 So here I would like to call to order the South Burlington City Council meeting of Monday, October 4th, 2021. And our first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance. The next is instructions on exiting the building in case of an emergency and review of technology options. So just a reminder for folks in the room. There are two doors in the back of the auditorium. And those can be either obviously exited and exit through the front of the building or there are two exit doors in the back of the building as well. Additionally, for those on go to meeting tonight, just a reminder that if you are having technical issues and want to chat us about your technical issues, feel free. Comments will be received only verbally. So if you would like to provide comment at any point during the meeting, you can either indicate to me in the chat. That you would like to do that or turn your camera on and we will recognize you on the screen. Thank you. So the next item is the agenda review. Are there any additions, deletions, or changes in order of agenda items? Matt, any? You have none? Okay. So moving on, we'll go to comments and questions from the public, not related to the agenda. So I see we have someone in the audience. So please come up and speak right into the mic if you would. Thank you. Yes, you may. Please. I came tonight to address how cell phones and we'll be making upcoming decisions about land preservation and climate change. Last week I attended the Hubbard Park meeting and got connected with the land trust, which is thrilling for me since I kind of feel alone in my thinking a lot. I wanted to say that I am not a wealthy person. I'm mostly retired. I work part-time at the rest of the house and I make and live on under $24,000 a year. So I am not a person with a view. I'm not a person protecting my own land. I back up to the highway fortunately somebody didn't shop down all the trees, so I have a buffer. I have a small house on Haynes Avenue and I care deeply about natural landscapes and wildlife, which are disappearing at unprecedented rates. Just last week, 22 wildlife extinctions were listed and this is a never-ending issue throughout all species, plant species, wildlife species. I feel very ashamed of my generation, our anthropocentric views, our drive for perpetual growth and profit, our never-ending emphasis on bigger, more better consumption. We continually take the nature as if it were limitless and there were no consequences. But this summer the consequences have been right in our face and it's frightening and blatant. The fires, the drought, the floods and the heat have been impacting our state, our nation and our world. Psychologists now use the term equal anxiety, which refers to grief and loss that the places where we grew up are changing. And I've been experiencing that my whole life. I have a master's degree in environmental studies in 1996 and we were doing whole parts of our classes on the grief and loss that we felt. And if I get emotional about it, I feel very emotional about it. This summer has also seen significant increases in visitors at national parks, so much so that towns like Jacksonville, Wyoming are having town meetings about how to deal with the pressures on the landscape. National parks are having meetings about how are we going to deal with this increased number of people. And I believe that more and more people are seeking refuge from pavement, from traffic and noise and to find some peace. Vermont state parks are also known to increase in vegetation. And again, I think that pressure is only going to increase with more development. Many of our lands are being pounded by human impacts. The Adirondacks now, they did a whole thing about parking this. And I know so many hikers who go there just don't even want to go there anymore. It's being so pressured by people. So around South Burlington, I witnessed an entire forest cut for new development. I used to walk coyotes' mouths in the field next to the forest. I used to walk through that forest. I witnessed more pavement, more traffic in the loss of biodiversity. I was on a walk in Hubbard and I parked across the street in the neighborhood. I talked to two young men who were applying natural lawn on a lawn that had not one plant but green grass that looked perfect for green and natural. They also had to wear masks and had to put signs up after they applied it to tell people to stay off it. And that lawn was a total monoculture of green grass, the American lawn that we think looked so perfect. The irony of the company's name stuck with me would encourage South Burlington every future decision to include thinking about the impacts on our landscape and climate change. I believe at some point we will get climate refugees not just from around the world but from our own country seeking to move to a place that Vermont has relatively speaking. You know, fewer weather impacts. I mean, my greatest love in the world is for the outdoor world, landscapes and wildlife. I spent much of my time in the West. I taught graduate school classes on mulch ecology in Yellowstone. And part of the reason I go there is because it is wild. And because they have brought back an animal that we drove to extinction, the wolf, and now they're persecuting it again, hunting it, and perhaps bounties. There is not going to be more land that just happens to appear to have what we have right now. I would just again encourage you in every future decision, your kids are not going to thank you for another pavement or another development, another tree cutting. Be on the right side of history. I mean, I don't have children, but I care deeply for their future. And it just makes me so sad. I grew up being totally in love from the time I was like five years old and being outside. I had five sisters and my mom would kick us out the door and we had to come back at dinner. And that is my whole world now. It is what I love. And I love where I live. We don't have street lights, but the development in South Burlington even hovered just makes me sad. Anyway, I will be back and continue trying to connect with the land trust. And I thank you for all the work you put into this city. But I really think if you continue business as usual, we've seen the results. Our generation should not be proud of the results that we've gotten. Thank you very much. Denise, are you interested in sharing something? Okay. You're next. Thank you. And thanks for hearing me and welcome, Jesse. And I want to also talk about peace and the impact of humans and pressure by people, not so much on the environment, although I agree with everything that. My neighbor just said, so thank you for what you just said. This is more about mental health and the effects of people on people. My name's Denise Perry. I've lived in South Burlington for 20 years. I'm a professional mediator and I'm immediate for the South Burlington Community Justice Center. I'm here to propose a city noise ordinance that applies 24 hours a day, not just just during quiet hours of 10pm to 7am. The purpose is to preserve the public health safety and welfare by prohibiting disturbing noise, such as music, when it is negatively impacting another resident. When dialogue between affected affected neighbors and community mediation through the community justice center is not successful. I'm always going to propose that people try to work it out and that we work with our amazing community justice center and then sometimes that's just not, it's not successful. In South Burlington, the backyard chicken ordinance protects us from chickens that are too loud during daytime hours. The care and control of dogs and cats ordinance protects us from pets that disturb the quiet comfort and repose by others. Please don't take that the wrong way. I'm not complaining. I'm just trying to make a story here. Yet residents can play music or allow outside outside noise to infringe on neighbors as long as it stops as long as the noise stops at 9.59pm. My professional observation and we're recently personal experiences that loud discretionary noise can have a significant impact on mental and physical health at any time of the day, not just at night, if it's frequent enough and loud enough. And it's not just from the noise itself stress from discretionary noise from a neighbor can also come from the inability to control one's environment. The lack of quiet and peaceful enjoyment of the home so no no opportunity to rest. And also just not being considered or cared for by your neighbor which leaves leaves one feeling vulnerable and I can speak about all of that professionally or personally at any time in the future if anybody is interested in pursuing this this proposal. Ultimately, my hope is that financial penalty can help residents make better decisions. And I think that's about it for now. That was clear. And thank you for your time. I appreciate everything that you all do to support our amazing town. Thanks. Thank you very much. And thank you so much for your report. That is fan of your report. On my bike from my house down to the bike path to Shelvern road and. And I don't think I've ever used that crossing light at the Pizza hut. But that will be corrected by the current signal changes so it'll be in the South side rather than the more side is going to have to cross over the North and South to get the little crappy bike path that goes down by the apartment. So, but in that process, that, um, Queen City Park Road does have some bike lanes once you get onto the Burlington section of it as you head towards Home Ave, right? And that's, it's really wide, repaved and nice, some nice lines. One thing I noticed though is the, the partition between the Handys or the Simon's Garage and the, um, the bank next door, the key bank, I think it is, there is a piece of sidewalk that allows people to, to walk from one parking lot to the other, but it doesn't have ramps for wheelchairs. And I took a picture of it. So I'll be bringing this up for the next meeting, because in terms of scoping out, you know, bike head paths, if somebody goes to trouble to actually part, you know, to, to create a bricked, you know, separation of their hedge line to allow people to, to walk across the two parking lots, they should certainly, uh, then put in a ramp, you know, or cut the curb to allow for, uh, you know, wheelchair access to go across it. So, anyway, so it was, uh, it was a good ride. Okay. Thank you. I don't have anything to, um, add either. So we'll go to our city manager's report. We'll see Baker. Updates tonight. Um, uh, at the last meeting, you all asked about the Kimmel Ab Culvert Project and just wanted to report that it is going along very smoothly. Um, so far, so good. We have five more weeks on an, of interrupted travel. And then, uh, right now it's on track to be completed on time. Um, I participated with another staff person on, on a cannabis control board listening session. As you know, the cannabis control board is, uh, writing regulations, um, and are holding a series of listening sessions to hear about the municipal experience of those regulations they may promulgate. So I want to thank them for, um, inviting us to that session. Um, just wanted to give the council heads up that on next Tuesday, the 12th, uh, the Vermont Economic Progress Council will be here doing their annual TIF site visit. Um, I'm on is leading the charge on that. Um, obviously they were not here last year. So this is exciting to have them back in our TIF district and in this building specifically. I wanted the council to know we have two vacancies on the recreation and parks committee because of folks moving out of town. So we are going to post and fill those mid midterm because of those two and the interest of, uh, the committee and have been inviting more neighbors to participate. So you will see that at a future council meeting. This is parks and rest. Yeah, did you think? A few library updates I wanted to share lots of exciting things going on right across the hall here. Um, the library director and her team are starting a young adult advisory board in partnership with the school library and young people really hoping to bring more voices into program planning service planning. Um, and I'm really thrilled that Jennifer is doing that. She's also, uh, will bring, um, the recreation team into those discussions as well to ensure that we're serving, we're hearing all the information and learning the wisdom of our residents and feeding that back to our service delivery. Um, we did want to remind folks that if, um, especially parents and children who are not vaccinated, if they are hesitant to come into the library, we are still doing curbside pickup and can put together kind of thematic bags for people based on prior, um, usage if people are interested in that. And then, uh, the library director also shared that we are approaching 800 new library members since opening this building, which is phenomenal. I want to just share two quick, uh, points of gratitude with our public safety teams. As you all know, last Thursday we had a, um, truck roll over Hasma incident on the interstate. Um, the South Wellington fire department coordinated eight agencies to a, to respond to that, resulting in, um, laying closure for less than two and a half hours, which for a Hasma incident is, is pretty impressive. And then the police chief shared that, um, a criminology professor at St. Mike's recently reached out seeking police volunteers, uh, to work with students on a policing research project. And within the first day, he had eight police officers volunteering on that St. Mike's project, which is really impressive that our, our officers are looking to engage in that way. And then just a reminder to council, we have, um, quite a few upcoming council meetings. Uh, so we are meeting on the 18th of October and November 1st for our regular meetings. We will then also have the steering committee with the school on October 27th and our policy priorities and strategy retreat on October 30th. We will be spending a lot of time together towards the end of the month. Not to mention BCA work. Not to mention both. Thank you very much. That's right. Can I mention an anecdote about the library? Okay, but just so I don't forget, I wanted to, um, I forgot to congratulate our city manager for being elected president of the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. So thank you. And congratulations. Thank you. Impressive. Okay, Tim. So the friends had a book sale of the library, which I hit a couple of five years ago. I got this nice coffee table book about American homes from the colonial period. I get home, I'm reading it the next day, open up the inside cover, and there's, you know, one of the stickers where it's somebody's collection. And I recognize the last name, so I text my friend in one year ago. Is this really, oh, that's my dad's book. So it's a small rule when it comes to book sales around here. And so it was a funny thing. