 planning commission meeting on 12, 6, 23, time is 6, 32 p.m. Any agenda additions or changes to be made tonight? All right. Any comments from the public on items not on the agenda? There's no one here. I see, do you see anyone else on the meeting? There's nobody else on the meeting. Okay. Moving on to the minutes from November 9th. We need a motion to approve the minutes. We'll make a motion to approve the minutes. Second. Hey, any discussion on the minutes from November 9th? A couple of tackles, but nobody's here. All right. All in favor of approving the minutes from November 9th has written. Say aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion passes. Minutes are approved. Moving on to the business items. So first is the act 47, affordable housing verification procedures. All right. So, we'll throw up what we have on this screen in case it's easier. Nope. But I think I mentioned this briefly last time, but so we weren't able to show you the details. But act 47 has the allowance for one bonus story if you meet affordable housing requirements. And we have included that in the LDC. Technically it wasn't mandatory for municipalities to adopt until the end of 2024, but we were already changing out the LDC, so we just did it. But it's not specified how municipalities are supposed to confirm and verify that these units are meeting affordability requirements. So we came up with a method. We talked with the city of Burlington to see how they administered their inclusionary zoning, which this is kind of a state-led initiative, but it's still inclusionary zoning. And we adapted that to something that we think would work. Something different about this versus Burlington's is that there's no income qualification requirements for the affordable, to meet the affordable housing requirements under act 47. So that makes it a little simpler. Basically, if you're under a certain price, if you rent your property for under a certain price, inclusive of utilities and fees, then you're good. And that's based on household size. But household size is a little bit difficult to determine. Sometimes, so it seems like every, the other municipalities do a conversion. They convert household size to number of bedrooms based on HUD guidelines. So we're thinking of doing the same thing unless the landlord proves differently, this is kind of the default position. You have any questions about what you've seen in the packet in the draft that we put out there? Of course I have. It says unit number and number of bedrooms for rent. Oh, it's tiny, it's like page 10. And so it's a cast failover in front of it. Yeah. So that's for me. Watch out a little bit for me. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, maybe just a little background though. Like this is actually not meant to be public facing. Like this is a spreadsheet that staff would be using to check that something meets the requirements. But basically, if you are going to be showing what utilities you're actually providing, there's a point at which like something obviously meets the requirements and there's a point at which they obviously don't. But then there's also like a gray area where we would have to verify further in terms of cost. But Jennifer, you will look at this before. Yeah, you covered it pretty well. But this is a spreadsheet I put together because depending on which utilities are included and what type of utilities, they're all priced differently. We use the Vermont, but fair housing had a, or not not fair housing, but there was some Vermont agency that had estimated cost of different utilities and used that as go-by for the prices of those. So that spreadsheet is something that we would use to verify the landlord says they're providing these utilities, they're saying that they're listing it at this rent and it will automatically update and show whether that unit passes or fails those affordability guidelines as you know, programmed and set up. And it's also set up in such a way that we can update it annually with all the new AMI every year that are needed income as that changes and we can update that and it'll automatically update everywhere else. So what happens if, so in this case, the ones in red are the ones that exceed the 80% median income, 30% factor, right? Right. So what happens if it fails? So in that case, we would turn around inform the landlord that that many units failed and we could tell them, we could show them, I guess the numbers or we could tell them what that specific maximum is, like, you know, well, according to, you know, all these different inputs, this is the maximum that you have to be below. And then they would have to adjust the rent. Well, so I think, yeah. Or utilities. Yeah, or utilities. Right. I think that is the situation that is best avoided. You know, I think we've provided clarity on the first, you know, on the information page. I think what we want people to be most cognizant of is, I mean, like landlords who qualify for this is the total rent inclusive, I mean, the utility inclusive rents that is allowed. So they can work back from there and we have provided resources on the page after that about the typical allowances for utilities that the Vermont Housing Authority uses. So there should be no surprises in theory. And if they come to us and show that, you know, they're a little bit over, I mean, they're gonna have to refund. So, like somebody's getting a refund if they wanna keep their status. Yeah. So the other question is, this is for new developments, correct? Yes. Okay. So this doesn't apply to existing landlords? No. Could they? Well, okay. Existing landlords, I mean, if they want, if they come back to the DRB for change of their building, but yeah, are you thinking about a specific? No, and what I'm thinking here is, you know, we talked about incentive programs. So this is an incentive program to include x% of your housing as affordable housing when you come into DRB with a plan, right? Okay, so I'm looking at existing landlords and whether or not, there's no incentive for an existing landlord to do this. No. Absolutely not right now. The question is, could there be an incentive for an existing landlord to do? And it's just, it's an open-ended question. I don't have an answer. I'm just, I'm trying to link it back now to the discussion you've had about the rental register. That's the set. I mean, I don't know of any land in North Dakota that would suddenly wanna stay and another floor already. No, no, no, existing. It's existing. Now, if there were others that were putting up a new building, I mean, as I understand, there's possible on Thursday, then Tuesday, the 19th, and then they have an application that's been doing that to this. So it's finally, okay, to have this and whatnot. So, you know, but I don't see it in anybody that unless somebody's putting some new construction, there's nothing, you know, there's no program to say, you know, we'll give you some credits if you got to be rashed at the formal amount. Yeah, the reason I'm asking it is, I'm looking at the space of Essex Junction and their zones, so on, and looking at the places available for four-story plus buildings. And we have limited space for that, quite honestly. You know, behind Domino's and all that place over there, you know, existing places to put a four-story plus building are limited. So in terms of people who already have housing rental units, there's no incentive here for anybody to decrease their rent. If it's 35, 45% of the renters' income, there's no incentive, right? Not out of, I mean, we don't have a municipal, we don't have a municipal program for that. I think there are federal programs that you could qualify for after the fact, and like tax incentives and, but I'm not sure about the details of those and also those are not administered by us. Yeah, okay, just, I have kind of, it's not related, it's sort of related, but my question is more of like what, what sort of teeth does the city have to continue to enforce this? Because I mean, I know it's a state law and like we have to do it anyway and we already implemented it into our LDC, but my thinking is like kind of what you're getting at, this applies when you're building the building and you generally don't have leases yet until the building's built. So you're saying you're going to do this and then we have to check that we will, that you are doing this. But what stops landlords from just not doing it? Now they've got a whole floor. Right, so this would be, we would be recommending this as a condition of approval for the site plans. And what that means is if the conditions are not met after the fact, within the 15 year applicability period, they would no longer be in, their approval would no longer be valid. It would be an illegal building. So it would be like, the building would have an extra illegal floor basically. Our options at that point would be, it would be through our zoning enforcement process and notice of violation and finds that in theory could be a daily find of a, I think it's like up to $500. So there's lots of legal wrangling involved if we ever have to get to that. I don't anticipate we'll have to. This is, for the same reason that we don't, we have been able to keep a handle on buildings that have already been built and they're not falling outrageously into out of compliance. Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. There's more just in addition, they'd have to, did you talk about the legal thing they actually have? Right. So, okay. Yeah. The other requirement is that they have to put it on their deed that the affordability requirements would be maintained for the 15 years, even if they sell. So the next person who owns it would still be subject to it. I think there's another factor to why I think it, I don't anticipate there being major compliance issues with this. The type of developer that can qualify for this, they're relatively big and they all do multiple projects and they need to maintain good standing in order to continue to operate here. So, yeah. Sorry, did you? Oh, yeah, I was just gonna say, I mean, personally, I don't really think it's gonna happen here there. I'm just kind of playing devil's advocate. And I know, as far as my understanding, we still have an illegal building in the city. It's kind of coming to the mind. And put that slightly illegal building, you know, say, by the way, I'm going to do the five units and then make themselves into good graces because we have some out of compliance lots right now that are grandfathered that it was kind of like saying, hey, this is how you'd be getting out of compliance. And could that individual put together this? Sure. And they, you know, I mean, they could petition to change, I guess, under the new law. I mean, I understand like our mechanism is to cite them and keep them out of compliance. It just gets really hairy when it's involving residents and people's homes and it gets into bad areas. And so we can, I think we can hope that this doesn't happen. But it was just, I was just playing devil's advocate with like, oh, this is, you're enforcing something that's done once the building is already built that you've approved for, so. So to be clear, if