 I'd like to call this meeting the City of Montpelier Development Review Board to order. My name is Phil Zallinger, I serve as chair. The other members here this evening, to my right are Jack Tauley, Jane Fulvanda. Sarah McShane, staff. Roger Crayons. Kate McCarthy. Thank you. We need to identify the five voting members who may participate in any decision that's taken tonight, since there's only five members in attendance. We will need the five members who act in conjunction with any action taken tonight. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? Motion by James. Seconded by Kate. All those in favor, can you signify by raising their right hands? The agenda has been approved. Comments from the chair. I'm going to ask the members of the DRB if what their sense is regarding the application for F-100 State Street. Is it your pleasure to go into the deliberative session once the record is closed? I would think it's certainly complex enough. Is that a motion, James? Yes, so moved. Motion by James. Seconded by Jack. All those in favor, can you please signify by raising their right hands? Thank you. Next item on the agenda is approval of the minutes on March 19th. I was not in attendance, but Dan was here. Jack, Roger, James, and we're up with Dan's not here at the seating. But Jack, Roger, James, and Kate. Will they be accepted as a printed? Second. Motion by Jack, second by Roger. All those in favor of the motion, please signify by raising their right hands. Next item on the agenda is a continuation of review of the project at 100 State Street, Capital Plaza Corp. Good evening. Before we begin, I see there's some other new folks here who's been sworn in previously to give testimony and this matter remains sworn in. But for those of you who have appeared or testified previously, please raise your right hands if you wish to testify. Ms. Hall, I swear the evidence you're about to give on the matter and the considerations of truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Thank you. This has been a serial presentation. I'll tell you what happened in the last installment. The DRB approved the grant of the variance. We're going to be citing of the parking garage structure south. This corner of the parcel. Yes. Leaves still on the DRB's agenda. Site plan, design review, and conditional use review of the project. Thank you. Over to yours. Thank you for your time this evening. I guess for the benefit of the public and to help remind the board, I'll just quickly go over the site plan again. Can everyone hear me? So the project proposal is at 100 State Street. Received existing capital plaza complex. The project contains two principal parts. A new five-story, 81-room hotel to be operated by the Capital Plaza Corporation under the Hampton Inn & Suites franchise. Also included in the project is a 230-space parking garage, which will serve the public project, whatever else comes like this. There's a calculated value of 176 spaces, I believe, required for the project. So in addition to the 230-spaces garage, there are 56 spaces on the surface. That's still a good number, 56. Surface spaces, including access to the back of the existing hotel. And some surface spaces for the businesses that are in front of the crowd floor and capital plaza. So there's a couple of hair places and several offices for various functions. Of course, the restaurant and hotel functions. The development, the work that has happened on the project since the last time we presented to this board has focused mainly on the execution of the parking structure. And also in forming a cooperative relationship with the folks at Christchurch Episcopal. Christchurch Episcopal Church, sorry. We have been in an ongoing series of discussions with them that we hope will result in a memorandum of understanding between the parties. I expect that improvements that are required on the church property in order to facilitate development of this area in general. And this project that the church also has plans for a future project that at some future date the church will come forward with a application for improvements on their land. Some of which may be predicated by this project, but all of which would be entirely sort of contained in their own application. That may or may not be part of the larger application to develop apartments on the back of the church property. I don't think there's a firm timing on that yet, but that's certainly their expressed intention. And so a lot of our work with them has been just dealing with nuts and bolts issues. We're going to ask that that process continue apart from this process. We're not asking for an official sanction on the MOU or anything like that. But I think that is the vehicle that we're using to sort of tie off all the loose ends between ourselves and the church. There are still information that needs to be collected. So the church has their consultants, their consultants are cooperating with us and our team of consultants to iron that stuff out. And I think we've made a lot of progress. We're not at 100% in that MOU, but I feel like we are at a point where the project is ready for approval. I mentioned that the largest changes to the project were in the detailing of the garage. Part of that was intended to accommodate the concerns of the church if they were built an apartment building on the back of the church building. But the biggest innovation that's happened as I believe is the introduction