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Let's see, moving on to the consent agenda. We have three items. Disbursements, approval of minutes from, let's see, that's August 2nd and September 7th, and then approved the Stormwater System Maintenance Agreement with South Village Communities, LLC, and the South Village Community Association. Is there a second? Second. Okay. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all, if you're ready for the vote, all those in favor, we raise our hands since Matt is outside. So raise your hand if you're in favor. Looks like everyone's in favor. You aren't? Okay. And none opposed. So it passes 5-0. Thank you. Well, it's because Matt was, okay, we can say yes, you can raise your hand. Okay. Number seven, Item seven, approve an appointment to the Climate Action Plan Task Force. So at your last, well, you had taken a series of votes, establishing this Climate Action Plan Task Force. At your last meeting, you appointed a slate of candidates as recommended by a number of committees, the Economic Development Committee at that point had not made a recommendation. So at their last meeting last Monday, they did, and are recommending Surini to serve on the Climate Action Plan Task Force. He was actually very excited about this because he originally applied to be on the Energy Committee, with a second choice to economic development. So I think it's great synergy. And he has a lot of experience in Boston in the, in energy sectors as well. He's currently retired and living in South Village. So that is their recommendation. And that will if you so approve tonight that will complete the membership of that task force, okay. So I would entertain a motion to approve. I never can pronounce three wrong I moved that second. Okay, all in favor. Signify by I say aye. Aye. That passes five zero. Moving on to item eight. Consider a memorandum of understanding for the conservation easement for the wheeler property. And we're going to hear from Andrew. Both. That you see. City manager. So projects moving along. At the, I think it was the August 17th regular council meeting. Um, sort of brought this sort of draft MOU between the Vermont land trust and the city of South Burlington before you. So you could sort of have an initial review and chance to comment. Since then staff set a chance to give it a full review. Um, both out of the non legal side and legal side. Um, and what we have before you is sort of the, the fruit of that discussion and negotiation with BLT. Um, there's only been a couple minor edits from what was brought before and to sort of give you a general outline of the key terms. Um, the city will convey to the Vermont land trust a permanent conservation easement over approximately 107 acres of the wheeler nature park. Say by far the most complicated part of this transaction so far. It's just identifying what the wheeler nature park is currently. There's been a number of various acquisitions. Um, easements on portions of the land, land swaps. Um, but for the most part we're saying about 107 acres is what will be conserved. Um, this excludes the homestead property. They mentioned that the last council meeting and this agenda item came up. Um, that is something the Vermont land trust said this is very, uh, outside the bounds of their typical, typical sort of conservation, um, easement management. Um, so they are suggesting that the homestead portion not be included in the conservation business. Um, there is also sort of the, the leg that's on the southeastern portion of the parcel that abuts, uh, about the farms Oak Creek. Um, that was acquired from Jamgolf and the land swap. The land trust just sort of wanted to reserve the right, um, to not put a portion of the conservation easement over that portion of the property as they better understood any restrictions that are on that land and whether or not they're consistent with their general conservation terms. Um, looking back at what happened with Jamgolf and that land swap, um, just sort of initial, there's some stormwater drainage easements that Jamgolf retained on that portion of the property as well as I think the right to, uh, get, grab golf balls and end up in that, in that section. The easement itself, which is also included in your packet, is modeled after the 15 page standard municipal conservation easement stated purposes of that easement, conserving forest land, wildlife habitats, biological diversity, natural communities, Arterian buffers, wetlands, soil productivity, water quality, and native flora and fauna. Providing for non-motorized, non-commercial, recreational, educational, and other community uses on the property. Conserving the open space values and scenic resources associated with this unique parcel for present and future generations. Requiring management of appropriate recreational, educational, and agricultural uses to be guided through the city, through a city-run public management planning process and management plan. Vermont Land Trust, in terms of their responsibilities, they will manage all legal work necessary for closing, including the title search, which we've already begun, as well as tailoring the conservation easement to our needs. They will also manage mapping the property and doing a baseline documentation report to document the current ecological conditions on the property. The city will be responsible in sort of a typical seller's arrangement, ensuring clear marketable title, and making sure that BLT is aware of all encumbrances on the property. And then finally, the closing costs. The city pays the Land Trust at $16,200 in general project expenses and closing costs. And the city also will pay $25,000 toward the Vermont Land Trust conservation easement stewardship endowment. All of this is expected to be completed by around June 30, 2022. So in your packet, I just sort of outlined a couple of discussion points outside the general MOU. And functionally, it's just a question of where you believe funding for this source. Again, I think I mentioned it in the memo. We don't need to have this concrete until closing. We've written the one the sort of invoice will come due. But just some sort of general thoughts from council would be helpful as they move forward with the planning process. Okay. I just had two quick questions before we get to that. And I'm assuming that when the Land Trust says motorized vehicles are not allowed, that that doesn't include motorized wheelchairs? It should not. And if it's not in the comment in some way, you can certainly make that part of the easement go towards closing. Okay. And my second question remind me. So the home, the 10 acres of the homestead piece is excluded from their kind of governance and oversight. So is that retained by the city? Correct. So we'll make all the decisions on the uses and whatever for the homestead piece. Correct. And just to clarify, will the city will maintain and retain property ownership of the entire parcel? Right. But I was thinking of the governance. Okay. Thank you. Megan had a question. I just had two, too. And the one which you brought up, so that leg that was swapped with the JM development, that is not going to be covered in the 107 acre conservation? It likely will be. It will be. Yeah. It's just the Vermont Land Trust had not seen sort of the full jam golf land swap legal information. They just sort of wanted to retain it out just in case it was not consistent with what their general conservation stewardship. And I saw a second question. I saw a lot of attention paid toward the maple tree, but not the pasture. Will that be brush hogged every two years? What will be the management plan for that? That will be an ongoing discussion with BLT as part of the, I guess I should back up a second. So when the final conservation easement is drafted and that will come again back to council. And in the process, if there are key management plan questions, whether or not something like that should live in the management plan or whether it should be clearly identified in the easement, is something that we would come back to council at a future date to get your feedback. And sensitive removal of embasers. Correct. Thank you. Are there any other questions? Matt? No. Yes. Yeah. Just to, just to affirm the hundred seven acres does not include the land that is going to be, or that maybe are the dog park. Is that correct Andrew? Correct. Okay. Yeah. Make your homestead spot, isn't it? Your dog park land. Other questions? Tim? Do we need to have the discussion about the 41.2k now? Yeah. Well, we can. There's three options. I just was asking questions before we got to the money question. So, um, Andrew, you were going to go, you want to go through the three options or? Sure. Yeah. I mean, the only one that's, that's time sensitive is just because we're coming up on FY 23 budgeting. Um, but option number one is that this money can come out of the open space fund. Um, project is very likely eligible under the ballot language that established the open space funds and perpetual tax back in May 2000. Option number two is to include, um, since this is an expected project to include the FY 23 budget. And just for context, um, that 40, 41,000 represents approximately a point two five increase on the tax rate. Um, and then option three is to overspend and use unassigned fund balance for the FY 22. Okay. Are there any initial comments by anyone or preferences? Yeah. Matt, is that, is that your option? Yeah. Okay. I'm okay with that as well. Cause I think that's sort of part of the, um, buying the property. Did we buy it or was it a gift? I can't remember. Is that it after before I was on the council, but whatever. Um, but we have a question or hand raised in the audience. Um, so we will, Michael, will you come up to the mic please? Yeah. I was a member of the. Please identify yourself for the record. And you can take your thing down. I was a member of the conservation, the wheeler park conservation. Ask you to consider option three. If the city hasn't. Set aside the money for this. For the last 10 years. I think. So I don't think we should use the other funds, open space funds because we forgot to budget for it. So I would ask you to go for option three. Okay. Thank you. Tell me. So I'll just move things along. I was going to show us for the convenience of a permanent conservation reason that we were in a natural park. Second. Is there further discussion? That doesn't necessarily incorporate the funding option, but it's just approving the MOU. Okay. If there's no other question. We still have the opportunity when we get to that point to have the final say about the easement itself. Correct. Okay. Correct. Okay. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Okay. That passes. Five zero. Any other thoughts on the money? Council seems predisposed. It seems to use the open space fund. I think at one point we did have money in the budget. Because we were going to close to do this all in one year. And I think we had identified the money. And I don't think it was from the open space fund, but I could be wrong. But that was several years ago because we've been talking about this as long as I've been on the council, I think that might have long gone. Okay. Moving on to receive an update on the July and August financial statements. So I recognize that there is a lot of raw data here. And just to sort of give a very, you know, 30,000 foot overview, I think we're right about on target. This is the very beginning of the fiscal year. Our reason why just from a total number standpoint, we're only at 11.14% of general fund expenditures, which is a little bit below what the proportional amount would be. Some of the reasons for that. There's been a number of crude projects from FY21 surplus using that surplus that have not shown up as expenditures on 2022. There is some lagging invoices, quarterly payments, just general scheduling. And other than that, there's not a time sort of jumping out on the expenditure side. From the revenue side, you will note that we're at about 30.5% in revenues, expected revenues. And some of the reasons for that are that we deferred some revenue. We knew we were going to end up great in FY21. So some revenue that we could, we deferred into FY22. Every year there are property tax prepayments that occur. A lot of people will pay. As you know, we have three tax bills. There are a number of individuals that prepay. But the most part, that's it. If you have any questions, I would say just from a general standpoint, from a presentation standpoint, what would be helpful for you as we continue to go through sort of financials throughout the fiscal year, whether this type of sort of data dump would be helpful, whether there's a broader overview bullet points that you'd like to see in your packets. Would you like to see some of this information just in your regular boxes? Let me know what's helpful for you moving forward on this. Okay, are there any comments about it? Megan. Yeah. And I emailed you about an hour prior to the meeting about striping where we have $20,000 in the budget with none spent in July or August. That is something that I have received several messages from residents concerned that the striping isn't being done. And so I would just like to understand more about the schedule of the striping. I realize that COVID perhaps lost a year of striping. And tell me more about that, but also specifically when we get back on track, what is the schedule for striping? What's the usual cost for striping? Who usually does the striping? Sure. So you're right, a lot of striping does occur in-house. Some of it also occurs through our paving contract. So a lot of it is part and parcel with paving. And so a good amount of that expenditure actually does come out of our paving line, of which we, because there were a lot of deferred projects in FY21, we accrued a significant amount of surplus on that line into FY22. So that's why some of that expenditure is not showing up in FY22s, who are saving that for sort of the spring season as needs arise. Just from Justin, quick hits from Justin in terms of their general practice for identifying striping needs is to sort of hit the big ones, Dorsey Street, sort of the main corridors that we have in South Wellington. And