you're referring to 197 Earl with what looks like the fifth story, the final product is that that is not a real story because it is not, you know, it was locked off. Oh yeah, I was in the front of that building. I'm aware of that. I'm referring to the railroad and main building. Oh, yes. Over here, the design, the design compliance. Right. Right. Which I'm not clear with where that's ended or if it's ended. I think it's ended. Yeah, I don't think it's ended either. So. Yeah, I don't have a more on that at this time. Yeah. My other question is, so once it's in effect essentially, would it be your office or would it be the DRB that sets a target or talks to developers during the site plan process? I would, I mean, would you have a goal for a particular year, for example, and how would you ensure that developers and so on would know about it? Or when they come in with a site plan, would you instruct them then or what? I mean, how would it work? Do you see that? Well, we see the developers are already looking to implement this. We've seen the conceptual site plans that have come into our office that they want to use this as a bonus. So that's why we were actually in a rush to put together the procedures for it. I think we would definitely, we always try to make sure everyone knows what the rules are before. Before they go too far into their development process, anybody that comes in to just chat about their ideas for the next phase of development of anything, you know, we tell them what pertinent rules they should be paying attention to, and this is one of them. In terms of the DRB's role in this, the DRB would have to, we would be recommending that the DRB include the reporting requirements as a condition of approval in terms of like the maximum rent, the number of units and stuff, that's already, I mean, that's just set by statute. But I'm assuming that this is something that we want to publicize. Right, right. This would be on. The objective of the city to include as many affordable housing units as possible. Well, I would, I'm planning to put this on the internet after, you know, when it's a, when it's a final, yeah. Okay. I think, I think the mechanism for figuring out if they qualify makes sense what you've developed here. I'm curious about the rent amounts. So you said it was, you said Burlington does something similar or other communities are doing something similar where they've taken the household side and size and somehow made a rent amount out of that. Yes. And it was also on HUD's guidelines as well. Yeah. And HUD's recommendation is for calculating the number of bedrooms, studio estimate one person. And then from there on, one bedroom and up, it is estimated at 1.5 people, like 1.5 occupants per bedroom. So it's calculated based on that. It's in the footnotes under... Yeah. Okay. And the 30% is from the, the... Statute. Yeah. From the statute. Oh, that's actually an Act 47? Yeah. Well, yes, Act 47 refers to an existing definition of affordable housing developments and affordable housing. And basically affordable housing developments have to have 20% of their units or more being affordable units. And the affordable units are defined as something that costs someone no more, a household no more than 30% of their annual household income for a household at 80% of the area median income. Yeah, okay, that's what I was wondering. Yeah. Thanks. And then it does have fall fires for the area median income. You can either use the area median income of the town, the county, or the... State. It's not for the state. Oh, no, there's a, no, there's a state as well. It's like, you take the highest one. Yeah, but you have to take the highest one. And for us, that was Chittenden County. Area median income was the highest value. Yeah. So that's what we'll use. I think the interesting thing in terms of the cost is that because the limits are set at the county level, basically, it works better for developers in Essex Junction than it does in Burlington. Because the price of everything is higher there. But we have the same limit. So yeah. Any other questions about this? What do you need from us? We don't need anything. This is an information item. Okay. Or, you know, if you have, if you have comment, if you notice anything with it, because it's a draft, we have the opportunity to adjust and fix things if you... And the opportunity to discuss things, double-side, to get started. Oh, it's helpful because like we want to make sure that we have effective guardrails in place that we're trying our best to make sure that people comply with these rules and that we can, you know, hold people accountable. So, yeah, I think you guys want to mention or point out. Well, the only comment I have is based upon the comment that came up at the council meeting. From the woman who talked about the affordability of housing, which is trying to figure out some way to incentivize landlords to decrease rents. That's a complicated statement, but. I guess another question I just thought of is, obviously we have minimums that we have to meet for this and the city go beyond those. So. To make it more affordable. Sort of. So we can have higher standards, but we still have to honor, you know, the requirements of the state. So basically we could have higher standards and offer an additional, like an additional, additional floor. But we cannot be like, we cannot not give someone the additional floor, the single additional floor if they meet the state's requirements because we want higher, you know, something higher. So kind of along those lines, and this may be obvious. So excuse me if it's a stupid question, but in terms of the 15 year, this will be in effect for 15 years. Do we have any ability to extend that? And the idea being obviously that when this develops, it's hopefully going to last more than 15 years. Is it, are there some anecdotal cases where out of the goodness of their heart, landlords like choose to continue offering those units as affordable? Like is that hoped for by the city? Or is that we're just, because we do have a very limited space where we can build this type of development. And we haven't exhausted it yet, but given the limitations we currently have. I don't know. I'm just curious like, is there a way it with, since we are talking about both lack of housing and a lack of affordable housing. And this is very much a long term issue. Is there any, I don't know, we have any mechanisms to ensure the affordability or the uncertain proportion of affordability as it was attempted to for more than a 15 year window. So I'm not aware of a method for doing that without stepping on the limits of what state statute requires. Because the state statute says like you must, like the municipalities must offer this hype bonus if you meet this standard. This standard is 15 years. If we raise that to 30, that's a higher standard. And I don't think it's in our right to say no when to someone who wants to offer the affordability for 15 years and then jack up the rents. But having said that there's, I anticipate there might be more guidance from the states on this in the upcoming year as more municipalities adopt it. Are there other mechanisms for trying to encourage affordability and the maintenance of affordability? Possibly there's also, we also see some older housing stock just tends to be more affordable. That's like as buildings age, the rents within the existing buildings don't tend to climb as fast as a new building that pops up. And that's a truism we can hope on, but it's not something we can enforce at least not based on this. I think that's a good point, but also worth also noticing that with the rental registry and inspection program, we're introducing a mechanism to make sure those older stock units are kept up and improved on. So just thinking about that, that we are introducing that to make sure that those are up kept, which in theory would increase the, of increase the concern about if you do this rents are gonna go up. And then it keeps going back to this thing about, and it's not related to this, but what are the incentives for existing stock landlords to maintain affordability? Especially if they have to increase, I mean, if they have to improve their facilities based upon health standards or other standards. They always the incentive that, you know, when life was better, I should say for renters, is that there was always a competition of who about what landlord was out there to track renters. Right now, of course, it's a landlord's market, it's not renters market. So I think the hope here is that there's more incentive to have more units and maybe it might make it more of an even feel than, you know, being a little less lost. But if there's more competition, of course, I want to continue to have renters and think why you're renting first place for some kind of monetary income. So I would think that people would want to, generally, you know, maintain their properties as opposed to just trying to get a resupply sat down in the train to the point where it's no longer but, you know, it's, this is, I guess, a means of getting more housing out there, which is, of course, that's what we needed. Yep, by the way, just in the side, there's an interesting article in Seven Days about evictions. Yes, done it. It's pretty disturbing. Yeah. Never. Anything else on this topic? No, good job, guys. Thank you. Hey, moving on to sign content neutrality. Exciting, exciting stuff. All 75 pages. So I have been directed by the city manager to prioritize this, a new round of land development code amendments to fix this issue. So sign content neutrality, this is some of what we have in the land development code right now is known to be unconstitutional. It needs to be updated to be constitutional. And we are not allowed to regulate signs differently based on content. So this was something that Regina was planning on doing and a couple of years ago, when the CCRPC worked with the village at the time to make the amendments, but they ran out of time. But right now, we are running, you know, we're running into issues with the enforcement of these existing rules. It's rather difficult to enforce something that where parts of it are, we have to ignore. So looking at what's, in terms of like the most, I think the easiest way to do this, in my opinion, is not to, you know, fix each individual problem with our, with the sign regulations that we have, but just to replace them all together. I think this is, you know, to a certain extent, signs are similar in different cities. And if somebody else has really thought through it, I think we should take advantage of the work that they've already done and adapted as needed. So that's, yeah, I mean, it'd be good to hear from you if you agree that that's a good approach. And I've also included the two examples, one from Burlington, one from Manchester, that we can consider. And those are both, you know, recent and certainly a complaint with the sign, the content neutrality requirements. Well, I read through the sections and yes, there was, there's some parts of both that I really liked. And yes, I could see how, and I was looking at pieces and trying to go and talk at various pieces