 Okay, we'll get started. This is the Development Review Board for Burlington, June 18th. We'll take up items in the order there on the agenda, and when we call each item, we ask the applicant to come up. We're not starting yet. We're just going through the agenda and the basic rules here. So we ask anybody who's testifying or wants to get information on a project to sign in the clipboard, which is up there. We also ask when you're up there, we'll use the microphone because it's hard to hear in here, and that is our official record, even with that. So the first item is the agenda, and we have requests on two items. Am I right? To be deferred, 51 Stanaford and 112 Lake Street. 51 Stanaford is deferred to the July 2nd hearing. Yeah. And 112 Lake Street, the appeal has been withdrawn. Okay. So there's a request to defer 51 Stanaford. Okay. So we'll take up that. Lake Street was, I'm sorry, withdrawn. So if anybody's here for 112 Lake Street, that item has been withdrawn, the appeal, and 51 Stanaford has been a request to defer to a different meeting date. So we'll take that up when it's on the agenda. Communications, we have minutes tonight from June 4th, and we also have some communication on 1138 Pine Street. We have one item that's listed on consent, but it's not actually consent. It's going to be a public hearing. So the first time would be 1132 Pine Street. Is the applicant here? Come up. And Brad, I'm recused from this matter. Jeff is recused on this one. So I should swear you in. Anybody who's going to testify on this project, if you want to raise your right hand, and just sort of tell the whole truth on the pain and penalty of perjury? I do. And perhaps you could introduce yourselves. And I will note that originally this was considered for consent, but the lot coverage issue sort of kicked it out of that. And I see that we have some discussion on that, so I would imagine that would be our main focus. So it's yours. And again, I'm going to encourage you to keep the microphone close when you speak. Hi. My name is Kathy Bascalia. I'm the Director of Innovation at Howard Center. I've been in that role for the last two years. Prior to that, I was the Director of Children and Family Services and Developmental Services for about eight years. Are we doing introductions all around first? Yeah, it'd be great. Andy Rowe with Lamar Owen Dickinson, we prepared the plans. I'm Frank Cokman. I'm a lawyer. And I came in very recently to address only really the issue that you have in my memo. This is your memo. Okay. If it's okay with you, I don't know how exactly you want to proceed. That's really the main issue. I think that's really the thing, if we could discuss that, that would be great. Would you like, I had thought that perhaps Kathy could give you an overview of the project, and maybe we could proceed after that by me asking her questions so I can make a record to support some of the things I've said in the memo. And we haven't had time to read this since this is just... So that would be useful then to have the testimony. Yes. Sure. So we're here to talk about the proposed parking expansion for Howard Center's 1138 Pine Street site. For the past several years, our staff have been parking on the future Champlain Parkway. We have about 50 parking spots there that we use. And we've been informed that come, you know, the end of November that project is going to begin and we'll need alternative parking. So we've taken steps to provide 41 additional parking spaces on our current lot at 1138 Pine Street. You know, we pride ourselves on being a good community partner and good neighborhood, good neighbor. And we feel like giving our staff and those families and children who need access to our services adequate parking helps us to be a good neighbor. We have had concerns from some of the local neighbors about what is Howard Center going to do when they lose the parkway parking for them. They're concerned about staff filling the neighborhood streets. And so, you know, denial of our proposal not only impacts access to parking for our staff and those seeking our services, but it really impacts our ability to meet our licensing requirements as an independent school and provide and part of that licensing requirement is to provide non instructional services, which happened both at the 1138 site and across our community. Many of those services include clinical behavioral services, psychiatric appointments and services, individual and family counseling, crisis service and therapeutic social skills groups. So those services are not only provided to children who attend school at the Baird School, but they are also provided to children across Chittenden County in order to keep them in their neighborhood schools and avoid a higher level of care school wise in terms of attending an independent school such as the Baird Center. If you wouldn't mind, I'll ask a few questions to drill in some points, probably that you already understand. First, Kathy, do you have in front of you the license that Howard enjoys in order to operate this school? I do. Okay, this is also available to those of you who had time to print out the memo. It's the first attachment and would you please read exactly what Baird School is approved for by the Secretary of Education? Sure. Pursuant to Title 16, Section 166b, Vermont's statue annotated a special education rule 2228. The Vermont State Board of Education on May 16th, 2017 granted renewal of general and special education independent school approval to serve children and adolescents ages five to 14 within the disability categories of specific learning disabilities, intellectual disability, mild emotional disability, speech or language impairment, other health impairment and autism, high functioning, to be the Baird School in Burlington, Vermont effective May 16th, 2017 through June 30th, 