then outside of that, if there is leftover money to go to Bike Ped Committee around priorities where they'd like to see, you know, where they'd like to see improvement. So that's my general understanding. Yes, go ahead. So has Bike Ped weighed in on it for this year specifically? Not for this year. Not for this year. Okay. Not quite. I guess I should say that. Not that I'm aware of. And is, because some of it just seems to not be done as well as usual. And I'm thinking about, you know, the lines that necessarily being straight, that the crosswalk I saw where this one resident in particular was very concerned in front of, you know, St. John Piani's church. It's just, it's not fully like bowl. It's just doesn't seem a thick coat of paint. It seems, and is, I'm concerned about the quality. I'll just be frank about it. And I know that it's new to us to have a striping tool or equipment. And so is there a way to use those $20,000? Because Heinzburg Road is a pretty, you know, major thoroughfare. And I know that's something Justin said was up to us. You know, Kennedy Drive is another one. And I would think Spear Street with the cyclists. I understood that Route 2 is the state's responsibility. If I'm mistaken, please correct me. But I just, I don't know, that intersection at Dorset and at Route 2, Wilson Road there, just, it does not have the, you have to know where you are in order to drive that correctly. So I am concerned that we're not doing a good enough job on the striping, especially as we're encouraging more bikers. We need to make sure that those fog lines are really clear. And I just wanted to see what could be done. Not just complain, but to see what could be done. Do you want me to take that? Sure. So thank you, Councillor, for bringing that up. Definitely heard and understood. We've heard it as well from the bike and ped committee and from others. It's certainly that focus on foresight. It will also be a fiery for us as we look for new political leadership. Justin's done a great job, but we want to continue that to be at the forefront. I think as we come out of COVID and the both the staffing is back up internally and the staffing is back up at contractors, we hope to really focus on this going into the next season. Right now in the shoulder season, it's a little hard to prioritize because as we all know in Vermont, putting down striping now will be great for a couple of weeks, but then we'll likely be torn up. So heard and understood and certainly something we will focus on going into 2022. So the season is in the spring is what you're saying once all the snow has melted. So we're looking at spring 2023. 2022. Oh, okay. But sorry. So I think Justin still in his team still have some work to do this year. We're but we're not emphasizing that priority this year because the striping often gets ripped up by plows. So thinking about it really prioritizing for next spring. The challenge was striping and we can as we get into next construction season, we can do a full presentation to the community. So folks know the timeline and what to expect. The challenge in the spring is that the pavement has to be 50 degrees or warmer all the time for the paint to adhere. So, you know, we all in spring in Vermont, that's definitely not fifties. That can be thirties. So we think it should be time to straighten. It's not quite yet, but we can be much clearer in future years about what our priorities and what our plans are. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions or concerns? Yes, I'm sorry. I'm sorry if I asked this before and I can't remember. Usually you get the local sales options tax report back in August, right? Correct. I forgot what you, if I asked this before, what, what did it, was there an increase over the previous year and, and were things looking better in that respect or. Yes. And we, we bounce back significantly from our numbers throughout the fiscal year. And, you know, part of, I think your question too is, you know, what overlap is there between fiscal years and the reporting that we get? The data that we got in August is for all of July as well as a few days in August. And so our numbers are actually really good if we're just looking at that snapshot of period. I think we're already at, I think 12% or something like that. Just look at. Do they break out the sales tax versus the rooms and meals? Yes, they do. And, and, I know that the sales tax had done pretty well, which was indicative that people were, you know, buying through online services where the state tax is collected. But that's a 6% tax. They, they're supposed to collect the 7% tax, right, for if you live in South Burlington, you order online, right? So, okay, so. Yeah. Yeah. The numbers just because I know it's buried in the amount of data that was given, local option tax for sales through the first, again, July and a couple of days in August reporting period were at 12.55%, which is really good for a month and a few days. And local option tax for rooms and meals is at 11.03%, which it was probably a slight lag that we've seen throughout but still very, very well, well on point. And that's a percent increase over the previous year, is it? Sorry. No, that, that is of our total amount that we budgeted for. Oh, okay. For the, okay. The amount received. Okay, I got it. Yeah. Whatever was budgeted, right? Right, right. Okay. Correct. And we budgeted lower. We are, are expecting less than a regular year, a non-COVID year, I guess I would say. Right. Yeah, conservative projections. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Any other questions? Okay. Well, thank you. We're a little ahead of schedule here. If I could interject permanently. Yes. Very interesting thing happening on this agenda. So we can't technically start the public hearing until 730. So you can't do 10 or 11 until after 730. 12, the presenter is not here yet. So I would recommend either you go to 13 and 14 or we take a break for a few minutes. All right. Have the 20 minutes for 15. Is that not appropriate? Oh, going into executive session. Because we're 20 minutes ahead. We could. We could do that if we call in the city attorney. He was going to come back for that, but we could call him in if you would like. Yeah, because 20 minutes is a long time. I don't know. Yeah. 13 and 14. We can do 13 if there's other business 14. I'm not against 15. I just, I feel like we're going to lose 10 minutes to getting the attorney online. If we want to try to get it going. Right. We actually only have 15 minutes. So sharing the 735. Oh, 730. So it's 20 minutes. I think it's probably more prudent to do 13 and 14. So are there any reports? So if that's acceptable, we'll move on to 13. Are there any reports? Who to thank this? On counselors on committee assignments. Matt, do we have anything about transportation? We haven't had an airport commission meeting. I reported it the last time. I'm sure they'll come tomorrow. I don't want to say. Yeah. And turning green with the drivers. Tomorrow morning. Full of work. What we did. What we do tomorrow. Okay. Thank you. All right, is there any other business anybody has? Oh, Tom. I have something here. Fill some time. So I was taking part yesterday actually and out and about Essex and it was a great little event that they had multiple locations throughout Essex town and Junction and they were using an ACCD grant that I talked to the unified town manager as well as a select board member named Tracy Harrington I think some of us might know her and I was just I thought it was a great event and they gave out these gift cards to all Essex residents to a bunch of it's always with South Burlington and Shelburne Road are really the two parts of South Burlington and too often we don't connect the two and I was just thinking that if you were emulating something similar with all of this money that are sloshing around with the money that we have for economic development that are coming from the federal government from different sources it was a small amount that they spent $10 or $12,000 it connects local businesses and it gets residents to go out and have events so I just mentioned it was a great municipal event that I thought that South Burlington Rec and Parks that there was their Rec and Parks that led it a way to connect businesses with outdoor music galleys as well as participating different businesses so out and about Essex I'd love for us to look into something similar. So tell me how do they connect them? I'm trying to visualize this three credit card gift cards and the gift card could be used at any one of about 15 different stores so like Turner Toys there was McGillicuddies there was the cafe shop at Nest and then a couple of down route 15 so it didn't cost the stores anything the gift cards were purchased with the ACC grant money but it was a way for them to be listed in the revenue and then each of those different locations there were bands for the day too so residents could show up to qualify that their residents and get $15 that could be used at any of those stores so it was just a way for them to drive around town. Okay so they they weren't walking around necessarily they were driving around okay nice distributed community event it was just one day it was actually two different weekends Saturday and Sunday so they had a whole program and I think they might have one more weekend so I think three weekends total it'll be interesting to find out what their evaluation is wasn't there something about a year ago or maybe it was July year ago where the state had some COVID money and they contracted with an online presence to allow people to get gift cards to various businesses and you couldn't specify you can specify where you lived and then it would give you like two choices of a group of businesses I know I did it because I one was for a coffee shop on North Manuski. And I forgot what the other one was but it was a similar type of thing and I can't remember what the name of the company was that managed that but. I think I just heard our second our notes taker say something as well and the Champlain Islands is doing something almost exactly like that this coming weekend our stores participating in it I think we're asked to give a certain discount and we will reimburse our members for that. All right. All right, sure. Yes, go ahead. So the last council meeting the question was asked and brought up again in other business about an individual property owner caring for emerald, caring for ash trees on their property and therefore being exempt from the city's plan around DAB. So. So our team has discussed that and we are willing to consider it on a street wide basis. The challenge with doing it by parcel is with, you know, 8000 parcels in the city. If we start exempting parcel by parcel, we're going to screw it up and we're going to not meet the needs of the residents. So if the council, I don't believe this needs a council vote, but I want to bring it back to you to say if that's something that you're generally open to staff would enter into some kind of agreement with the property owner around caring for a street worth of ash trees and taking on the liability of such and that means treating them with the anti ash borer chemical treatment. Correct. So are we giving those streets, I mean, some streets are pretty short and they might only have five trees so you can probably cobble together enough money to do five trees. I think they're about 250 bucks a tree is what I was told. But if it's a long street and there's 40 trees, that's another whole nother ball game to get your street or community organized to have people share in the cost. So I'm just wondering we have right now to identify the trees that are going to be cut. Somebody went around and tied blue ribbon or blue plastic stuff around them. I kind of don't understand why you can't have someone identify. I mean, I don't know how many residents are actually going to do this. But I mean, couldn't we have another color strip that would go around a tree that's going to be treated by an individual in front of their house or along their street. I mean, is it really that complicated for the company that we've hired to cut the trees down to know it's the blue ones you cut and it's the red ones that you don't. So I don't think it's that complicated for one property owner. I think if this is something that we piloted and was popular and now it's 150 property owners, then when it gets it gets distracting for years at a time when we're replacing ribbons and doing whatever. This was what we felt was a good compromise to try something and see what we learn see what we learn through the process of limiting the liability of entering into the side agreements, those kinds of things. I think we certainly, you know, as we've talked about this will be a priority or conversation for the priorities process going into FY 23. So to us this was something to try to see if we could take it to scale because I don't think we can take to scale parcel by parcel direction. Well, yeah, I guess that's assuming that there's going to be hundreds of home owners that will lay out that money to save the trees versus just a handful. Matt. I really don't know if this is a silly question or not, but for allowing our citizens to use chemical treatment on their trees, do we know this is chemical that pets are going to nibble at the bar and get sick? What do we know about this is a chemical treatment? I don't know anything. I ask. Okay, Roseanne, Greco. I mean, you're just one person who's come forward to indicate some interest and I know you've done some research so perhaps you can share some information. Yeah, I have and there are chemicals that are being used by other and other places so this is not some experiment that we're just doing here in South Burlington it's been used by other places and I spoke to the folks. In some of the other Vermont cities about it. So the chemical that they use and I don't have it in front of me, but I can certainly send it to you if you want. The chemical they use does kill other insects and stuff but it does not kill mammals and large critters. There are drawbacks whenever you use chemicals obviously that you're going to kill more than you intend, but the cities that have decided to use it believe that that's a, in order to save the tree that that's a, you know, we're all playing the price for this, that that's a lesser price than the loss of a mature tree, you know, that's, you know, but around per decade so so it is a known chemical but there are other things beside chemicals but the one that I have research and that is being used by people here in