like, you know, like cut and paste and it's like, no, not really. It's kind of, especially looking at the exemptions and whatnot and the one, yeah, some of the problem, things are where we talked about how we're going to exempt something or exclude something. So I agree with you that it might be better to just say what do we like best in this or there? I mean, I know that right now I like having the, some of the charts, some of the tables and whatnot as to somebody says, here's a picture and we can say, this is what we're looking at. This is how we're defining it. I don't have to do the words, here's a picture. This is what we're talking about. Like, you know, like this, these sign thing and the fact that it was kind of like looking at the real estate thing, like, yeah, there's that real estate thing. Yeah, the real estate piece is, you know, why don't we have the debated, it's right there. They did an excellent job of defining what it is. You know, the other part was the election signs. I mean, that's always been a bugaboo about how long can they be there, how big can they be? Yeah, well, what years ago before either of you being here, there was someone that wanted to put, what essentially in our terminology would be a billboard. And because it was huge by our standards and because it was a short-term sign, it wouldn't leave that thing as big as that, yeah. Right. It took up someone in his entire front yard here in the time of the village. So, yeah, it was immense. It's totally out of place. But if it had been out far than the interstate, we're probably going to qualify it as a billboard. But I looked at, like, in this case, for Burlington's signs and whatnot, it's like those pieces where you highlighted anyone, yeah, okay, slap this puppy in it, we're good to go. And that was the fine things. I mean, it's very clear to the person who's going to be putting up a sign or having to watch for a sign where it says, how long it could be there, how long, you know, when does it have to go? Yeah, that's the big part, is that the law and signs for elections seem to hang in there with somebody else. So, yeah, and interesting to note, the election signed regulations that we have are unconstitutional because they are treating election signs differently from other signs. But notice this is an election period sign. You can put any sign up if it, during the election period, if it meets the size and location and timing requirements. But, you know, that, it should cover it. Like election periods aren't for that long. So, and construction site, you know, this is saying you can put up whatever sign you want, but it's, you can only put it up under, you know, if it's a, if it is a construction site and if it's construction is going on. I mean, I could see somehow somebody might be up there and say, I'm doing somebody's front walk or whatever and I want to put their sign that says, you know, Joe cement and, you know, with their group. So then it gets private firm and people go, ooh, ah, and you get, you know, whatever. And it drives business to the Joe cement because they, people thought that the recipes work. So I can understand that and there it says, you know, but the other part is like, you know, I guess it'd be nice if I was reading, really going, yeah, the construct site wrap. I guess we haven't had any site wrap for a while. So, you know, probably about five or 10 years at this time, you know, nice to have that there if somebody was split up needs to do and there it is. So, gradually burling down, I'm doing wordsmithing wonder. That's my take on there. So to be clear, what we're, what we're being asked is, we're going to have to go through, right? And adjust all of our amendments. We're not saying, we're not making a decision right now to copy and paste. Right, so we're actually, so I think it's similar to the way this was done in the last round of land development code amendments. We staff will put together a draft, like that of what's being proposed with the wording and all the details adjusted to be applicable to as extension, you will review that and there will be multiple rounds of review. But like right now we're talking about, is this a good approach? Are there things to watch out for? Are there kind of fatal flaws that we should, we should watch out for now before we kind of dive in and actually put the draft together? I have to admit, I did not read every single page. And that's fine. That's fine. But I agree with Diane. I liked the layout. I liked the fact that there were examples, including the building I used to work in in Burlington, Howard Opera House. So I think in general and principle, I agree that that's a good format. And I do think it's easy for somebody who's put up a sign to just go there and say, okay, this is exactly what I need to do. It's much easier than trying to read it. I think something to consider also is, as we seem to be at increasing density within the city, that when we look at lighted signs and how big lighted signs might be, or how bright or the times that they can be on, would be very important. Yeah, I went into Burlington's because I was trying to figure out some of the lighted part because I was talking about holiday lights. And I went, we don't really have that here. So I wanted to see what they had. And it's like, yes, holiday period. So they defined it as November, December, and January, as being, I'm like, okay, yes, that would cover, I think we're setting this beautiful display. I'm really enjoying it, you know, and it was for Diwali. And so it's, yes, it covers the period of the hot holidays where lights might be involved. Because if you go in the rest of the bar dogs about swimming pools and not having the lights, or in the case we had years ago, we had somebody having a skating rink in their backyard, the lights were flooding into somebody else's ashes on its bedroom. Yeah, I think that's in the beginning. So I liked the way they defined things because that's what we're talking about is how they've defined. They're saying the same thing we are, it's just that theirs was better wordsmith than we. The intense, the same, it's just. So yeah, and I think there's, the part that is likely, the part that offers us the most enforcement issues right now is actually not the permanent signs, but it's all the temporary signs that are put up. I think the rules that are in Burlington's zoning bylaw are functionally pretty similar to what we have, but we'll have to think about how to take care of the business needs of some people some businesses who currently have signs that are not compliant, but they claim it would be a significant hardship not to have that. But yeah, those are details that I'll point out the next time when I show you the draft of this. If there are any forks in a road and choices to be made in that regard, I'll bring those up. But I think the go exactly there with that area with the sandwich boards that seem to be permanent attachments to the roadstream versus temporary as our regulations require them. And I believe Burlington and I know that South Burlington have to work there. They have the business hours only requirements which we do have. It seems to be a suggestion in our ordinance until we actually get it in the enforcement. So I know that South Burlington has enforcement. I was late one day and my manager said, you are late and it's how did you know? Just so we got a ticket. So needless to say, I locked up, moved the sign quicker than the next time. So I think we need to figure out why are they there? Why is the occurrence happening now? Because I recognize that some places that they have a little sign like this versus actually having the sandwich board. Yeah, the sandwich board gives them more, okay, especially if they're in the back of some of our business areas. Yeah, there's a reason why the non-compliance is happening. So is there a way to get the mission and how to get things in front of us? I mean, more frankly, I'd rather have them go with, even if they're out there and yes, they're many yards away from where the front door is. But even if we could get them to do it by just business hours, and not when I'm outright my bite at six in the morning and they're not open yet, you know, sort of thing, it's, you know, it, yeah, I guess it's what are we trying to accomplish here? Or are we trying, not trying to pay our business community, but we are trying to have things look neat, orderly, whatever, and that. Right, so, right, I think the permanent signage regulations help in that regard. A well-crafted set of permanent signage regulations allows businesses to show the world that they exist without having to skirt the rules with temporary signage. This is partially an enforcement issue as well, you know, sometimes it's a little bit more difficult to enforce something that is, that you have to, where you have to be active outside of business hours, but it's not impossible. But we have been doing some outreach with the Business of Long Pearl Streets. I think one additional challenge we have, we see the most kind of signage, clutter around the more auto-oriented developments with big setbacks, you know, the big lots, all, you know, the one across, the other strip malls where there are businesses kind of around the back as well, but like, there's no way you could see that they even exist unless you're already driving in there or unless there's extra signs up front. I think we have to have something that's workable for those businesses for now. And I also think that in the long run, we should maybe discourage that type of developments if there's a denser, more walkable styles of development. So that's entirely possible, where we won't get these the same issues anymore. So I guess the feedback that I'm looking for at this point is really just like, do you like the Burlington one or do you like the Manchester one, which is a little shorter, but I think it's not as well like annotated and organized, in my opinion, there was an interesting thing that they required to do. They require where they actually get, they require people who have certain types of temporary science to register online through just like a Google form. I don't really want to do that because it's meaningless unless that is attached to it to enforcement. But if you have opinions about anything like that, I'm happy to hear it right now. I think for most cases that you'd see what signs were out there. I know that the years ago, there were people who had yard sales on the regular basis that became their second job. And this is the village time crackdown of them saying, yeah, you're doing this second job. This isn't an occasional thing. So what they would have signs and I would say, come to my yard, come from the main dragon, come into the various developments. But if the slime was out there forever, people who were working for the village of course would see that after a while, the slime didn't have been there for what? So it was, yeah, I agree with you. Trying to have it registered. I mean, we would, it would be incredible. But we have approval of signs as it is when it comes to, let's say, the fairgrounds having an event, they have their marquee and whatever goes up. I