think we're working together. So why don't you walk us through the changes? Just tell us what we're looking at here. Or whoever else? Ryan, Mary, I don't know. It seemed like they were. I'll do it. I'll bring up the map, so the ordinance language, just because it's a pretty map to look at. Just give me a second. Any other input from SD Ireland? No, thank you. Your item is closed off. We appreciate it. Thank you very much. So the item of steep slopes has been kicking around for a few years. It was most recently, I'll say reignited, with a slide on Riverside Avenue in October of 2019. And Conservation Board in particular pushed to have some sort of standard for development on properties with steep slopes. We've had a longstanding provision in the CDO that basically discounts steep slope areas from a lot of coverage and density calculations. But that's it. It didn't really pertain to development standards. So fast forward to today, we've incorporated a steep slope standard and this map. And the map is the most important part, really. This map shows areas in the city with slopes of 15% or greater and a 50 foot buffer on top of the slope. Not on the bottom, just on the top. And what it really does, it's really just a red flag or heads up to applicants looking to do something on properties that are affected by this overlay that they'll need to do a geotechnical analysis. There are some details. You don't need to do a geotech analysis if you're building an outhouse, right? It needs to be at least four and a square feet. And intentionally, the new zoning language does not get into technical standards for what's in the geotech analysis. It's understood those standards are in the international building code. And we didn't wanna get into a situation where we're duplicating or contradicting those. So really, this is about the map, gives applicants a heads up that if you're building something here, you're gonna need to look at geotech. The last detail I would point out is that there was a deliberate choice at the planning commission to tie the geotech analysis to a permit condition. So the intention there was not to settle applicants with the expense and time associated with the full geotech analysis as part of the application, but knowing that they had an approval in hand that they then need to go forward and do the analysis. So that's that amendment in a nutshell. So one of the questions I had, Scott was, does this apply to like existing impervious or existing development? If somebody wants to build a new building on an existing foundation, does this get triggered? No, that's an interesting nuance though. AJ, if you're gonna tear down the building and just retain the foundation, I mean, I think it would be prudent to do it anyhow, but I don't think it would be triggered by this. You would have to be do, you need to do redevelopment of a certain size to need to do this. So bulldoze the site and start fresh. Interesting. Okay, because I feel like that's gonna come up. That was my first sort of question with this. Yeah, okay. Yeah, it's really triggered by birth disturbance. And I suppose technically, if you're taking the building off and using the existing foundation, you're not disturbing the earth. Well, then you get into that like construction, the difference between the ultimate impervious and sort of the construction impact zone. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, makes sense. What else we got? It's here, 400 square feet or more, birth disturbance. Interesting. What else we got? Brillington High School. That's been in the news a little bit lately. Let me scroll down. You have another pretty map to look at. There's a few maps that get affected. This one, the zoning map, the parking district map. The punchline on this one is pretty basic, pretty obvious. Some of you may not know that Brillington High School is this presently zone is a non-confirming use, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But it is for real. Amazing. It's a non-confirming use and it's non-conforming to a lot coverage and probably building height too. And maybe setbacks, I don't know. Because it's zone RCO, Recreation Conservation Open Space. So this amendment does the obvious and makes it institutional. So suddenly it becomes a permitted use and like some other areas within UBM and Champlain College in the hospital, there's a core campus overlay that goes with this. And that basically tailors some site-specific standards for development and redevelopment of the property. But that's really the punchline. It's been a long-standing problem that the high school's a non-confirming use. And that was permitted. Next one, I hate to bring up the parking menu because there's so much red and crossed out. So I'll bring it up for greens and just give you a quick overview. Yeah, I don't even know where to start with it. So the parking amendment basically does three things. It gets rid of parking minimums. So nobody has a minimum parking requirement anymore. There's a single exception for more than four unrelated adults in an apartment. But that's an existing standard. But basically parking minimums are gone. Parking maximums are retained. So there's a certain limit to how much parking you can have on a property. The other thing this amendment does, I'll scroll down to TDMs. The other thing this parking amendment does, sorry about the scrolling. I told you there's a lot of red. It expands the TDM requirement right now. TDM, which is transportation management, just applies basically in the downtown and primary transportation corridors. Expands it citywide. And it also splits the tiers. So basically larger projects need to do the whole nine yards for TDM, meaning bus passes, car share memberships, car share spaces, annual reporting, and unbundling parking costs from leases and deeds. The smaller projects get a slimmed down version, which basically requires them, I think it's developments of between five and 10 units, get a slimmed down TDM requirement, wherein the requirement is simply to unbundle the cost of parking from the dwelling units. It's not in this draft, but I'll mention that there might be a tweak to this at the council level when it goes to hearing next month to provide another, I'll say slimmed down standard for affordable housing because of concerns over ongoing costs associated with TDM management. Those are the third piece here is the joint institutional parking management plan. And for a long, long time, the institutional parking management plan has basically been a parking waiver for the institutions, right? A waiver from the minimum parking requirements. And so tossing the minimum parking requirements fundamentally changes the institutional parking management plan. So it's been reworked such that it really gets at you institutions every five years or up to every five years need to demonstrate what your existing and anticipated parking demands are and how you're meeting those demands. So it shifts away from getting around minimums to what's your demand? How are you meeting the demand? And how are you avoiding impacts on surrounding neighborhoods? So those are the three primary changes to Article 8. Any questions on that? So does that mean we don't have to hear about parking anymore? Basically, it lets folks want to seek a waiver for the maximum parking. And I think that's a good thing. Right now, we've seen a grand total of one of those. And that was for Birchcliffe Parkway. As an existing standard, it's just been carried over and flushed out a little bit more. Right, right. I remember that. And last but not least, everybody's favorite short-term rentals. I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago. City Council adopted changes to Chapter 18, which the city is the city's minimum housing standards. Most of the standards for short-term rentals are in there. The change, the CDO is really just a follow-up, cleanup amendment that specifies that short-term rentals don't require a zoning permit. And it cleans up our definitions of lodging. So we used to have been breakfast, we used to have hostels, and we used to have hotel, motel. Those have all been tossed and we've put together a more inclusive lodging definition. That's really it there. Again, most of the standards are in Article 18. And that's it. I said it'd be quick. All right, well. There you go. Maybe the short-term rentals help us. With the adoption of the standards in 18, I'm sure you've noticed applications before you, involving short-term rentals fell off the cliff. Yeah, yeah, we noticed that. And bed and breakfast are no longer allowed uses, right? It's been eliminated as a use? It's been eliminated as a use. Eliminated as a use. I wouldn't say that it's not allowed, because if you want to do a short-term rental and serve breakfast, act yourself out. You need to register through Chapter 18. That's it. Got it. So it seems like we can go to deliberation. All right. I guess other businesses didn't ask for people's questions from the audience, but anyway, let's wrap up other business. And with that, I'll close the public hearing and move on to our deliberations. Recording. 224.36. I move that we approve the application, adopt staff's findings and recommendations and add the condition that following completion of the use as a soil storage area or material storage area, that the area be stabilized, receded and mulched as represented by the applicant. Second. Should we say something the effective at a minimum do that? Sure. I'll amend that to say at a minimum, do that, do that. I adopt that. That's fine. I appreciate that. By all means, right? Plant some trees if you want. Yeah, good. All right. All in favor. That's five oh, unanimous passes. Recording stopped. Perfect. Okay.