South Burlington for the ash trees that are on their own property is well, I mean, is being used in our city right now. The issue here is that the trees that I'm, and maybe others might be interested in saving do not technically belong to me, although I don't think a tree belongs to anybody but it's it's the city tree. So, I can treat the ash tree in my backyard, anyway I want, but I need your permission to save the tree in the front of the house with this pesticide right now that that has been shown to use. As far as marking to, I mean, if if ribbons is something that might get confusing that the contractor doesn't know blue, you know, what blue is cut and yellow is not or whatever. You could paint do not cut, you know, on the bark to make it very apparent so. But thank you for considering this, because the loss of a mature tree, you know, makes makes us all the losers because of what that tree does, and no tree for another few decades will ever be able to replace it because it takes a decades to grow trees. Tim. So the very least, I think we should contemplate giving homeowners with a tree in the front on the street and we're in front of their house. Give them the vote to be able to say they don't want to cut it down until it's diseased at the very least right so that they can keep because we're going to be cutting trees down apparently for a while. Before they appear to be disease, but if you give people that choice where they can identify them, their, their address and say the one in front of my house or the two in front of my house, please don't cut them down until they're diseased. Then they'll be there for longer than they would be otherwise, depending upon whatever the cutting selection plan is. And then whether they're treated or not is another issue for you for further discussion. Yes, I'm sorry, Megan. Yeah, I think that gets to the liability issue, though, because it's on the city's right away. And so if it becomes diseased and it could already be diseased, it's a very quick process for the limbs to become brittle and could potentially lead to people being harmed, which then the city would would have some responsibility. I think that could complicate the matter. And I am with Helen. I agree with her on this. I don't think, you know, at least it doesn't seem apparent that it's going to be, you know, an unmanageable number of people that the city would have to, you know, make this agreement with. And I do think the treatment is important because of the danger to the city, which is why I supported, you know, having us deal with the tree streets in this way. And if there are residents who, you know, can do it ahead of the budget to have it be treated, I would support that. I would hope that we would include it in the fiscal year 23 budget where we would save a grove of those. I think they're green ash trees that we have in our city that we find within, you know, a public park. That's, I think it's, I think that it is a persuasive argument that once these trees are infected, it goes very quickly and then it becomes dangerous. Well, my understanding is that it takes two to three years for the tree to die. Two to five. So if it takes, if it two to two to five years for the tree to die, it's not going to fall on your car in the first year or the second year or probably the third or the fourth or the fifth, depending upon, I mean, we have a lot of dead trees in the median strips around the city that have been standing for years. And they're dead as doornails and they probably should be cut down because they probably are liability, especially in high wind storms where it's happened on Spear Street in the last couple of years where wind has blown dead branches off into the street. One of them hit my car, I mean, but they get identified and they get taken down or they fall down by themselves. I don't think it's, it's a huge liability issue. I think if we're just saying we don't, we want to give people the choice to not have a tree cut down if it's not, if it's not obviously, you know, infected with the bug. And if it seems healthy, let it, let it remain until it actually has some sign of infection and then then you can cut it down because you know it's going to be dead in two to five years. Well, we sort of have two issues though on the table, maybe three. One issue is what Jesse is suggesting that the management is recommending. This is what they decided would be the best process for the city. And that is to only allow this option to, for individuals to have a contract with the city to use the herbicides or whatever they are, insecticides on the trees, on their property to avoid them being cut down in the near term. And the process they identified is if you're going to do that, then, you know, a homeowner A needs to agree to be responsible and pay for all of the ash trees on their street. And I think that's a pretty significant shift of money for an individual to consider if they want to save the trees in front of their house. That's one thing, if it's three trees and it's $750 and it's really valuable to you, it's a very different issue if the street you live on has 30 trees slated to be cut. And you as an individual either have to organize your neighborhood and get other individuals to agree to this contract and to pay the money and let the city know that they want to go through trying to save the city. I mean, the tree, ultimately the city too, I guess. Can I just clarify what I was suggesting? Yeah. So, just stepping back a couple of meetings. So, we had this conversation a number of meetings in a row. The public works director came to speak with you at that point you made you took a vote to continue the current plan for FY 22 and think about changes you would make to that plan in with the priorities retreat and in the FY 23 budget. So that's the policy position you previously took. Following that decision there was an individual request. So in the staff responding to that individual request what I'm suggesting is we pilot this with this with this individual see how it works right up the agreements have the conversations and see if this is something we could take to scale. I think so that was what I was suggesting and that was the for a block a city or a community block with treatment with liability waiver whatnot. If there's something else you want to pursue far beyond that we certainly can do that but that should be a warrant agenda item that we actually prepare for and talk about I think. Well I guess my I understand that but I guess my my preference would be if we need a pilot and we have an individual and to the best of my knowledge we have one resident who's come forward and said I want to save the trees in front of my house and I'm willing to pay for it. Will you let me do it. Right. That is different. And I would if that's the pilot we want I think we could go forward with that and then we would find out if there's you know 200 homeowners who are interested in following suit. Then it's a real issue with how you grow that to make it work and I'd be willing to hear from the public works department about how they think that might work if it were if it got that big but for one individual I would support allowing that to happen and see if the chemical saved the tree and if there's other people. I'm a little reticent Tim to go along with your idea of anyone who doesn't want the trees cut down in front of their house to kind of sign up for that. I mean just because I think that might be much more fully embraced because it doesn't cost you anything. And the point is that in my opinion that the city would remain quiet about any treatment of the tree itself. They would just not cut it down until it was apparently diseased and and needs to be cut down before it becomes a liability. You're just giving people a chance to opt in to say don't cut the tree down in front of my house. Don't cut it down somewhere on a long like you know on the road that leads into my neighborhood where you've already tagged you know one every four whatever it might be so that you prolong the trees presence at its current age for at least a few more years until it's either cut down or it isn't infected. That's all. Tom. I love trees and I love talking about trees but it's 735 and I agreed with the city manager said this isn't a warned item. So I feel like we maybe can have another conversation at the next meeting if we need to on this. We can bring it back to talk about trees some more. But do we want to segue back to our planned agenda and warned items? That probably makes sense. So I still like the pun that I had the other night about triage but nobody caught it. So that's okay. Okay. Thank you. All right. So moving on to item going back to item 10. A public hearing on the proposed amendments to the official map. And we have Paul Conner here from planning and zoning and we also have Jessica Luizos from the chair of the planning commission. So we I would entertain in a motion to open a public hearing on this proposed amendment. I moved to open the public hearing on official map amendments. Pound sign om dash 21 dash 01 and pound sign dash 2102. Second. Any discussion? All in favor. I. Okay. So the meeting is open. So Paul do you want or Jessica do you want to. I'll give a quick intro and then I'll pass it over to Jessica. So the you received a first reading a few weeks ago of two proposed amendments to the official map. One is to remove a planned roadway connecting IDX drive to Deerfield Avenue. That was something that was also previously removed in the comprehensive plan in 2016. One is to replace a planned roadway between Swiss Street extension and Heinzburg Road with planned recreation path and a 20 foot easement in their place. So the planning commission held their public hearing back in July and voted 702 make that change and to submit it to you. So that's my brief synopsis. I'll bring it up on the screen if Jessica wants to add anything to the review that you had. Sure, I guess one thing to point out the first one that he mentioned the IDX drive to Sebring Road. That planned roadway is shown through the University of Vermont hort farm. And in the comprehensive plan we had actually in 2016 we had chosen after a lot of discussion to take it out of the comprehensive plan. So, so this is like a catch up of, you know, making it official that we're officially removing it. So it's, you know, something we've had planned to remove for many years now. And I think it also shows kind of the commitment to the research and farming that's going on there, you know, to really kind of follow up on that change. The Swiss Street extension change was also something that was talked about quite a bit at the time of the 2016 comprehensive plan. At that time, we just felt like we didn't have the time or the energy to also be doing the official map change. And we cited it as an item that we really wanted to come back to. And I think that this change is really timely with our extensive discussions we've had about the natural resources and protection of those environmental resources in the city. This official map shows, in its current version, a full vehicle roadway through one of the highest priority habitat blocks, as well as the water resources kind of behind the Veterans Memorial Park there. And kind of right around where that number nine on the map that Paul has up on the screen is. So residents have brought this up. And after significant discussion, we've, you know, put in front of you the change from a vehicular connection to a rec path connection. So to still have pedestrian and bike connectivity, but to not have the full impact of a roadway through those resources. And that's number nine, right? Yes, that's number nine on the map. We've also made sure that the kind of north south connection there is outside of the habitat block as shown. And that's five. It's still number nine. Number nine actually is kind of T shaped. Oh, okay. I see. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Is there any comments from the public? Mr. Dinklage. Yes, up there please. And you may take your mask off to. That's true too. Thank you for hearing these comments. I'm John Dinklage. I'm John Dinklage. I'm John Dinklage. I'm John Dinklage. I'm a resident at the time of the construction of the highway. Regarding the right of way designations for a potential Swiss street extension at a possible connector across the Hort farm. There are two issues I'd like to address quality of life and utility construction flexibility. for soccer carpooling or drop off for a sleepover, you must go all the way to Kennedy Drive or to Cheese Factory Road to make the trip. Having connector streets does not increase traffic. Instead, automobile miles driven are reduced, miles that will be driven in any case. Good public transportation does not reduce the need for such car trips. As far as utility infrastructure, as the city grows, there probably will be additional utility needs in those areas. A small 20-foot right-of-way, which I understand is being considered for Swift Street extension, is not adequate for future city needs. A small right-of-way means that a future city street or rec path will have to be torn up to do utility work. So much better to have an adequate right-of-way in the unpaved area to do the work. Additionally, more utility work may be needed in the future to bury power lines to harden our grid against weather events. We do not know what the needs of our community will be in 20-plus years or so. Having a wider right-of-way does not mean that any future road will be built any wider than the minimum that is needed. There is no compelling need to make any change to the potential Swift Street and Hort Farm connectors, now shown on the official city map. There are some loud voices in our community who just want to make driving difficult so that people will not use automobiles. We do not know the future needs of our community. Please do not preclude future connector streets in those areas. Please do not preclude good future planning. Please do not change the official city map regarding possible Swift Street and Hort Farm connectors. Thank you for considering these thoughts. Thank you. Are there any other comments? Yes. Why don't you come up? I'm sorry. I don't know your name or don't remember it. I'll ask myself again. It feels quite daring to take off my mask. I'm Linda Bailey here in South Burlington. The gentleman ahead of me expressed my thoughts so well. He was so organized with it. I agree with him that taking away the potential of putting in transportation corridors here is very good to keep. We need that potential there. I