don't know that we have to approve what they, that they're having something because it rotates on a regular basis. And I'll see them putting lines in the ground anymore. They've got their permit. But for somebody who's got, oh, it was a big lot, Walmart, somebody had, they posted signs throughout Pearl Street for somebody not even in our community. They were saying, hey, drive their sales to that store that's having a big sale. But it'd be beneficial for them to be, for that circumstance to register that we know that they're not just littering Pearl Street. I'm not sure how to deal with that. I mean, we have to be something, because it's not in our sign records right now, you have to have to be a business and it's got to be someone in the community sort of a thing. The rules are different depending on if you are, like even our own rules but also the Burlington's right now are different depending on if you're putting up a temporary sign on your own property, on private property versus public property. It's a lot tight, like there are a lot more requirements for public property and the advertising that signs that we see in a right of way are not allowed and public works will go around and take them once in a while and we do that. Beth, I hear about the signs missing but elections if it's somebody who didn't ask the homeowner. Put one in front of them, just because it was on the main track. Right. To answer your question, I don't think you need a Google form. I like Burlington. I think something that clearly communicates all of the standards, like the tables you were kind of showing for each different type of sign. Something that's easy for whoever's putting the sign up to understand and for the DRB, for the zoning and whoever's enforcing it. There's the zoning administration, the DRB. You might think, though, for people that are putting up a permanent sign and investing money in that somehow to not get approval but make sure that they're compliant before they actually install the sign. You know what I'm saying? Well, permanent signs already require approval. Yeah, they have to have a drawing and need a zoning permit. So that would continue to be the same. Probably subject for future conversation. If we go with the Burlington version, sorry, he's in there about mural, but I'm wondering if we can maybe be more flexible than what they've prepared with us in terms of what kind of wall they could be placed on and whether or not it could be eliminated. Obviously, we haven't gotten there yet, but we have had conversations about introducing public art in the city and some of the examples of other, like, run, it has a lot of great public art, but some of the other art that you can see around the state or the region, some of that is done on, like, main streets and a bit further, which is very much. Yeah, the last public art that I remember was over on the Amtrak station and a bunch of high schoolers I think, while there are so many people came in, they saw this lot of art work with high schoolers. I don't know if it was lit up or not, but having lights there might have been a good thing. It might not have been graffiti so quickly. So Elijah, are you referring to these two points, basically? There's a point about how the murals are allowed if they're on a secondary frontage or a non-street facing side or rear elevation, blah, blah, blah, and is not eliminated. Okay. So I was just curious if we adopt the version if it would be possible for us to either mend or remove in order to make it possible, like, let's say if a circumstance is necessitated, someone could have a mural on a main street. Right. I think the only thing to be careful of is you can't really, you can't really say what is a mural and what is not. So, like, you know, there's like, there are some guidelines here. Right, they're attempting that, but if someone, if you have just graffiti on the, you know... Yeah, I'm reading this and I'm reading it that graffiti counts as a mural. Right. Yeah. Like, how do you, how do you shape the rule so that graffiti is just like bad, physically bad graffiti is not, is not allowed, but something that is nice is, right? You can permit it. Right. You can permit it as opposed to just allow it. Right. Yeah. And I think this ties into a subject that has already come up about how to encourage more public art and not that we want to ordinance things to death, but, you know, just thinking through how, if we know we are interested in encouraging public art, then how are we going to do that in order to encourage things that as a community, and maybe we have a shred or something like, what do we consider art? What kind of art do we want? Like South Burlington's painted boxes. It's a fun idea that has already come up. But how do we then discourage? Or how do we not have a situation where me as a 14-year-old paints on a wall, and then like... Maybe we can require, maybe we can require permits, but make it free. Oh, yeah. No, that's what I mean. Yeah. Yeah. But something where the design has to be approved. Right. In which South Burlington... Well, the design couldn't be approved. Oh, yeah. The boxes couldn't be approved. The design couldn't be approved. Well, the design, well, they have to submit a design. They could submit a squiggly... Yeah, yeah. Like if they draw the griff... If they show us how they're going to draw the graffiti, and then they actually do it. I mean, we can't say no, as long as there are other requirements. But I think if it's not so straightforward that anybody with a spray bottle, bottle of spray paint can just change the face of a building, I think... I think it will work. I think we're practicing over 17th Park Street. But a long time. I mean, somebody's actually... Some of them are pretty good. I mean, it's the best part of the... Yeah, I mean, they were... It was entertaining. Yeah. I mean, I think part of... I think part of number two is their attempt to... To say what is and what is... Code out graffiti. Right. Or at least to say that graffiti on a front... The front of a building would not be considered a mural. It kind of seems to be their attempt at that. But there are buildings in the country that I have seen. Someone has built a sunrise. Is it purple or is it yellow? There's two of them. That they have sunrises on the sides of buildings. I think there's one up on the main street here. And I know that there's this lovely one. Full gesture. That is that... I guess it is signs of the building. It's a postal front. But what happens if somebody... You know, did a bit of theories. Yeah. And they painted that building. Was that building... It wasn't for feeding. It wasn't... It was sort of a mural. When they painted the front of the building. There were... They were brought... Years ago. They had the entire building painted. So, would that have a mural? Okay. I don't know. I mean, it was artistically done. Something about... Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I think we can write this in a way where anything that... Like, there's a category of things you can do which don't require a permit at all. And then there's a category of things that you can do with the permit. And then there's a category of things you just can't do. I think that... You know, anything that is beyond what's kind of manageable without permits. We would require kind of pre-approval, but still allow. So, I think that sounds like the... What you're describing. Something that's interesting to me that just stood out that... This is Burlington, right? That they are writing... Does not contain advertising copies, symbols, lettering, logos or other such recognized branding related to products. That seems that that would not be neutral. That seems to me that they're saying what can and cannot be on the mural. Which... That is possible. That is something when we put ours together, I'll check with our municipal attorney. Is there anything else to generally be cognizant of before we move forward with drafting version of this? We'll see it again. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Okay. Moving on to C, potential land development code amendments memo. So, I think I can also put this up on the screen. So, basically, if we are going to open up the land development code, which we will, we might as well do a few more things. But at the same time, we have to be a little bit careful in setting the scope of what we're doing here. Because we aren't doing this with the help of CCRPC this time. We are doing this in-house. So, the other things to be aware of and deciding what to include in the scope of these set of land development code amendments is what other moving parts there are. One of them, as we all know, is a vision and strategic action plan project. I think we'll get a report out of that in the spring of 2024. And that is likely to reveal some policy and program priorities that our residents are really interested in, and it could be a good input for the LDC amendment process. So, basically, anything you decide now, you can still change your mind. Or you don't have to really fully finish prioritizing the list tonight. Here's my answer. Yes, those have timelines, but is there a timeline for the amendments to the LDC? Because this could have many different sets of amendments going on. Is there a timeline since we formed that they like to have signs done shortly? And I know that there's a certain month period that we have to go through. Are we willing to wait until the TOD and the other are done, or take them as a different slice at a different time? So, I think if we just do what, if we keep this reasonably small, I think it will still take a year to implementation. We will definitely have input from the strategic plan. By the time we get to even thinking about anything beyond signs. But the TOD project is a long project. We're not going to get results for two years. We're not going to get final results for two years. And that itself, I think, is worthy of just... I think those are going to be LDC amendments, and it might be a major one. So, I think this is an opportunity to do something that's anything we want to do before that. I think that's going to be the next round that we think of, and I think this is an interim fix that we can do. I'm more curious, what do we think we can put in round one? Yeah, that's right. So, I think we've got a list of things that some suggestions that we have to consider, but we're also open to ideas that the commission has in general to think about. The way I've organized this, we've got our own topics, the two topics, the sign content neutrality, and we're going to go through and fix things based on state statute and do some technical fixes. I think those are not going to be controversial, but we might as well do them. And then we can probably manage to fit in two more large topics. I like your list. My priorities are, I guess it would be two and three or three and four, the EP charging and the LED, green, green building codes, incentives, and I think I'm not sure what's going to come up in the strategic plan, but housing affordability was a high priority. So I'm assuming that'll be a high priority, but I'd like to see more green building within the