2022. Kathy, is it correct to say that Baird students exhibit at least some Baird students exhibit each or more than one of all of these conditions that are described in the license? Yes. And would you describe the services that they need in order to accommodate in order to address these conditions? So, well, they need the specialized school day services that are provided in this therapeutic school environment, which is a very high student, teacher to student ratio in addition to all of the non-instructional services that I reviewed in my opening statement. Well, that includes counseling both for the child and for the child's family? Correct. And that includes crisis services? Yes. And you have specialized trained people on site to provide these things, is that correct? We do, yes. Now, your outpatient in fairness to Ryan and his staff notes, your outpatient services also, excuse me, your counseling services also serve a population broader than just specific Baird students and their families, is that correct? That is correct. They serve similar families throughout the county? They do. Okay. And you also have staff who go out to the public school systems to serve similarly situated children in the public schools, is that right? That's right. Now, why do they do that? What is the value of having them go out to the schools? So, the value of them going out to the schools is to keep children in the least restrictive educational setting in their neighborhood school. And so, many of the therapeutic services that are provided in the community to the students via our school social workers and outreach counselors are to reduce the likelihood that the challenges that these students have will result in them needing a higher level of educational placement such as the Baird School. What would be the impact on the Baird School specifically if you couldn't send these clinicians out and essentially have traveling clinicians going out to the public schools? How would that impact the Baird School? Well, it would impact the students by likely being unable to remain in their neighborhood schools due to their emotional and behavioral challenges. It would likely result in a serious increase in referrals to the Baird School, which we would not be able to accommodate. Okay. Those are the specific points I wanted to make through Ms. Biscali's testimony. If you've read my memo, I will answer any questions. The thrust of the argument, of course, is that lot coverage is not something that a local body can regulate for certain classes of facilities described in the statute cited, which is 24VSA and the rest of the citation spelled out in the memorandum. The question and one of those is schools and other educational institutions certified by the secretary. As the staff notes acknowledge, Baird School is such an institution. Our point of difference with the staff notes is that we think everything we do is such an institution as described by Ms. Biscali. It's essential to allow us to operate as we do. It's both a license and a condition of a license to provide the services, the comprehensive services that these children need as an educational function. Therefore, you can reach our lot coverage, nor could any municipality, for that matter, by reason of the state statute, which overrides or supersedes any conflicting definition or category that might be established by any local land ordinance. That's the heart of what we're saying. Now, what the staff notes say, and not unreasonably on face if you're not into this specialized area, is that, no, you have a school, but you also have a counseling service that doesn't serve only the school, and you have a crisis service that doesn't serve only the school, and therefore, these are differently categorized, and then the staff notes make a leap and say, and therefore, and here I'm paraphrasing, we're going to deprive Baird School, which unquestionably does qualify even under the staff notes, from any benefit of this statute that limits your ability to regulate lot coverage. So, we have a twofold argument. First, that the categorization is overridden by the special category that we're in as a matter of state law, and secondly, even if it doesn't, because there's no way to regulate a lot coverage of the so-called non-school functions without also regulating the school functions, you are interfering with the functional utility of the school, which is, which you're also not allowed to do. In other words, under the introductory paragraph of the statute, as you can see if it's found in the memo, it says, you can regulate certain things, but only to the extent that they don't interfere with the functional use of the facility. If you regulate the lot coverage in this case, since it's inextricable from what Ryan would argue is the non-school functions, then you are interfering with the functional use of the school, as explained by Ms. Biscali, and as we would go into further if there are questions of that effect. That's the guts of the argument, and I welcome any questions. I was going to say, so from your point of view, the percentage of the building used for one use over the other is not relevant since any of it being used for the school and validates the review of the percentage of coverage. That is the qualitative argument. Now, I don't want to be ridiculous. If we had a 1% use, I'm not sure I'd be making that argument, but we don't. We have 51% usage that's centerline classrooms in gymnasium, boom. So with that qualification, yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I have a couple of follow-up questions. I think it's unquestionable that the students at the school get crisis counseling and get services from the, quote, unquote, non-school uses. Is that right? Am I understanding that correctly? I'm sorry. I'm having a little trouble. I'm a little deaf. I did, for a change, remember