can't see any reason to take away the very possibility of it at this point. Having more and better connections between different sections of our city is a good thing. We have a living, breathing, happening right now picture of what different abilities of having connected are right now. If anybody is driven between Williston, on Williston Road between South Burlington and the city town of Williston at, well, 4, 4.30 in the afternoon, you know what a difference it has made in not having the Kimball Avenue transportation route available. And we don't know, as this gentleman said, what we're going to need in the future. Utilities is a great one that I hadn't even thought of taking care of those. I most definitely think that we should keep the potential, that there's no reason that I know of not have a potential path available. Thank you. Thank you. Michael? Mittag and I can't. Is there anyone? Oh, Tim, I can't see. That's really nice. Michael Mittag, I do live on Swift Street. With all due respect to the previous speaker, this road was placed on the official map probably more than 40 years ago to serve as a east-west connector. That was before Kennedy Drive was upgraded. And at that point, the statement was, the only way to connect is via Cheese Factory Road in the south and Kennedy Drive in the north. It is no longer the case. Kennedy Drive has been expanded, and its carrying capacity expanded significantly, and it is also underused. And there are also going to be two, or already one of them maybe, but there will be two connectors through the Cider Mill development to Heinsberg Road. So there will be those two between Kennedy and Cheese Factory Road. Quality of life for the people who live in the village at Dorset Park and anybody along Swift Street will be significantly impacted by this extension because it will become a major thoroughfare. And a major thoroughfare through this area, we have Veterans Memorial Park on the north side of Swift Street, an area that is a recreational hub for the city lots of children around. Adding a commercial throughway through that area just is not appropriate. We also have the Wheeler Nature Park on the other side of the road where people want to have quiet enjoyment of that park. You discussed its conservation easement this evening. And the wildlife in that park, it's a nature area that should be protected. And there's no reason to have this additional road. We've accommodated the bike and ped and people who walk a lot by having two paths connecting the bottom or the end of Swift Street with Heinsberg Road. A road there would cross a very important habitat block and a very important habitat connector across two wetland and a 500-year flood plan. So those factors alone should give us pause not to do this. We're not losing anything. We're gaining pedestrian access, bike-ped access from Heinsberg Road to the Veterans Memorial Park area and the Wheeler Nature Park. I ask you to confirm what the Planning Commission voted for and recommended. Thank you. We have a couple of people on the phone. Yes, so Tim McKenzie, Alan Strong, and Roseanne Greco. I would like to speak on the phone. OK, Tim, McKenzie, why don't we start with you, please? Thank you. The map that is in the packet and the map that we're looking at on the screen includes some markings in the city center area. I don't believe those markings belong on the official map. A number of years ago, we removed the road so we could build out the stormwater management system. And I'm looking just to confirm that what you're being asked to approve tonight is only those two items that are being discussed and not the map that we're looking at. I'll have Paul Conner respond to that. But my understanding is it's just the two items that have been articulated. That's correct, Tim. So Councilor really is accurate. The only two policy changes being proposed and considered tonight are the two that were warned. It was brought to our attention last week that there was an older version of the city center area that was put into this map as we were collecting the data. That is going to be corrected as a technical staff item to bring it to exactly what the policy that the Council has adopted is. So there is no policy change proposed in city center. Great. Thank you. Thank you for bringing it to our attention. Thank you, Tim. Then we have Alan Strong. Is that enough, Tim? You're satisfied? Yes. OK, great. Thank you. Alan, Strong. Thanks so much. Can you hear me OK? Yes. Yeah, I wanted to just speak in favor of both changes to the official map. For the first one, the planned roadway that goes on the north side of the UVM horticultural farm. I mean, that's, to me, somewhat personal. I actually live on the south side of Sebring Road. So that would be a road running right through my backyard, which is certainly a quality of life issue for me. But the activity that's been going on in the horticultural farm with respect to the agricultural work that they're doing and the CSA essentially would have a road running very beside. There are a lot of their plantings there, a lot of their food crops. And the horticultural farm as well is a really important area for wildlife, and essentially bisecting that would, I think, have some really detrimental effects on both on wildlife as well as potentially drainage, as it does go right over the headwaters of Barclay Brook. And as Michael Mietag mentioned in terms of the planned roadway for the Swiftede extension, Wheel of Nature Park, I mean, the wildlife really don't know the boundaries there. And the area that that would go through is some really important early successional habitat. There's a lot of kind of unique bird species, species of greatest conservation need that are in that area. Field sparrows, eastern towies. And again, just bisecting that, I think puts a major stamp of fragmentation on that area, which would not happen with a planned rec path. So thanks for giving me a second to talk, and I support both changes. Thank you. Is there anyone else? Rosanne Greco. Yes, thank you. I too support the two changes that being proposed here. In the world we're in right now, our focus ought to be on the environment and not on cars. I know the city council in years past has said we need to get away from a car-centric way of approaching our land use and building more roads is going in the opposite direction. So I really support removing the roads from the map. A few of the speakers earlier seem to indicate that this was something that could would wreak havoc in the future. This is a map used for planning purposes. Removing lines on a map to indicate we do not want roads there does not close off the option in the future that something dramatic happens in the future that we then believe we need roads. You can still build a road there. But if you build a road there, you can't unbuild it. So this does leave options open to the city if the future changes dramatic in a different direction as we see it's happening now. So I support removal of these areas that are now marked for roads to make them pathways and lead them without any more impervious surfaces. And thank you for the opportunity to speak. Thank you. We also have Abby would like to speak followed by Richard Finkelstein. Thanks. I just want to add my voice in support of these changes in particular with removing the Swift Street extension from the map that the Swift Street extension would actually connect Shelburne road right through to Heinsberg road, which is and it's right next to Kennedy drive. And so if we talk about the necessity of it, it would just actually take traffic away from Kennedy drive. And that's really why we built Kennedy drive was to handle that traffic. This Swift Street extension is outdated. It was put on the map to be an egress for the Dorset Park neighborhood. And if we leave it there, it sends a message to developers that we want it. And that's the danger of leaving it on the map. We don't need it. It's right next to Kennedy drive. We know that it would cut across our floodplains, wildlife habitat, forest blocks. And, you know, those are the things we will never get back. So it is urgent that we take it off the map now because we know where the future is headed. And that's where we need to protect our land and we need to advocate for conservation. So knowing that we could maybe drive an extra like tiny minute to get to Kennedy drive, which is why we built Kennedy drive, I think that's sufficient. And I like the idea of connecting neighborhoods using the bike pad option because for that issue where maybe kids are trying to connect to neighborhoods, what a great way to walk or ride your bike there. So I think that we are doing a service to future generations and to our city by taking this off the map now. So thank you. Thank you. Richard Finkelstein. Yeah, can you hear me? We can. Oh, great. Thank you. Yeah, I want to support the planned amendment upon amendments to the official map of South Burlington, in particular, the removal of a planned roadway up IDX. I think that by removing this planned roadway, it sends the right message that we want to protect what we want to protect that it sends the right message to UVM that South Burlington wants to have the Hort Farm there. The Hort Farm really is a treasure for South Burlington. I live close to it, so I have an interest. I live on Blackberry Lane and I've seen over the last eight years all the many activities that go to Hort Farm. If this roadway is built, it sends a message and it might open the door to UVM to try and sell off the property, which I think they have done in the past. They tried to do that a long time ago. So thank you very much for giving me this opportunity and I strongly support the planned amendment to the official map. Thank you. Next up is Gwen Gellerin. I'm probably pronouncing that wrong. That's okay. Thank you for letting me speak in support of removing the Swift Street extension from the planned map. Referring to the November 20th, 2020, study Vermont 116, Kimball Avenue, Tilly Drive land use and transportation plan. It quotes the Swift Street extension would have impacts to potential wetlands, habitat blocks and threatened species. I think that this plan is in keeping with the environmental changes that we want to see. This study also indicates that building the Swift Street extension would decrease traffic on Kennedy Drive by 24%. It also indicates that it would increase traffic on Swift Street extension 10-fold, which would put cars going down Swift Street extension past the existing park where you have the dog park, village at Dorset Park and through an important Wheeler Park and habitat to one car every three seconds. Living at village at Dorset Park, I have seen a huge uptick in public use of the dog park area of Wheeler Park. And I would hate to see that we have a traffic issue there where people cannot safely navigate from the dog park over to or Wheeler Park over to Cairns Arena area. I guess that's pretty much, oh, now the other issue I wanted to say is that your Dorset on your Dorset Street, not Dorset Street, I'm sorry, Swift Street extension has too many curb cuts to take that level of traffic and take it down towards where people would wanna go would be Route 7 as a possible alternative to hit Route 7. Kennedy Drive is very well planned to take people to 189 and there they can get down without any curb cuts. So I would worry about the safety of residents from Swift Street extension, right down Swift Street to Route 7. So anyways, thank you for your time and I would encourage you to carefully consider removing that from the current plan. Thank you. Thank you very much, Quinn. Is there anyone else? Okay. Seeing no other or hearing no other. John? The reference was made earlier to a possible exposure. This is John Dinklage again. From Cider Mill to Kynesburg Road. Yes. I'd like to know if that's on the city map today. Paul, can you answer that? Sure, so I believe there were two references made to a Cider Mill to Kynesburg Road connection. One of them has been fully approved. Is it on the city map? It is shown as... Yes, it is. Well, it's shown in the updated version of the city map here because under state law, once a subdivision is approved and the mylar is recorded, the official map automatically updates. And so Cider Mill 2 has shown in here showing a roadway connection. The other one is... That's fine, I wasn't aware of that. Okay, the other one is a connection between essentially Van Siklin Road and Cider Mill and that is shown on the official map as a planned roadway. And John, I can attest that it's actively being built. They've been blasting and bulldozing and cutting down trees and what used to be this driveway is now a major thoroughfare. So it's happening. Frank on Turkovich would like to speak and I think he might be the last one. Okay, thank you. I missed some of the earlier part of the conversation tonight but I do wanna speak in support of keeping these connectors on the city map. And I'm speaking to you as someone who lives on Swift Street and I appreciate the increase in traffic that might happen if the connection across Dorset Farms is made. But in the short term, what we really need is more East-West connectors in the city because the amount of traffic on Swift Street today is intense and I know it would get more intense if this connector is made but we need to take some pressure off these East-West connectors. So I'm really concerned about the city's plan to eliminate either the Dorset Farms connection which again would have some personal impact on us but it's one that we're willing to tolerate as long as you keep the option open for in the future for the UVM Horn Farm connection and maybe some other East-West connectors. I don't support the idea of a city like South Burlington who usually works so hard to require developers to make interconnections between their projects to take these things off the city map. We don't need to build these roads now maybe we should but we don't need to do it now but it would be great to have that option open in the future and I just don't understand the policy reason for taking it off the table now. It'll be very difficult to reacquire this in the future and I would hope that the council would just leave this intact and then consider whether these roads should be built at the right time. Thank you. Well, Frank, just to sort of summarize what I believe to be the reasoning that the Planning Commission voted unanimously to take them off, particularly this Swift Street extension is that it impacted a 500 year floodplain. It goes across a class two wetland and it goes