city. I did some research and some background research and gathering and stuff on lead and other meaningful green building incentives. Just as a side note on the charging here, we just kind of mentioned like it's kind of an important thing that is coming up and becoming more prevalent in future years and more common, but between the time making this agenda and meeting, I came across a recent update in the Vermont housing energy code, which included, I'm here, we'll find the Vermont building energy code or standard. Yeah, I was in the residential stuff. Yeah, which had a provision for multi-family developments with more than 10 dwelling units, 4% of parking spaces must divide either level one or level two charge and then defining for level one and level two charging capabilities. They have a choice between level one or level two. And I remember one of the council meetings last year, I think it was last year, Raj, when you saw the first LDC draft, he said, why don't we have EV charging? So I think that would be a priority for the council as well. Yeah, and I think if we were to do something about EV charging, I think we would be asking for a little bit beyond what the building efficiency standards ask for, because level one charging is this wall plug. Yeah, I was going to say, I would recommend requesting only level two. Right. So, and I think we would probably be looking at municipalities who have just recently adopted EV charging standards and probably taking their wording and tweaking as needed as well. Right. But in terms of staff time, EV charging and signs, relatively easy, the lead thing and green building codes I think would be a lot more substantial. That one is a lot more complicated. But I think that would be a nice priority. Yeah, I can tell you a little bit more about it now. So there's a lot of different requirements. And I also tried to find other municipalities of about the same, you know, population, the communities around the same size or. Assumably the staff, the same amount of staff to be able to handle the same handle those kinds of issues. And it didn't have any luck. So mostly what I found was in larger cities, large municipalities, places like Seattle, Chicago. Bellevue and and. Burlington, just to look at some examples that they have. But still, we don't have to be the exact same thing as them. We can take it and scale it to our capacity of like what we can handle. But just for some examples, Burlington requires buildings over a certain square footage to have a third party commissioned to engineer the building envelope and make sure that reaches some building efficiency standards. It's over 500 square feet. And this is both in the form districts. It has to lead gold certification, which the certifications go. I believe it's green, bronze, silver, gold, platinum, getting, you know, increasingly more strict. But there's a lot of other third party standards and guidelines to go for lead is one of the most common ones that I've seen, and that I personally know a lot more about. I've run into other things with pedal or net fuel energy, passive health certification, sustainable sites initiative and some municipalities which have their own specific qualifications to me. But what it seems to be as a theme of like, okay, if you meet these qualifications, you get some kind of extra. Features of development things like the common sentence that I found were expedited permitting which would qualify as much here because our permitting process. It's pretty fast. But like for the cities that use it like Seattle and Chicago their permitting class processes a lot so it's a lot more complicated so makes sense there. Financial incentives so property tax credits. That one was for Baltimore Baltimore County, Maryland had things like that high performance homes tax credits things like that. Bellevue Washington allowed alternative materials, specifically ones that were maybe a little more experimental but had some kind of food and records be more sustainable in some way or another. They also had a stormwater fee reduction, which stormwater fees or sewer fees and things like that are fees that have recently changed in our LDC and I could see developers being concerned about the size of feeding. So that might drive them to make more energy efficient buildings if they get a reduced fee on that one. And then miscellaneous ones that don't really apply as much Arlington County, Virginia and Bloomington, Minnesota. Let me see, allowed an additional floor or increased floor area ratio and we don't use for floor ratio that's mandated its density areas and stuff. An additional floor, we're already kind of dealing with additional floor possibilities. So it's one of those things of like, would this be a separate thing could they. Yeah, so there's a lot of potential of just seeing what other other municipalities have done and then trying to figure out what is applicable to what we can actually do. Yeah, so there's a lot of different systems you can use and a lot of different incentives to offer. It's it's a very complicated issue but definitely worthwhile. So hearing your staff constraints and financial constraints of the city, my suggestion would be that you take the easy ones to get them out of the way. But you take these that you're talking about and make sure they get into the strategic plan. Because my concern about which I get to express tomorrow in the steering committee meetings that the strategic plan might not get to the level of detail that we need to have the, what would you call it. The priorities set out clearly what the staff wants to see done. So I would just suggest that this is a priority for you, as it is for me to make sure it gets into the vision and strategic plan. I think, you know, based on how what kind of priority list we we see come out of our discussion here, you know, we might be spending some time looking at green green building standards or incentives but find that there's not that much that is possible within this this round of land development code amendments but that we could change some of our practices to to leverage existing processes like one of the things that we we notice was that the residential building energy standards ask for a lot of things, but right now it's pretty lax in terms of we don't really know that they're being done. We ask for certificates of the RBS certificates, but the state doesn't necessarily check the engineering drawings. We could ask for a little more detail, you know, like, you know, for the, yeah, we can ask for a little more details in the site plan approval doesn't mean that it's, you know, it's bulletproof, but it's, you know, that that could be something that comes out of our investigation here. I was going to ask, I know that there's state programs about feeling the energy efficiency. So, there's some way to dovetailing. So, they are initiative. We're taking a next step. So, hey, here's, here's these pieces and yeah, they're just actually make it reality not just in the states that would be nice. So, possibly, I think the most effective thing that I came across was an example where they listed a whole bunch of like green building or green building kind of steps to make their building more efficient and then they would outline in different columns. These are required by the city, you know, here's, you know, the specific wording of what is required and why and all that stuff. And then they would also have a whole bunch of suggested things. So it's like, hey, we don't require this, but here's the thing to think about like we suggest you doing this to make your building more efficient. And then in the sections for why it would include links to grants or, you know, possible funding sources of like, we don't know if this will be applicable to your project, but this, you know, it could be it's worth looking into. And so getting together kind of like a, I found a good example that for kind of a green building. The word is escaping right now, but kind of like a suggested list of standards like not necessarily standards but just kind of building suggestions to kind of follow as like an outline with a whole bunch of different, you know, steps and resources all kind of compiled in one place. I think that would be really helpful. Regardless, I think this is a longer term project activity. And what the state probably needs to do is think about an act 47 for climate change. Yes, they have the heat act. I wouldn't say past, which is not anywhere similar to this, but you either have to force people to do it or incentivize people to do it. It could get a bonus for doing it somehow down the road, either to grants for some other mechanism, not necessarily provided by the city, but some other. That would be helpful. I think the code, the code would just outline what requirements for doing it if you're going to do it. Not necessarily, you have to. Yeah, I think along those lines Scott just like in terms of recognizing that this would be a longer term project. I'm also interested in it. Also interested in the evening charting. And it sounds like there's a potential to cannibalize or integrate work that other municipalities already done this and that that's exciting if, as you've kind of indicated in your memo for trying to kind of maybe pick to that we're going to add in addition to the to the year already prioritized in terms of some content neutrality and state set statute consistency. I'm kind of curious why is this not a state statute, but the plan unit development issue that you have raised. That seems like if we have this inherent inconsistency in the existing LDC. And we are also we have been engaged in all of this conversation around the need for additional housing, the need for wanting to encourage that. If we've got some kind of hamstring and initiative in terms of encouraging planning development in the existing LDC to me that just seems like something and you have noted that it's a high priority that we might want to consider in this inclusion in this kind of first round. Just to kind of work out that. Yeah. Well, I want to know how a building could be a. Because that's, I mean, because he is talking about a. Plan for us. Units. And I think of a multi-square residential building as being a unit, one unit. Unless it's a series of them. But then that would qualify. It was a series of multi-story units. In other words, they're going to put up more than one. But last time we had more than one, it's down that way. And so, I don't even know if they're done building. So it's. You know, that would make sense. But if it's singletons, like 17 Park Street, you know, sounds like it's a single. It's not. Yes, it's definitely a plan development, but it's not. So I. So yeah, I'm going to step back a moment over here just about a process over here and what would be useful for us. I think it would be useful not just to figure out that your top two priorities, but to kind of have a rank list because I don't know how far we can get. Right. I mean, some things could turn out to be easier and some things, you know, just could could be really difficult if we might end up having to not find anything that we could do. Yeah, kind of prioritized