to bring my... I get yelled at for not using the microphone, so let me ask it again. So there's a school, there's students at the facility. We understand that. There's some crisis counseling and some other, quote, unquote, non-school uses. Those non-school uses serve the students. Am I correct? That's correct. That's exactly the point. And they are not non-school in our view under the state definition. So a student, an eighth grader at the Baird School who's in crisis can go to the crisis counseling at the school. More likely it will come to him or her down the hall. Right. Oh, absolutely. And do you know if there's similar sort of crisis counselors or crisis counseling at BHS or UVM or those sorts of things? So the first call for Chittenden County crisis team, which is responsible for responding to any crisis in Chittenden County, would be the team that is housed at 1138 Pine Street that would go to BHS if they were having a student in crisis. So they would... They also serve educational institutions and those sorts of things. Right. They'll go into a school. They'll go into the community. They'll go wherever they need to. So if my neighbor, who has no relation whatsoever, is that crisis counseling available to them as well? Yes. Okay. All right. But as a... But this primary mission is to serve the school and the school community. Well, the primary mission of the crisis service is to respond to any Chittenden County resident in crisis. Okay. I would suggest, and this point is dealt with in the memo, but I would suggest to you that to the extent that these services reach the general community and not just these students, they are incidental and should be regarded as that. For example, incidental. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And by way of example, it is common practice. You could take notice that schools all over the state make their gymnasiums available to men's basketball league, their cafeteria available to the bake sale for the fire department. And, you know, in my community, as a very specific example of an ongoing community service, the South Burlington Community Library for 50 years was housed in a very significant fraction of the first floor of the high school. And that was not a school library. The school library was an entirely separate thing. The community library was within the school building, and the staff was paid by the city, not by the school, didn't keep it from being a school in any way. So I've adopted, I don't see it, I've adopted the characterization incidental to describe these other outreach things it does as a matter of efficiency and economy, both for itself and for the community. I have a couple of questions for staff. So, Ryan, if I'm doing my math correctly, they're about 6,800 square feet, because they could have 39% lot coverage. That's the existing nonconformity, right? That's minus. Yeah, that is correct. So what's proposed is 41.8, which would be 2.8% times 240,000 is like 6,800 square feet. Do you know if they were to use like a, if there's any credits for like a pervious paver or something like that to reduce lot coverage? I haven't checked through that. I'm curious though. I don't believe it's enough for parking purposes. We look at each space where footage or the area of each space, and that's how we would calculate the parking area. But there's no credits if you use like, you know, because I know in the storm water rules, if you use like a pervious pavement or something like that, your impervious surface calculation goes down. Scott's got the answers. The only credit you get for the pervious paver for better or worse after going around with the Planning Commission for a couple of years was it goes into the same 10% bonus bucket as decks and patios for residential uses in RL and RM. Thanks, Scott. Sure. Do you also know if their existing permit has a space requirement? Like they need this many? None of my research revealed a space count as devoted to each use within the facility. They've just, what is there has been permitted there a number of years ago? And you said the number of spaces is necessary for your certification? For the school certification? Yeah. I don't know that there is one. No, I think what we're saying is in order for us to have the services available, we need adequate parking for our staff and the family members and children that are coming into our building to receive those services. And the number of spaces you're providing here is what you have minus about five spaces because you're parking 50 cars on the connector. Right. Nine spaces less than that now. We have access for 50 cars on the connector and we're proposing 41 spots. So you have experience with how many parking spaces you need? I apologize for the terminology, but I'll pick up, I think, Frank, you used the term distinguished between inpatients and outpatients. Again, I'm sure those are the wrong terms, but I'm going to use them anyway because that's something I can understand. Are there services that you provide for outpatients at Pine Street that are not provided to inpatients? You mean to students from who are not, to individuals and families who are not directly connected to the school? Yes. And again, just you're calling them outpatients for the sake of the bad terminology, but I get bad terminology. So students who attend the Baird School receive all of the services that I reviewed at that site, not necessarily during the school day. Many of them will have family therapy, you know, in the afternoon or evening hours when their family is available to do that. So a Baird school student might leave school and go home and then come back later for a therapy appointment with their parents. But are there other services that you provide only for outpatients? There are, well, they're the same services. That's my question. Are they the same services? They're