across a major habitat and wildlife corridor and their analysis I think was that those are really important to the city. I think and just from my own perspective, I know these maps and planning you plan over decades and you don't know how a city will really develop and I think we've had probably considerably more development in the southeast quadrant and going down to Shelburne Road than perhaps 40 or 60 years ago people were envisioning and as a result of that, the impacts to wildlife corridors have changed and they have gotten more and more narrow and so to just say, well, we've had this on the map 40 years ago and we need the east-west corridors, maybe you could have built them 60 years ago, 40 years ago, 20 years ago and not had any real import. I guess the wetlands would always be there but in terms of the habitat, but that's changed and I think we need our comprehensive plan as well as our policies to reflect the reality on the ground now and as far forward as we can think without ever being able to predict what will be needed in 10 or 20 years. I know maybe Jessica would like to further explain the thinking that the Planning Commission used or arrived at with their conclusion. Yeah, Frank, were you done with your comments? I don't wanna interrupt. Yeah, you were done, right, Frank? Thank you, I could certainly take more of your time tonight but I would just urge the council to consider leaving this option open for the future. I don't know that we necessarily have all of the answers and all of the wisdom today. We're not building these roads today. This may happen 20 years from now or it may never happen but once you take it off the map it's gone possibly forever. I don't know why we would wanna hamstring the future city council or Planning Commission and take this possibility away. Okay, thank you. I didn't mean to interrupt you, I'm sorry. I thought you were done. Jessica? I guess one of the things that Frank brought up is a really good point is that we do have strong policies for connections between our neighborhoods and we do ask people when they're developing lands to make connections to existing neighborhoods and provide for connections in the future. So that actually was part of our conversation and really it came up the most in this case with the Hort Farm area knowing that if in some point in the future the university did sell that and did develop it which is not their plan but if that did come to pass our other policies would create those connections to the neighborhoods around it without necessarily needing to have it on the official map because of our other policies for connections. So we felt like in this case it was sending the wrong message to say that we want the farm to build a road through the farm because that's not really what we're asking them to do but if there is some huge land use change and they completely change what they're doing there our other mechanisms would create those connections. So that did come up. Okay, thank you. Tom? Clarifying question on that point if I may. So my understanding, A, I wanna disclose that Lisa Kingsbury from University of Vermont Planning Director did reach out to me about this and she stated that the university's position is in support of removing this road from the Horticultural Farm but to your point that you just made there Jessica or Chair Louisos is can you confirm that when we take it off of the official map which I'm currently inclined to do because the University of Vermont is in favor of it and it was already taken from the COMP plan but when we take it off the map that then puts a future road as you were just describing the financial burden on the backs of the city and not the University of Vermont if they were to do something. Is that an incorrect understanding or did I frame my question well enough, Paul? Yeah, Paul Connor, Planning and Zoning Director. I guess what I would say is that the, so the official map, its primary purpose is it's a regulatory tool that accompanies a city's zoning regulations. So it puts a property owner on notice that there is a planned public facility to be incorporated into any development designs that they do. Oftentimes that coincides with, if a property is being developed, then the city has made it clear where it wants connections or where it wants a park or where it needs whatever other facility and the financial responsibility often winds up being with the developer in the official map version because they're building out the property. Now, I'm not saying that's 100% because there can be circumstances of the significance of a municipality's public interest may outweigh what the development project was gonna be. So for example, let's say if there was a 50-acre parcel and the city said we're interested in a 39-acre park for the developer to just give that would probably be outsized. Oftentimes with a roadway, the roadway is central to their development project anyway. And so something that takes place on the official map is done by the developer in the construction. Does that answer? It does. May I follow up? Yes. So what I heard in your answer is that this is a benefit to UVM in that it takes the financial burden of a road going in there off of there by default and it would then put it on more on the city to acquire the land and then pay for the road if we wanted it 20, 30, 40 years. I'm still inclined to support it for all those reasons, partly because I bleed green and gold and if UVM wants something, I'm gonna be biased and wanna support it. That was meant to be somewhat humorous. But I will say that I just wanna note that we are benefiting the University of Vermont by putting a possible future road in this area, the financial burden more so on the city than leaving it on the map, giving us the option to require it and put it on their dime. I think I heard that in your answer, but I'm trying to get clarity. I guess what I'm saying is it's not necessarily changing the financial equation. It could, but I think what it more specifically does is let's say that the Hortfarm property we're thinking about doing some development proposal and maybe they were only thinking on doing it on a portion of the property, then they would need to consider the connection, the specific connection that the city wanted to be doing and they would be put on notice upfront before you begin to put any pen to paper, this is the important connection for us. Without it on there, as Chelle Luisa has indicated, there are certainly streets that dead end into the Hortfarm and it could be imagined that the city's other policies would say we want A and B and C connected, but it's not as clear a statement to say this is the roadway that we're looking for. I think that's more principally what this tool, specific tool does. If the city wanted to go out and acquire a piece of land of our own choice, I think that that is a tool where maybe the comprehensive plan is the stronger tool because the official map doesn't play a role necessarily in our capital planning and work. It certainly supports it, but it doesn't give us any more power than we otherwise would have. Does that answer the question? It does, thank you. Okay, Tim. So, should we come out of the public hearing? Yes, we probably should. So, if there's no other, oh, Michael has his hand up last time. I'll let you speak twice on this issue. Last and quick. They let John. Last and quick. Michael Mittag, I live on Swift Street. Several people have mentioned the need for East-West connectors and that the removal of the Swift Street extension will be a loss. I'd like to remind the council that there is an opportunity for an East-West connector at the top of Old Cross Road and the city already has owns a right of way, almost all the way through to Butler Farms, I think it is. I believe that is correct. So, that option is still open. It's still on the map and it would be a better place if we ever have to have it. It would be a better place because it's more equidistant between Kennedy Drive and Cheese Factory Road and Cider Mill. And that's all I will say tonight, Madam Chair. Oh, no, I was trying to be humorous. Thank you. So, there's no other public hearing comments. So, I'd entertain a motion to close the public hearing. So, I move to close the public hearing on official map amendments, number O-M-21-01 and number O-M-21-02. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. So, we move on to, is it closed? Public hearing. So, I would entertain a, well, we can have further discussion. Tim wanted to say something? I just want to say that, you know, when these roads were put on this, these, the official map, it was four year more years ago, the city had a lot less density then. And I think a lot of the roads were, they were future looking and they were aspirational. And as our density has increased, we've learned certain things about those areas that are less dense and how we want to preserve them. And one way you preserve them is not to put a road through them. So, there are some really critical natural areas in the city and we've already put roads to them. And the connection between South Village and Dorset Farms is an excellent example that should never have been done. But that was before the regulations that we have right now. So, I think it's important for us to recognize that there are, these two connections do not have to be made. They can come off the map. The Planning Commission is unanimous on their advice on this. So, I'm ready to move forward and remove them. Yeah, thank you. I completely agree with Tim and I think you said it very well that with regard to natural areas that this is no place for a road. And it would, I think, really preclude the use of Wheeler. And I just, I think that other people have spoken to the fact that further South there are more opportunities for East West and why alleviate the traffic on Kennedy Drive. It makes no sense. Okay, Matt, you had your hand up. Did you want to say something? Yeah, I was just hoping to make a clarification. And when you look at the map and you see the line that says number seven, the plan connection with Cider Mill Drive, that is not under construction. Just to clarify, what is under construction as Helen knows, the chair really knows all too well is the entrance to Cider Mill 2, as it's often called, as it was approved. There will be a connection between Cider Mill 2, whose entrance is on Hinesburg Road, to Cider Mill 1. But that will be after the 50th connection as required by our land development regulations because there needs to be, when you build the 50th home, there needs to be a second egress. So when Dorset Park was built, clearly over 50 homes, that wasn't a requirement to have a second egress because there's only one way out of that development. I don't think that's an issue. I think we would have heard from the fire chief. I'm sure the fire chief was briefed when the planning commission discussed this about whether or not a second egress is needed for Dorset farms. I agree with most of the comments regarding whether we need that. I just want to clarify that the Cider Mill connection with Hinesburg Road is not built yet, will not be built unless a developer develops that portion just to the east. The connection between Cider Mill 2, which is not built yet, but as the roads are being constructed and Cider Mill 1 will only be made after the 50th home is built in that development. And it will not be a route that people will travel through. I hope they don't travel through and I'll do my hardest because I live in that neighborhood. It will be a way that Cider Mill 2 people can get to Cider Mill 1, but not a major corridor. And if it is a major corridor, it's a major problem. So we do need east-west connections, but I agree with the comments that once we build Veterans Park and we establish Wheeler Park, the need for having that connection there became less important. And having Kennedy Drive and having the access there just shows you. I am concerned that 20 feet is not the right amount after listening to Mr. Dinklage's comments. I am curious if Paul or Jessica could tell us why 20, why not 30? Would you, Paul or Jessica? If I can, I'd just like to just respond to one thing that Councilor Coda spoke to and then Jessica, you can speak about the right of way. Regarding the fire chief, Councilor Coda, the chief was actually on, was away in the week or two leading up to the Planning Commission's public hearing. I did reach out to the chief leading up to your hearing here. And his statement was, as the fire department has expressed before, essentially one way in and out of a development is not a good idea. And it's contrary to a 40-year-old plan that looked at future needs and agreed that a connection was needed. One accident, road flooding, tree down, gas leak, trapping a whole bunch of folks was not good hazard mitigation planning. So I did just want to clarify because you specifically mentioned him, so. Okay, thank you. Do you want to speak to the right of way question? Yeah, sure. And if people didn't see Paul outlined on the map, the roadway that Matt was describing that's being built right now. The right-of-way with actually was a big discussion with us and there were some commissioners that did feel like a wider right-of-way, retaining a wider right-of-way would have its benefits. In the case that the path needed to be re-roaded or another utility could go through. But ultimately the commission did put forward the 20-foot wide right-of-way and we all did unanimously vote to put that forward to you. I guess the reasoning that more commissioners felt like the narrower right-of-way was warranted here was because they really didn't want the city to do like a sneaky thing where they said, oh, we're only gonna do a path to just kind of appease the people who were commenting in the moment and then later on switch it to a full roadway. So there seemed to be kind of some concern that if we had the full wide right-of-way that eventually it would become a full road connection and that's not what people were really asking for. So there was discussion. The staff recommendation was to go with a wider right-of-way to allow for more flexibility in the future. So I mean that was discussion. Tom? So I am in support of these changes but I will say with what you just read from the fire chief and the rationale for going with 20-foot right there, that doesn't seem like good planning to go down to 20 feet just because of a concern of mistrust. So if the staff recommended a wider right-of-way and we have the best planning staff in the great state of Vermont, I'm wondering what we did the staff