list, including anything else that you might want would be very helpful. And this list doesn't necessarily have to be developed tonight. You know, you could use feedback from the strategic planning process to to feed into it. Now, in terms of the planned unit development definition, I don't think there's anything in statute that says has to be multiple little units. I think plan PUD rules were meant to offer flexibility in case because a lot of municipalities had zoning regulations that were, you know, even in their own minds, much too restrictive and was stifling innovation. So it was it was kind of a band-aid solution to fix the shortcomings of some municipalities zoning regulations. And in this case, the problem that we had was actually one, you know, recent application along Pearl Street in the highway arterial district, which I would say is the kind of more outdated kind of districts with with too much setback requirements, in my opinion, relative to what's beside it. So this developer didn't want to meet those setback requirements. They didn't seem to make sense. They were able to offer a much more your greater variety of housing of, you know, up to three ideas from studios to three three bedroom units that were being offered, but they couldn't do it. They had to follow the setback. So they're they're asking to do a plan unit development, but technically it didn't work. You know, technically, you know, you could. We don't have our PUD requirements does does not allow for multi story right now. And yeah, although it sounds weird that it's a single building that's applying. You know, that's looking to do to be a PUD. There's nothing in statute that prevents us from changing those for the rules so that they could also take advantage of this flexibility. But of course, if you could just fix the underlying issue, the PUDs might not be so necessary altogether. I think I think it's valuable to take a look at the PUD. Amendment. I think. When we were when we were updating the LDC and we're talking about PUDs is my understanding that when PUDs were first introduced, it was to create it was to incentivize developers to have more interesting spaces or spaces that people would want to live in. And if I'm reading and I'm just reading this, that's what's written here for the PUD of the, you know, having an outdoor space yard deck or similar. That that is the point of a PUD is that you're, you're having a developer create something that has this space for people you're not saying that yeah you can do a PUD that is just a box with units in it. You know you can do it and if this is the only issue and obviously we can dig into it but I'm reading here if you can do a multi story if you have decks. Right balconies right right that fit the requirement right just not 750 square feet. Yeah, that's nice but I'm just saying that that my understanding the idea of a PUD is an interesting space that is not just a box or not just an apartment building but I think it's valuable to go back and look at it and have these discussions. I'm curious how can this work, how can I, yeah, that was the whole point was to be allowances for creative development and that people wanted to limit it. It wasn't the cookie cutter, one house every 10 acres. Of course we don't have that capability here but I mean it's, it's, you know, but on the other hand, Village Center District, a lot of creativity with it's, when you get away from there, that creativity isn't, isn't required or incented. If I don't know if it's, yeah, I'd be curious to see what the incentive would be to get somebody to be free. Yeah, I mean I can, I'm just looking at that I can think of other ways that we could incentivize, you know that in multi story buildings and maybe you couldn't do that there's other ways we can do it but so important to have that conversation. I think I'd be interested in that. I do want to ask, it's not on the list and I'm curious where inclusionary zoning has fallen. I don't know if that's stalled with the housing committee that isn't formed or hasn't formed yet. I don't know just curious where that is because that would be on my list as far as something to work on getting into the LDC. Yeah, so, well, so inclusionary zoning, I mean, the interesting thing is why it during the, since it was last talked about now we have, we have state led inclusionary zoning which we are, we are among the first municipalities or implements. Are you talking about an additional like, like an additional incentive or even more. You're talking about the Act 47. Act 47 that provides an extra story. That we already have. No, I'm talking about we had presentations about inclusionary zoning that requires every development to have affordability. We haven't. We had a presentation from the housing from, I can't remember her name, but she's the chair of the housing commission. I don't remember that. And we were, we were in the talks and then it was, it was kind of put on the back burner off for the rental registry and I'm not sure if the future housing commission was going to pick it back up. I'm just, that would be on my list if we don't have anything to work on it. It's not going to be prioritized, but. So, some of these things, I mean, it's like the same thing that the lead stuff is, we have sort of a chicken and egg. Kind of waiting to see what happens out of the strategic plan. And we don't have a higher housing committee set up yet. And we don't know what their agenda is going to look like. So, when I'm hoping to get on the strategic plan, since housing was one of the highest things identified in the think tank is that they're going to say housing, housing strategy and plan would be a key element of what needs to be developed. Housing committee then would say, okay, we need to develop a housing strategy and plan, which would include recommendations on x, y, z. And then you can talk about that. That would be, to me, a logical sort of sequence as opposed to us trying to take the lead on that before. Sure, yeah, I just wasn't sure. Basically, if we revisit this in a few months, by the time we finish dealing with the sign regulations and the technical fixes, we'll have more clarity from the strategic plan to figure out what the next steps are. I mean, at this point, it's more like, I appreciate having the feedback on what generally you think is important. And if you have any additional things, and it sounds like that could potentially be another thing on the list to consider. I agree with Bill. I think that it's important to include it in a minute, but waiting for what comes out of the housing committee. Then I would say, I mean, it seems like some of the low hanging fruit then beyond the sign content neutrality and the state statute stuff would be the EV charging, the PUD thing. That's some of the low hanging fruit that could be put into maybe one or two meetings. And I agree, like lead is important, but it's a big project. So keeping that out there. Well, when I'm hoping also a couple months seeing what comes out of the strategic plan. I'm hoping also that we can get a pillar out of the strategic plan related to climate change environment. So far that hasn't risen to the top, but I'm hoping that we get something out of that. Yeah, I think just to like, keep that this thread going, given all of our as a commission or committee. So yeah, for express interest in public input. And I think that the strategic plan for what all of its whatever limitations may have. This is like our best chance. At least for the moment of getting, you know, trying to act with some degree of public input as like a guiding resource. And so I'm absolutely on board with again, I agree, keeping getting a prior days listed in the minutes, but pulling off until we get hopefully several pillars out of this process. But I agree with what Phil prioritizes low hanging fruit. Those are things you guys can probably get done until we quickly or through us. Any thoughts on this on the issues with the H a district actually that this was an interesting thing that we were trying we were trying to expand the neighborhood development area. They were telling us it's probably not gonna work to extend it all the way out there, partially because of the name of the highway arterial district and the implications of that and how it doesn't align with the goals of the neighborhood development area. I have no clue why it was named that it was named that individual liking mission or so it's it's one of these strange little pieces. The idea of having an area that's away from the cross and the other side of the tracks from where all the residential places are. So you have this strip mall of a highway. And, but you can't put a strip mall. It's supposed to be biking and trains and buses and such for no cars, which is so unless you live like where I know, and walk up down the street that you have to. It's, how do you get more people there. Well, yes, now, I think one or two developments that are going in. We shall have more people, but it's like, you know, it needs to get reworked because it's not work. So we did I think it's very likely that this will get reworked in the TOD study. Now I think my, my question is like, are you open to kind of in a quick fix right now. Or knowing that it's probably going to be changed again in two years like comprehensively because I think we might go towards something that more that's more like a form based code along the whole pro street corridor, but What, sorry, what does that mean? Form based code is is a is a kind of different way of doing zoning that that prescribes more that has very specific requirements for for design and and and height but like, and how it steps back towards the lower density areas but how how the how the buildings interface with the street. It's very clearly prescribed but it's made so that once you check those boxes, approvals very much quicker and easier and it's supposed to be more predictable and it's what when new ski has along its main corridors and you know for a lot of developments when new ski doesn't the developers that that propose your multi story buildings along the form based code corridors don't even need to go through DRB approval because it's just staff approval because they they have met these very specific requirements. So we're likely going to move towards something like that, which that's the point of the TOD study. But in the meantime, I don't know how long they'll take. We don't have to, we don't have to call the highway artillery district the highway artillery district and we could make some minor changes to to something that makes a little more sense in my opinion. It's kind of an interesting sort of thing and that right now it's a mix of businesses and residential. There is no mix of business with residential. It's either business or it's residential. There's no, there is no, it's not like the downtown here where we have a mix of both, you know, we have that that piece. It literally is, it's a strange little unit out there. And yes, we've had applications just for historical record that developers said, no, it's too much for us to write or do this. Because you got that storefront for this firm of business on the street and