the same packet. I mean, so there's the same menu of services that are available both to inpatient, if you will, students who attend school there, and then what you refer to as outpatients or students who attend other community schools. Right. So it's the same services provided to both. There are no services provide only to outpatients, and I'm happy to use a different term if you can give me one. Other kids. I mean, it's just students. Right, students with names. I'm distinguishing between students who are there at Pine Street and people who are coming from other places who are not students at Pine Street. Right, so not everyone has the same needs for the same specific services, but the package of services. You know, the menu of services that we offer are offered to both students who attend the Baird school and students who attend BHS or admins or any other school in the community. Okay, and then I just want to try to put numbers on this. Of the how many, all right, this may not work because you're talking about staff and employees who are there to serve both constituencies. All right, so how many on a typical day, how many people are coming to Pine Street to get services that are not students at Pine Street or family of students at Pine Street? Again, we're trying to distinguish between primary use for students at Pine Street and everyone else, and I'm just trying to put a number. So there's a group of students and staff who arrive every day at the building for school services, and then there's another group of staff who arrive at 1138 who provide crisis services, and then there's a cohort of staff who are providing the outreach services to students who are attending other schools that have a have a work space and office in the 1138 building, and then they will go out and see students in other schools, and there are times when students will come there to see them. So it's really hard for me, I mean I don't feel like I could put a daily number on the people coming in and out of the building. The reason I'm asking is again from a, I understand from a licensing point of view, Department of Education point of view, you have one definition. From a zoning point of view, we often divide a property into different uses and apply different requirements for parking and etc. So I'm trying to, and I always go back to what's, what are the different impacts on the community and the neighborhood of the different uses? That's really just my question. How much of the impact on the neighborhood is coming from non Pine Street students? And I've heard your answer, but I just wanted to, you'd understand why I was asking the question. I guess I just want to follow up one thing on Austin's thing is that, is it right that almost all, or all of the parking is for staff? Students are not coming in parking there, is that true? Students are not coming in parking there now. So it's all the staff, staff and or families coming in for appointments. Okay. And what is your certain number of just curious of spaces that are left for, that would be visitors spaces, they assume or something like that. Right. So we do have designated visitor spaces where our staff are not parking. Roughly. Oh God, do you remember how many visitors spaces we had? Yeah. I mean, I think it's around 10. Okay. Might be a couple more. So by far, most of those spaces are for staff who were working on premises or going out to other schools. Yes. I had a question that was kind of the converse of his is, are there any, and I'm sorry if you covered this, I missed the first 10 minutes. Are there services that students are receiving from any of these centers, crisis, medical, general, that's more attentive to the students than to the general population. So you said the crisis center was serving everyone, same package of services, but you said they might come to the students before. So are they surveying the students more directly or Well, the students are on site. So I mean, I think when we referred to crisis coming to the school to serve students, I mean, the students that we serve in that site are very challenged students who require, you know, numerous interventions often throughout one day. And so the the staff there might, whether it's crisis or outpatient or psychiatry, interact with the school students, you know, across the day. I don't know if that answers your question. It does. And then the second question I had was around need. And again, you may have addressed this initially. But if you've because you are aware of your need currently and how many spaces you use. And I've wondered if you've looked at alternatives to parking in order in order to get your staff into the building, right? We are looking at alternatives to parking. It's very challenging. You know, many of our staff who are at that site can't really easily fall into like an offsite parking shuttle. You know, I know like the hospital has many sites and they'll bust people in. And then those staff stay at that site during the day and provide services at that site. You know, our staff are very mobile and are going back and forth from children's homes and schools and places in the community back to the office. So it's very difficult for us to just have an offsite parking lot and then shuttle our staff in me. We are encouraging carpooling. We have purchased some fleet vehicles to accommodate that for some staff. But it is really a work in progress to manage that. We have a pretty good picture of what's happening here. Is there anything else? I don't know if you were looking at the number of visitor spaces. Yes, so there are currently 13 designated visitor spaces, a bus space, three reserve spaces, and there's actually two carpool designated spaces as well. That was helpful. Unless there's anything else you want to add, I think we're going to close the public hearing. Unable to resist