recommend? Was it 30 feet, 40 feet? And I just think that would to John Dinklage the former chair of the DRB and a former city council are raising the notion of municipal utilities. It seems to make sense to have that option. Now again, just before you answer, Paul, my understanding of the official map, just like with city center, when it's on there, that doesn't mean it has to be built. The city still has that choice when it goes through to say, you know what, we don't need it or it only needs to be 20 feet. So I came into this meeting fully supportive of these changes but with what I just heard you say there, it's a rationale to go down to 20 and also that the fire chief said, it seems to me worth exploring a wider right-of-way. Sure, so a couple of things to that. One, I guess what I would say is in terms of development review, if there is a planned roadway connection and it says it's a planned roadway, then I think that the clear expectation on a developer is that they build the roadway. If that's what the official map is saying, if the official map is saying something different than that, then it's whatever the official map is saying. But I think that's the intent is to send a clear message. If it says a planned roadway, then at such time as that you build that you are accommodating and also assuming my caveats before that it's not outscaled to what's being proposed that it be constructed. That's the intent of the message. In terms of recommendations, the staff recommendation to the planning commission was that if the commission wanted to eliminate a roadway but retain it as a recreation path, then the official map could say very clearly, recreation path and then also retain the ability to have a 60-foot right-of-way for future generation to make a determination. In terms of later in the discussion, in terms of when the commission said we'd really like to have a right-of-way scaled to a recreation path, the public works director was there and said a typical recreation path right-of-way can be anywhere from 20 feet to 30 feet. So that was the information that was for the planning commission to give their recommendation to you. And just to follow up, I mean, that's the real thing. We felt like if we were saying we wanted a recreation path, we should have a right-of-way that made sense for a recreation path. Not a right-of-way that made sense for some much different facility, so. To the utilities point, though, I mean, so no road, I'm with you on there, no road on the official map, but the utilities piece, like if we need to put power underline or broadband or fiber optics is 30 feet the more reasonable number? Why would we even need that? I mean, all the services that are on Heinsberg Road are on Heinsberg Road there today, sewer, water, power, cable, and Dorset Street has its own supply. So, I mean, I hear what you're asking, but if there's not gonna be a roadway there, I don't know what utilities we would wanna connect because we wouldn't have any stormwater because we wouldn't have any impervious surfaces there. I would also note that Champlain Water District does also have a right-of-way that goes across this entirety from Heinsberg to Dorset Street. I'm not sure if it's exact width that's somewhere between 10 and 20 feet. Yeah, I'm satisfied that the Planning Commission has fully vetted their decision. I don't think it was fear of contention or something or mistrust. I think that I hear from the staff and from other comments here that this is really thoughtfully thought through and I don't have the qualms that the utilities won't be able to be provided for. I think they are provided for already, as Councillor Barrett said. Any further comments or discussion? Tom? Oh, Tom and then Matt. I see that just on the water district, so that 10 or 20 foot that you're aware of is completely separate. It's not aligned with this, it's elsewhere. That puts my mind at ease. I'm guessing the Champlain Water District works with other utilities if a utility needs to come through. So then, additionally, knowing that CSWD has something through there, allays some of my concerns that were raised by John Dinklage. Okay, Matt? Just one question for Paul and Jessica, when you look at the land development regulations that are being revised, if that property that would be connected, I wonder what is that? The Hillstead, I forget the name of it, but off Heinsberg Road, if you're putting more than 50 units there, they would have to have two curb cuts onto Heinsberg Road because they'd have to have two egresses under the current land development regulations, and I assume the future land development regulations. That egress would definitely not be, obviously we take it off the map, would not be to connect it through such an extension, but that is still possible, correct, to develop that piece of property with two curb cuts on Heinsberg Road in order to accommodate over 50 units. Is that right? The property that you're speaking of, Matt has approximately 1600 feet linear frontage on Heinsberg Road, so there would be plenty of room for one or more connections, as well as potentially connection over to Landon Road, which was on the north side of the Rye neighborhood. Good, thank you for that clarification. I appreciate it. Okay, are we ready for a motion? Yeah. All right, so I wanted to make it. I move to adopt the official map amendments number OM-21-01 and number OM-21-02. Further staff has pointed out that the draft warrant for public hearing includes a handful of elements which have since been changed or superseded by subsequent council action. No further changes adopted via this motion. Staff is directed to correct the draft map to reflect the adopted actions. Is there a second? Second. Is there any further discussion? All in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. That's unanimous. I saw Matt's lips move. So it passes 5-0. Thank you very much for your work. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay, so now we're on to the annual update from CCRPC. And Charlie Baker has been patiently waiting. If he'd been early, Charlie, we could have heard you earlier, but you didn't know that. I am so sorry, there are, I was at a couple other towns within the county, but glad to meet you. Oh, I know, I know. It's not your fault. We just whipped through stuff. So, okay. Thank you. And you can hear her and see me okay. You're a black box on the screen, Charlie. Interesting. Maybe you have a shutter that's closed on your laptop. Well, let me get to a different camera if I can. Thank you for that. Glad I asked that question. There we go. Much better. Sorry about that. So thank you very much for making time on your agenda. As I do every fall, I try to go around to each of our member municipalities and really have a customer service call. The Regional Planning Commission works for our member municipalities. And so we provided a report that I believe was in your packet about what we did for you last fiscal year. And I was going to review that real quickly, but also see if you have any feedback for me, positive or negative about what we can do to better serve South Burlington. So with that, I'll jump into the report. The first page is really background, some history about the RPC, our governing board, our little financial overview about how we leverage your local dues to bring in state and federal grant dollars to the region. And at the bottom are your representatives. I do believe Chris Shaw has plugged into the meeting here somewhere. I want to thank you for appointing Chris to our board. He's been a very active member and is now our vice chair. So thank you. And Megan, thank you for being alternate. And also thanks for all your great staff have been very active and great participants in our committee. So thank you for that. I'll move on to the next section, which are the next two pages, kind of a pretty good list, maybe the longest list I've seen around the county of projects that we have taken out with South Burlington last fiscal year and probably some that are continuing into this fiscal year. I wasn't going to review all those in detail, but happy to take any feedback on any of those projects and how our staff are doing supporting you. I just had a question. I'd never heard of the guardrail inventory. Is that the little bumper things on the side of the road and you do an inventory of that on non-state roads in our town? Very possible. So every year what we get requests from our member towns and some of them are just kind of helping the town update or the city updates their inventory of public assets. Sometimes it signs, in this case, it was guardrails. Okay, all right. And I should say signs and other things, culverts, you know, all kinds of things that you have in the public right away. Good enough, thank you. Any other feedback? All those things went okay, at least the ones you knew about. And on the fourth page are a number of projects in the capital program and our transportation improvement program and also mirrored in the capital program of the state. I don't know, I'm happy to take any questions or I can dig into any of those questions or any of those projects if you have a question. Well, you just remind me again, because I asked this the last time and I can't remember the answer. When you're dealing with this whole big improvement on I-89, one of the things that is a big issue for a number of South Burlington residents are those homes that butt up against the interstate between, I don't know which exit it is, 13 and 14. And, you know, yeah, 13 and 14. And just considering some kind of noise barrier or a berm or some way to reduce the noise. That is that, if I'm recalling, that's part of the whole big view of I-89? Yeah, we definitely got that comment a number of times. So we will try to include something to address that in the future. And just to be clear for anyone listening from home, we're in my report is referring to things that are in the capital program. What the council chair is referring to is not in the capital program, but part of a study that we're undertaking right now. All right, I'm sorry. You hope to wrap up this just for your, sorry. But yes, Helen, that is something that was, that is on the table as part of the I-89 study. Okay, thank you. I'm sorry, this was, yes. Yeah, no, no problem. Yeah, any other questions? You have a lot of projects that are in the capital program and a lot of different construction things happening. So I guess I'll say congratulations on that. And then on the page five are the projects that are in our current work program, more planning oriented activities that we are helping you with this fiscal year. Things like the climate action plan, traffic overlay district, looking at a path going over the Potashbrook on Kimmel Ave. But again, happy to take any feedback on how those projects are going. I took some pictures of the Kimmel Avenue construction. It's, I mean- It's pretty amazing, I drove by, yeah. It's pretty complex. There's a lot of heavy machinery involved. There's a lot of steel piles that have been driven in and it's not an easy project. So I was pretty amazed. May I ask a question of Charlie? Charlie, you're still with us, right? There you go. Charlie, can I ask you a question? Sure. So you have a section on regional energy planning. Can you educate me on who, is the organization in Vermont that is being the point person to enhance the energy efficiency of new construction? There were these stretch energy codes for Act 250 projects, but that was only for if a project required Act 250, but some communities have adopted those as their local energy guidelines, even though they may not have actual building codes, such as South Burlington, right? Is the CCRPC, is the work you do considered to be leading the state and trying to create new detailed building code guidelines to get towards net zero, or are you providing other services outside of that? Definitely, I wouldn't say so much in what the specific thing you were suggesting. Yeah, I think there is discussion about how to make the state's energy codes, well, maybe I should say, how to ensure that they are actually followed through upon. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm getting a funny thing happening that CO, the caller, sometimes taking the screen. But so, Tim, most of our energy planning is really, our energy work is really to support what's going on in the municipal energy committees, and with a appropriation that was done by the legislature, we're able to hire an energy project manager just a couple of weeks ago. So you may have seen a little bit of news, or email that went out to our municipalities kind of offering, and Janda, who's new to our staff as a resource. So if your community has a project that you'd like to move forward, we are happy to help move those projects, whatever they might be, and to add some staff resource that maybe you don't have. I think we're definitely getting some interest in the smaller towns, and maybe South Burlington's already adequately staffed. I don't know, but do let us know or let Ann know if she can help move a project forward. The specific idea you mentioned, I don't think is specifically on our plate to help with at this point, although I do think there is an issue in that there isn't a real inspection agency assigned to those residential energy codes. And so how do you know that it happened? And I certainly believe in trust, but also let's trust, but maybe verify also. So maybe there's some opportunity to have a verification system that those things are supposed to be done and we're actually done. Does, did you have more to your question? I apologize. No, no, that's good. That's kind of what I expected, but I just, it's bothersome that, I mean, you have every municipality could have different energy efficiency codes. And really there should be one entity that has done the research that understands how it should be done. And pretty much he dicks that across the whole state because, I mean, it's a statewide effort to try and decrease our carbon emissions, right? And you're never gonna do that if you are a wood or a natural gas or a propane or an oil user, right? Is to have as efficient a house as you can have that's cost effective for the technology available at the time that that house is built. All those future houses that are built, right? Should effectively be net zero, if possible, if that works, if it works and it's cost effective, it's time for the builders to hear the tune and to dance to it, you know, as much as they can. And even if you don't have inspections done in your town, I mean, at least