they wanted. The side of business on the street is like, no, you've got at least look like you've got the front of the business on the street, you know, and they backed out when they heard that we were going to be serious. So, yeah, having some new perspective on this thing, because it's not, like I said, it's either business or it's residential. They're not, they're not mixed, they're next to each other, but they're not really mixed. Well, also the, the Highway Artillery, just to be clear, Highway Artillery District is next to the transit oriented district, but it is not the same and it has quite kind of polar opposites for sort of no reason. The Highway Artillery District is the only place that allows your large drive throughs and, and, and, you know, like basically McDonald's and KFCs and things like that. But yeah, I think it's really, it's not optimized to be that much of a neighborhood and a good walkable place. Right. So just to be clear, there's two things you're, you have in this, you have renaming it, which seems to have been an issue when looking at the neighborhood development area, when expanding the neighborhood development area. You were told that names probably not going to be great. Right. But at the same time, the expansion goes through the transit oriented development. But you wouldn't hear that that name would be an issue. Just, just to be clear, I'm just, I'm just clarifying the two things here. So there's renaming it, which seems to me seems like could be a very easy thing if we wanted to do it. And then you have rezoning, which I'm hearing would be potentially making it more like a neighboring zone or reworking it all together. Yeah. Right. Okay. And so then the question, if that's a correct assessment, based on the feedback you got around the expansion of the neighborhood development area, understanding that the TOD study isn't going to be available. Okay. But it's likely going to affect whatever interim change we make if we were to simply rename the highway arterial district. Is that essential? Is that a major or the only impediment to, let's say, getting approved for the neighborhood development area in the interim before the TOD studies? We wouldn't know. We wouldn't know. We're not the ones to decide, but based on the, the feedback that we've got, that's one of the impediments. I think there are functional impediments as well. Like what's the purpose of the highway arterial district and some of the contents of what we regulate is like inherently pedestrian unfriendly and that goes against kind of the ethos of the NDA designation. So, I mean, there could be some, you know, along with the name changer, it could be some minor fixes that could be done along the way if we're interested. So I guess just, and so I made more of a clarification. Understanding that it's hypotheticals at this point, but given that an outcome of the TOD study is likely to rework this piece of naming zoning in some way. Other than the fact that we, this has been brought up that this is an impediment, but one of multiple impediments. Is it a worthwhile project in the short term? I'm anticipating that it's going to become larger, more drastic changes are going to be like becoming out of the TOD study. This is a question of priority. Right. Is it worth doing in the short term? I mean, that is sort of what I asked you. But also the, my take on it is that there are, there's a certain amount of, we don't want to put in a ton of work and make it, you know, make a lot of complicated changes knowing that it will be redone. But there are some simple changes that could be done as long as we don't think that those changes, you know, being in place for just a couple of years will be too confusing, you know, for some reason. Because they'll be changing it. For the neighborhood development application, expansion application, do they look at the actual zoning regulations in those zones that are being applied? They look at the purpose of it. There's a narrative that you have to write. And I think Jennifer, like, do you know exactly, like, do they actually look at them? They also request that you submit pieces of the code referring to what types of buildings are allowed. It seems like it would make the most sense to do very minimal changes that would make the zone more attractive to the application. And that obviously do not go against anything that we want to do in that area. But that then, you know, that would help us get the extent, the extension or the, yeah, the development area. If the NDA is extended, does Act 47 then apply to the NDA? Act 47 applies to everyone. Everyone. It's not just the NDA. No. Oh, I thought it was okay. I think it's everywhere. It's everywhere. Oh, I thought it was okay. I think it's everywhere. It's everywhere served by sewer, right? Yeah. Water and sewer. Water and sewer, which is the whole city. Which is the whole city. Yeah. Other questions? Yeah. So the other question. There's a couple spots. The TOD study, you say it's likely to revamp zoning along the quarter and form based code. But you also mentioned that the NDA is supposed to be more pedestrian and bike friendly. Is that correct? That's one of the stated objectives of the zoning. I mean, the NDA designation. But that's not pedestrian and bike friendly now. Are you talking about the highway? Well, right. It's all relative. And the bar is not particularly high at the statewide level because plenty of places in Vermont are not very pedestrian friendly. I think in terms of what we're trying to do like that, at least the TOD district is trying to make it more pedestrian friendly for sure. There are a lot of things that make that, you know, anything along that corridor. In my opinion, a good candidate, particularly the frequency of transit that serves it right now. The bus that comes every 20 minutes is as frequent as it gets in Vermont. So, yeah, I mean, I think it would put us in a slightly better position. And I think maybe functionally, if there are a few things in there that can be tweaked to be more pedestrian friendly, like we might see, we might open the door to some better results in the interim, if we do a little bit of work on here. But yeah, I think it's likely to totally change after the TOD study. So are we saying that this is a good idea? Yeah, I mean, it sounds like, I mean, you sound like you've had the most exposure to the state's kind of opinions on this. I mean, I would be surprised if we just started by changing a name and then they're still looking at how we're zoning in. But I mean, yeah, if it's not a lot of work and you professionals think that it's worth a shot, then yeah, I'm bored with that. I think at the very minimum, if we believe that that area is, if we believe the corridor, the pedestrian corridor is not, you know, we don't want it to be kind of a highway arterial function. I think at least it sends a message to developers. We're looking for innovation here, we're looking for things that would be better for pedestrian and transit access. Right? Well, the H&A district is, I can see it from my house. So it's, you know, there's already five houses back in my neighborhood that are behind that shopping mall and apartment buildings and such and they're there. I mean, I'm looking there. Why are we quite really talking? I'm like, oh yeah, a shopping mall. The TOD is really the shopping center plus the buildings across. And you know, some of the parts of that I have residential buildings in it at the moment. They're very long so they don't need lots. And, you know, I can see now somebody might pick up a lot and want to put something else on it. But they have to get it rezoned and to get that feasible. I didn't see that. You know, it's just like there's new apartment building going in with inside of my house. You know, waiting for the trees to come down, unfortunately. And, but, yeah, like I said, it's either houses, it was houses. Okay, it's either houses or it's business. Most of it's business. I can tell you want the trash picked up in the morning. I can hear it. It doesn't fly with. I mean, constant conversation, please. But, yeah, I mean, it's, it's kind of odd because across the, across the street. Well, actually, I guess the process street across Pearl Street is included too. I mean, it's a strip of green space that goes right next to the railroad. So when I believe that lands on by city. Because you've got, you've got the green there and then you've got railroad and then you've got little green strip. And it's best 30 feet one. So if it's the physical layout is not kind of not really what do you do with strip of land. Other than people have houses on it, people with business. Yeah, I think functionally, there's a lot of flexibility for what you can do on that. On that, in terms of land use, you're allowed to build all sorts of things. There is just the dimensional requirements are a little bit onerous. I think setbacks and whatnot, especially when just, you know, just beside it, you've got places. You've got, you've got regulations where we're saying that you have to have no set or, you know, very minimal setback. We want buildings right up to the street so that it's like more compact kind of area. Not proposing that we make major changes is more like, you know, in the interim, it could be some minor tweaks just to get us get us some benefits. So I was looking at your schedule here. And it looks like you have places in here for two topics to be addressed this year. More or less, yeah. Okay, so you're asking us to prioritize those topics, correct? Yes. And I guess I don't need a full answer for how that is done until, you know, because we're going to start by working on a sign content neutrality. Right. So, but yeah, I am asking for a prioritization. So the low hanging fruit is sign, sign neutrality, sign content neutrality, the PUD, correct, existing commercial minimum parking requirements. Is that a low hanging fruit or not? Well, it depends how it could be. It depends how controversial you think that is. I certainly, some municipalities have just straight up said we're no longer going to have minimums and we're going to change everything to recommendations. Some have even said that we're going to make the maximums. But also, there's some municipalities are understandably hesitant to do that because of, you know, the potential impacts on neighboring properties. Yeah, it might not be a quick fix if you think it's going to be controversial. Yeah, so you got three of them left, right? You got sign content. The EV charging was one we said was. EV charging? What about the renaming the HAD? Then we also, I'm assuming it's the state of our two kind of predetermined assignments, the state statute, consistency, technical fixes. Yeah. Right. Yeah. When does the, sorry to interrupt you. No, that's okay. When does the NDA expansion application, when does that all have to be done because. So we can apply for it at any time. It's a monthly. Oh, yeah. So yeah, anytime that you apply, there's the application is due at the first Monday of the month and then the meeting is towards the end of the month. And that's when they decide if you call her. Originally, I was getting all the documents