repetition. Conclude by saying our theme is that everything we do is a quote school within the meaning of our license. And that to the extent and is essential to that license and to the extent it reaches out into the community, it's an incidental service of the kinds that schools perform, well, not precisely of the kind, but not unusual for schools to perform for the community at large and primarily serving children of the same class or category as the ones who are in the school. I thank you very much for your time. Thank you. On the next item, our agenda is 51 Stanford Road. And that one, we have a request to defer that. There's a request by the appellants to defer to July 2nd. Can I have a motion to move the motion on that? Is that correct? Yes. So moved. So moved. Second? A.J. Discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Physiastically in favor. Yes. One of your last processes. Yes. Okay. The next item is 112 Lake Street, and that application has been withdrawn. Is that true? That is true. The appeal of administrative approval. The appeal has been withdrawn by the appellants. Next item on our agenda is 164 North Willard Street. And I guess I'm going to make sure that I'm on appropriate ground here for 164 North Willard. That we, we deliberated on this and we put this on the agenda in case we needed to get more testimony. I think at this point we're saying we're not going to get more testimony and that we're going to vote on, based on our discussion. Close the public hearing. Yes. So we're going to take up 164 North Willard Street and close the public hearing at this point. And I guess at this point we could also vote on this. I am prepared to make a motion. So. Just a minute. The staff is not prepared to make a motion. We had a deliberative downstairs. We discussed this. Awesome. Are we ready for the motion? Yes. Okay. So on 164 North Willard Street, again, as we discussed during our deliberation earlier today, I move that we uphold the decision of the, the decision below and deny the appeal with the following modification. We are affirmative, affirmatively acknowledging the duplex as a preexisting, nonconforming use. Otherwise I would adopt staff findings and conclusions. Second on that? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Okay. Clue to that. So then our next item on our agenda is the end of an era. I think the board wants to recognize Austin's 29 years of service. I don't think we're going to have anybody in the room tonight that can figure out a time for before Austin's 10 year on the board. Can we, nobody can really verify when you started. I'm going to last a couple of directors of planning and zoning at least. You've outlasted some ordinances. You were close to being the person who's been there as long as I have. I said, I think we must have been wearing togas when you started. I went back to minutes and went back to July of 1990. You began participating in the ZBA. So I originally, I thought it was 28 years. It appears to be 29. The DRB didn't exist. I was going to say it was a different board. It has been an honor serving all this time on the board. Austin, a tremendous service to the community. I think paying attention and the level of detail that you brought is inspiring. Thank you. It's really important that this be done and done well. And I'm really proud of the fact I feel like I've really been able to contribute in at least a small way to helping the city define what it wants to be and become that. And I'm leaving not because I'm jaded and tired and can't take it anymore. It's just, I have mixed feelings. I really enjoy it. But it's time for me to move on and pass the time. And the second part is that I feel like I'm leaving with the board in very good hands. This is a great group. And I just feel really comfortable leaving with you all here to carry on. Some of the appointments are just one year appointments, Austin. So there is an opportunity. You should regret your decision. Tuesday nights are very exciting. I'll think about that. For the next 29 years. So think about that. Thank you very much, Austin. It's really an echo with Brett that it's been an honor. And for those of us learning the ropes, I don't think we can learn it from anybody better. So thank you for taking the time and being patient as we stumble through this. I will miss you. I will miss it. Is the staff present? Put your binders together available. Yes, I am. Wow. Austin, I think I was going to say that it's on you to prove non-discontinuous use of 29 years of service. Oh, I'm thinking again it's been, plus it's up to the city council, but I did, I think I have at least recruited a good candidate to replace me. I don't know where that's going to go, but I thought that was part of my responsibility. So we're losing both of you? Huh? Are we losing both of you? Yes. That was so inspired by Austin. What's the point of staying? Austin's gone again. This is my last meeting. You didn't get my email? I did. I sent everybody an email. Yes. I'm working for Mescoma Bank, serving in the city in the role where I support people financially. Just, I can't serve on the board anymore, unfortunately. It's going to be really hard and sad. It's been great having you as well. Thanks. I appreciate it. And Austin, I wrote it in my letter, my resignation letter, but it takes a special person to lead with such grace and discretion as you do, no matter how difficult the situation. And I've always been impressed. And you really set the tone for all of us. Thank you. Thanks. Well, miss you too, Ali, on this thing. You didn't really good presence on the board. You guys better pay attention to bike parking, affordable housing. Bus circulates. Bicycles. Bus circulates. Yes. Bus circulates. This is safety. Student safety. All right. With that, we will close the public hearing. We have one thing to deliberate.