in South Burlington, for those large developments, they have to file an energy spec sheet that, you know, highlights all of the points in their construction that agree with whatever the spec code is. If it's an Act 250 stretch code, they have to highlight and check off all those things that they did, right? Whether it's a blow a door test, whether it's foamed, you know, parts of the house at the joist, you know, or if it's the whole wall, whatever it might be, right? So it's just, it's time to move the state forward in one direction and have somebody tell all these municipalities what the actual code should be, you know, whether or not you can inspect it, right? Yeah, and I do think, you know, the state has adopted, you know, both the energy code and the stretch requirements. You know, the question is how it's enforced. I think that you're getting at, which is not, from my view, totally equitable. You know, if you're subject to Act 250, you're subject to a different standard than if you build in the middle of a forest and break up a habitat area. So things don't really seem to be quite equitable in how that's applied. And maybe the legislature will take that up again and have some more conversation about how to make it a little bit more functional. Well, does Act 250 have its own inspectors? No, I think you characterize that situation pretty well. You know, they're documenting what they're going to do during part of that permitting process. Well, then the state should pick up the ball and they should hire and pay Act 250 inspectors to go around the state and inspect those particular projects. That's what they should do. That's not what I'm talking about. But I won't point out, it doesn't seem fair that Act 250 projects will be subjected to it when we know that the vast majority of development doesn't really go through Act 250. No, I know, I know. Anyway, sorry, we got into a whole policy discussion. It's okay. But we are not adequately serving you on that issue, I heard you. Megan? Yeah, well, I just second his comments with regard to the new structures need to be net zero and if it comes from our planning commission or it comes across our desk, we should make sure that's the case. I was curious on the South Burlington Williston shared use path connection to understand the wetlands and I was seeing that there were some impact or the in lieu fee, the payment into the Ducks Unlimited in lieu fee account. And I was curious if you could tell me more, that's on page seven of this STANTEC document dated August 24th, 2020, the South Burlington Williston shared use path connection. So this is a shared use, right? Path, it's not even a new road. And if I'm understanding correctly. And on page seven, do you see that first bullet point based on updated, I'm sorry? I don't know. And you're referring to page seven of my report? Yes. No, no, no of the of the report that is embedded in your report under the South Burlington Williston shared use path connection. I'm not familiar with the detail there. It's on page two, I think of your report. Okay. Yep. It's the second link. Gotcha. Thank you. And then when you open up that link, on page seven of that document, it says based upon updated US Army Corps of Engineers regulations and mitigation requirements, it is likely that direct wetland impacts resulting from the project would require compensatory mitigation, the payment into the Ducks Unlimited and Luffy ILF account for projects in the Champlain Valley impacts are assessed at 180,194 dollars and 54 cents per credit. And these may range from a one to one to two to one ratio. For example, a project with 20,000 square feet of direct wetland impact may incur an ILF of 82,734 dollars to 165,468 dollars. I was just, and it goes on. I mean, and I could read the bullet point ahead of it too. I was curious to know more about that. So there is, if you build on lands that normally should not be built on, you just simply pay a fee. I'm going from knowledge in my previous job that yes, the Corps has some flexibility in how they deal with impacts to core regulated wetlands, either stay away or mitigate or financially or with some other creating some wetlands elsewhere. Is that like- Not a totally surprising thing, no. Okay, all right, I was just, I just was noting it. So that's in our county. Those are the figures for our county. I do not know the background on that specific. Okay. Yeah, which if you, I'll follow up on that, Megan, and check in with the consultant to give you some more background on that. Okay, thanks, I appreciate it. I'm just curious to know how that works. I do realize that our airport did something with Muddybrook, right? We did get some land in the off the Van Siklin Road because of the airport, so. Yeah, that they gave to the Chittenden County. The W. Willis-Winnieske, yeah. The W. Willis-Winnieske Valley Parks District. There's a whole little park there, but it was given by the airport to mitigate something. Those types of things definitely happen, so. All right, I was just kidding. That's surprising. Yeah, and sorry, the last section of the report deals with a lot of regional activities that are done without regard to one specific town or city. I'll just mention a couple of them just to get you thinking a little bit. One is we're again, planning to do our legislative forum at the beginning of December. If there are ideas like around energy codes that you'd like to put on or get us to think about putting on that agenda, please get back to me with any thoughts related to legislative actions. Also racial equity, we've hired a consultant team that is working with us on that topic, mostly inwardly focused right now, and to make sure that we're doing as much as we can as an organization. But then we are also having a racial equity summit on November 6th and really targeting bringing BIPOC residents into a conversation. And we do have one eye towards whatever we learn from this process, being able to share it with our member municipalities. So I think this is just a little bit of a heads up. We will be sharing what we learn as we go through that process probably early in 22. And then the third item, I just want to do a quick mention of, or maybe building homes together. We just sent out a press release a week or two ago, wrapping up that first five year campaign. We built more houses than we targeted. However, even though we wanted to build 3,500, we built more than 3,600. When I say we, I mean the community broadly in Chittenden County, it's really was nowhere near enough to positively impact our largely broken housing market. And sorry, that's a kind of a strong term, but we are still have a very low vacancy rate. We did not build enough affordable units. And frankly, as we all know, and the pandemic did not help here, but prices escalated quite a bit over the last few years. And so we are taking any ideas about what would help improve our housing market going forward in the next five years. So any thoughts would be welcome. And I think the last thing I would usually mention, but we already covered it in the conversation with Tim is that we do have a new staff person really on board specifically to help municipalities implement any energy projects that you have that are priority. So please let us know about that topic. And happy to take any questions or feedback on any of the other topics there at the end or? Yeah, Megan, yeah. And I should have added on to my first comment because there was also a limit in that document. I pulled up there for the shared use path. The bullet above, it started on page six, talked about how there was a limit to how much you could build on wetlands. And so that was why they didn't go ahead with the shared use path, I believe. So I would just be curious to know more if you're gonna look into that, more about the Civil Army Corps of Engineers, the Army Corps of Civil Engineers. And I'd like to know those regulations for wetlands. With regard to the affordable housing, I think that it would be smart to look at entities that actually develop affordable housing. So look at Habitat for Humanity, look at how the state can empower municipalities to perhaps purchase land through the use of these funds that they've distributed to other agencies and therefore the land could be gifted to an entity like Habitat for Humanity in order to develop. I think that that is gonna be key to solving the affordable housing. The reason why housing is not expensive in the Midwest is because people have moved out. They have moved to other employment centers. And so far, people are not moving out of here. And so we need to look at some other way to make sure that we have affordable housing. And so that's what I would say in terms of feedback is we have to specifically rely on developers who specifically develop affordable housing, period. And I think that will get to the issue. I will know that in my experience working in a number of states, Vermont probably has the most robust affordable housing system, development system in the country. And Champlain Housing Trust is definitely a partner in this program. So, and they are the largest affordable housing developer. So points taken, thank you, appreciate that. But I think what's good about the Habitat for Humanity is that there's actual home ownership. I think that's really important. CHT does that as well, right? Does that as well, okay, very good. Yeah, they're doing it in Winooski, right? Yeah, okay, good. Kirby cottages were that model in South Burlington. But that wasn't CHT, right? That was, was that a CHT project? I think so. I thought they came in afterward when we were trying to save the Kirby cottages, but perhaps, okay, is there any other, Matt, I can't see you to see if you have any questions, but if you do. I'm good. Okay. I'm good, thank you. Who did? Oh, Roseanne had a question for Charlie. Well, I do know about the Kirby cottages because I was on, well, that was built, boy, and I can't think of the developer's name. Bob Payson. What was it? Bob Payson. No. He built them. Well, anyway, as far as I know, that was not, I mean, they were the last affordable housing units built here, I mean, freestanding, but it was like Nequette or something. Does that bring me a bell with anybody? But, okay. Bill Nequette. In material, but I do have another question that sort of piggyback on what Megan said that maybe the CCRPC looks into regarding affordable housing and that is, what about the renovation of existing buildings in other places? Even I work for Habitat in another state and they took derelict buildings and rehab them. I mean, we have empty buildings rather than buying land. Is that a possibility for the CCRPC to look into? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I go by Diablog. I'm just sort of just throwing it out there, yeah. Yes. Okay, good. Great. Well, I think that's something we can task our affordable housing committee to think about as well. Not just building new one on farmland, but re-vitalizing parts of our city. It's much more complex and harder because somebody owns it and you have to convince them to sell it, but... Yeah, and I don't know if those incentives are local. You see a large number of redevelopment projects that have happened. Some of them are re-using the building, but other times it's, you know, tear it down and rebuild something on an existing site. Uh-huh, uh-huh. What are the incentives, Charlie, to get that going? Are there incentives used in order to encourage that type of redevelopment? Yeah, I think the state does have some incentives in the permitting system, you know, so if you're in a designated center, you can avoid Act 250, assuming you are already part of Act 250. So I think there's some opportunity to make that cleaner. And certainly there's a conversation about being, right now we only have, I think there's eight neighborhood development areas, so which the city has won around the whole state. So some of those state designations in smart growth locations could probably be improved to help encourage housing in those locations. For my view, there is definitely more that can be done on the permitting system to encourage what we say we want. If I can just jump in there with the Winooski experience, I mean, Winooski's seeing a ton of redevelopment in already developed areas, and that's what I know anecdotally from four years, there is, that's all local permitting. You could get with a Winooski form-based code if you built to the community's vision, you could be permitted in 45 days. And it's just- So that's a local solution, a local incentive. Yeah, okay. With the designation exemption already in place. Tom? I'd love an update on, this makes me think of the University Mall and what's happening with the, I know that it's been in question, what they might be doing in the grand visioning of it and that there's still a transition. But I hope that Jesse, you're staying abreast of what's going on there and that at some time over the next year, we can hear more about what MMO might be doing. I was looking for them. And that they might have those same clear paths that you just described in Winooski for that type of development. Okay. Well, thank you very much. This was a very loaded document. I mean, it was a lot loaded with information. Yeah, thank you very much. We enjoy working with you and your staff. Thank you. Good enough. Okay. So we are down to item 15. Consider entering executive session for the purpose of discussing matters related to the city manager's contract. Do we have a motion for that? Or wording of a motion? Well, I know who will be in it because Colin's here. So we want it to include the council and Colin, but not you, right? No, I think you bring me in initially. Initially, okay. Right, to explain the issue. Yeah. So I did not give you a motion. Andrew, is that something you can do off the top of your head? Sure, yeah, this would be a one-part motion. Yeah, a one-part, okay. Yeah, consider a council move to enter executive session for the purpose of discussing the employment employment of a city officer or employee. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. And we will not be coming back, so... We will not be coming back. We will not be making a decision, I guess. Councilor Coda in. And then Matt, are you gonna just join us by phone? I'm gonna call him. Oh, okay, Jesse's gonna call you. Okay, great. Yeah, you figured that out with her earlier. Okay, good enough. All right, well, so do we adjourn? Yeah, no. No, we don't adjourn. We'll come out and adjourn up there. All right, well, this is 29 o'clock gang, so that's good. Monday night is eight.