together and planning to apply for January. So like January, the earliest, I could have everything ready. But if we want to wait until after we rename the HAD district, it's possible. I don't think we should wait. Yeah. Then I could possibly delay the NDA expansion thing, but if we're still going to try to apply in January, then rename it HAD district. Yeah. And you can just do, we can just do it again, you know. Okay. So we're not, okay. That makes more sense. So we're not waiting to apply. But I don't think. So we could potentially get it and then not have to worry about renaming it or doing anything until the TOD. Exactly. Right. That is possible. That is possible if we're very lucky. Yeah. Because I'm just thinking the timeline, we have to make the changes. Then it, we have a hearing, then it goes to the council. Yeah. Yeah. Then it goes and, you know, it. Yeah. But the sooner we apply for the NDA, it's better. Maybe a development area. I mean, one way to teach studies is because of the two chunks being extorted to each other. It might be better to inform is the health of the chunks being looked at versus the other junk. Wait, sorry. You're saying you want to wait or you don't want to wait? I do want to wait. I want to have as much information about that TOD, HA area. Because if we end up, I can envision that it might lend itself to have it zoned the whole strip. That's one zoning area versus two. Yep. That might un-complicate some of this complicated who knows what to do with it. So, and that might lend itself to their naming of it in recent, I think we have to look at what's there now. What's the viability of things staying there as opposed to imagine anything would be starting off with their earth there. Things would have to come down. Yeah. Businesses would have moved over whatever we started. We're not talking about the additional topic one until February, right? Yeah. And this is in addition to amendments in March. Yeah. If we're doing EV charging or PUD, then we probably wouldn't even be talking about this until June. Yeah. In fact, we could swap a few things here too. We could best state statute consistency technical fixes. We could swap that earlier to get some more time to get results from the strategic plan. Yeah. All I'm saying is that if we're talking about PUDs and EV charging as the first, we wouldn't inherently be waiting a while before we got to this anyway. Right. So, I'm just saying put it in the back burner and we'll get to that one. Okay. Yeah. I think that's fair. I mean, let's be informed as much as we can before we get to that one. All right. Gotcha. Okay. Since there's just the other topics, it was a pretty bright up. Actually, we're talking about signs. And again, I'm interested to see what comes out of visioning work that's ongoing. Since we've been talking about it, public art. I think that is, I don't know if that's something that we wait until we do the rewrite for the LDC. We look for kind of cross cutting opportunities. Kind of encourage that in the rewrite or I was just realizing when I was talking about murals that we're specifically talking about signage. There are likely other parts of the LDC that could come into play on that subject and then on public art works or initiatives more generally. But I think that's in terms of like community building and creating a more, I don't know, everything from attractive to familiar to spaces that people have the opportunity to engage with. Those are things that I think are through lines through many of our conversations. And so since we're just putting things in the list, again, understanding that there's just too much. I wouldn't appreciate it. I think that'd be good. And also, I mean, I can certainly have that as a list of things to think about. But also if you see examples of your zoning regulations that somehow encourage public art. I mean, I would love to know. The possibilities are so broad. It's actually a little bit hard for me to imagine how that would fit into zoning. But if you see anything good, let's discuss it. Are you guys familiar with League Street in London? Right now. It's an underground passageway that's open to creative art ad hoc. So it's basically painting with anything you want on the walls of the tunnel. It's fascinating because you walk through and you see artists constantly changing things. I had something similar. When I lived in Austin, there was a graffiti park where it was a construction site that had been abandoned. It was marginally safe. But the community kind of took over and started to like spray paint on it. And then the city kind of designated like, okay, that's okay. This is a park now. Anyone can come. Anyone can spray paint on the slabs of concrete, you know, wall and floors. And every time you go, everything's different because you just paint over what's there. Yeah. What it's known as it's limited to the ad hoc graffiti in other parts of the neighborhood. Anyway. All right. Useless information. Fun thing to do. No such thing. Anything else on C? Moving on. Any public. We move a member of the public here. I don't know if any public comments that. Like we made. It's been a great catch up after all these years. You're talking about housing. Multiple units. We're going to build them. So it's where, well, I mean, we have, we have a set of zoning regulations and different zones that allow for different levels of a. It's going to be built on something. We don't have any more open space. Everything is built on just a little tiny community. Right. We don't have any land space. What little bit we have. The benefit to the health of the public would be to open space. So, I mean, if it's relevant to your question, we have our zoning map. Available. That's that shows you that the different types of the different zones that there are, you are allowed to build different densities in different parts of the city. They're, you know, I think the city's constantly changing. We've got, we've got properties that. That get bought up and redeveloped. Sometimes we got, we got strip malls that. One day might not be strip malls. And, you know, we're not talking about open space. And there's also open space that is protected in perpetuity. Like what you see, you know, in, in green over here. At least based on zoning regulations. Yeah. So that's, I mean, that, I don't know if that's that answers your question at all. It does. Yeah. Just how dense do we want to jam people into? This extension shouldn't be required or. To solve Chittenden County's housing. I don't think we're, I don't think we're solving it all on our own. I think we're doing a part to solve it. But to your point, we don't have a lot of open space, but most of the space we have is privately owned and. The, the property owners can decide to build on that property. Based on based on the regulations we're creating. And we have regulations as well that say what can be built and can't be built on floodplains as well. Yeah, we have a floodplain zone actually. And actually you're pretty much not allowed to build anything on the floodplain zone. Yeah. Have you thought of a city like a two year moratorium on. Expansion as opposed to tearing down. For lack of a better word junk housing and. Just replacing on that location. It's not part of a current plan. I could see that being worse for residents of moratorium on expansion would make housing more unaffordable. If you reduce the supply. I don't think there's any such thing as. Affordable housing. I don't think it exists. I don't think it exists much these days either. Unless you're going to have a million bucks. Yeah. Just to get on the board with some of the, some of these houses are selling for, was it down in the niggers or. We put up a. That's where sale is. That's it for a million bucks or something like that. Yeah. And a lot of these, a lot of these problems stem from supply and demand. Supply is very low. And so. It's very expensive to get them. So our part is trying to make. Conscious. Conscious development. So that we can expand the supply of housing. So I encourage you to look at the LDC, see some of the, check out some of the codes that we have in place and. Yeah. Well, that's, there's all that's our job. I'm sure you're doing a good job here. But what I'm saying is. We don't have. Additional land. We're. And find out what we're already. And I don't think. First in. Responsibility is to a good life of the citizens of this community. That's our first. Not our only. Consideration. I agree with it. It's just something to think about. Yeah. Thank you for the input. Moving on to number six. Members updates. Members of the commission. I'll tell you what I know about what's happening with the strategic plan and Chris can add to that. There's a steering committee meeting tomorrow. The last meeting. It was decided. That. Survey number one would be extended to the end of the year. Survey number two will start in January. Online survey. Not sure exactly what's going to be in the online survey. Number two. It will be at the end of the month. Two events. Open house. Where they're going to try to gather citizen participation in. The pillars that have been identified so far. Pillars of the strategy. And then they're going to focus group discussions starting. 28th. Think through the. 30th. And tomorrow, well, I think we'll iron out. What the focus groups will look like. What stakeholders would be involved and so on. Also, I, there was no capital project. Committee meeting this month. So nothing to report. Right. Moving on. Oh, yeah. Oh, I went to the senior luncheon today. Put on. Planning commission comment. Was when I walked in the door. Gellin was speaking to Regina about. Sandwich boards. So I encourage him to come. Come chat with us or give us a note. But. People are concerned more about. The. The. The senior luncheon today. Put on. Planning commission comment was when I walked in the door. Gellin was speaking to Regina about. The senior luncheon today. And so. People are concerned more about. What would the tax rates going to go with the announcement. The tax department and the school districts. You know, a possible 18%. So people are more concerned about. Their. Just going up. But I thought I'd share that because that. Does apply to. Development and such. But it was interesting to get. A little bit more. About the sandwich. It's still out there. Right. Moving on. Any staff updates. We are. So, so. The rental registry and inspection program is going to be. Considered like the next version of the bylaw will be. Considered by council. And it's going to be. The next version of the bylaw. And potentially warned for public hearing. In January. So they will be. Looking at it. During their December 20th meeting. And potentially warning it for. Adoption in January. Yeah, that's it. For me. Jennifer you have anything. So I mentioned before about the neighborhood development area. Planning to apply for it in January, unless otherwise delayed. Just waiting on a couple of documents to put together and, you know, fill out all the application. Letters stuff like that. It's the main thing. Great. Right. Done. Make a motion to. Second. All in favor. Motion passes. Meeting is adjourned 835.