of a living wall system as part of the exterior skin of the garage. And the garage you see some show how that's intended to work. I also brought you a copy of this section here. I think one of the speakers is very close to your materials. Is that better? It's going to be better. I'm so sorry about that. But you have a sheet in your set that looks like this. I ended up colored copies tonight. I didn't know if you've got color black and white. That's intended to show how the garage... Is that L-101? That is labeled L-101. And that shows the relationship of the parking garage to the bicycle path. It shows the relationship of touching the garage to the church property. That's the most important thing in this elevation on the top of the page. Telling how the design of the garage has been modified to incorporate living materials as part of the design. So they have a sample of what that system looks like. How it goes together. This is the principle of home work for living things to grow on. The one condition, the design advisory board was very positive about this. And I'm sure you have their comments separately. But they did impose one condition in their approval. And that was that we incorporate more evergreen materials into the plantings on these green walls. Essentially including some Boston Ivy and some other things that hold their leaves year-round. And the landscaping plans, the schedule submitted addressed that change. The hotel building itself hasn't changed a lot since we've seen you last. We've continued to develop the interior of Dutz of the thing. But it is still a mixture of stone and brick and some siding. All the colors are essentially a variation on a theme of white. I did bring an actual sample palette of components to materials. Showing the buff Indiana limestone and a smooth finish. The white brick and then we're going to add white siding. The only other component is the, we'll use black for all our window components and for the roof components of the Ansar roof where the dormers are showing up. I'll acknowledge that while we have shown signs on the application materials that we're not seeking approval for signs tonight. And we don't expect that if you've granted approval that that would include the signs. But I thought I'd mention that since it did matter to the staff. So we need to address the site plan issues tonight. And hopefully if we have time I guess we still have to go through the conditional use determination. I do have a limited timeframe with our landscape architects. So if any of the members of the commission have specific questions about landscaping I'd like to move those up in the order of things. But other than that I will mention a couple of last things. Ron Lyon from Dubois and King is here. He's been in regular consultations as part of the public works. I'll invite him up to say a few things about where things stand with public works and all the various plumbing issues. And other than that I think I would like to just answer questions to see if there's anything you need from us in order to feel comfortable making a decision. Thanks. I guess our preference is to go forward in a linear fashion where our jurisdiction derives from specific provisions in the statute. So instead of just jumping around or from one to the other first I'd like to ask if there's anyone here who has any general statements to make about the project. I didn't have an agenda to know where that fit. We're making it up as we go along. Just identify yourself. Stephen Whitaker, 26 years. I used to serve on a regional planning commission. I've been to planning school at the Woodbury College program. I have some overall comments. I want to acknowledge the intense effort that's gone into this project and attempts to make it tasteful and fit. I want to point out some areas where I don't believe it does fit as well. The parking garage, I'm not fully clear and I haven't been able to get an understanding here today of the relationship of this parking garage to the hotel as a unified, permitted project because my understanding from talking to the city manager's office was that absent the city's participation in the parking garage financially it would not get built and yet you're potentially voting on approving a hotel that depends on the parking garage for its parking. So I'm not going to claim to be a lawyer. I'm hoping you've got your head around that issue. But I think that's the wrong location for a parking garage. I think that we have a very logical, it's just going to take some more work by our community leaders to use the deep well from the thrush down to the sheriff's office or a parking garage that fits much better and less intrusive. I've seen the parking garages, especially in Brattleboro. Mr. Whitaker, I can interrupt. Since you've been on a regional planning commission and you have a degree, you must be familiar with the premise that the DRB acts on the application that's submitted to us. We don't redesign projects, nor do we really want to take testimony from city residents who wish the project were redesigned or wish a parking garage were being erected somewhere else on someone else's property. So if you could really please address your comments to the application that's before us. The application appears to not fit well with the new transit center in anticipating train traffic and less car traffic coming into town. This is in effect going to have a big, ominous five-story back end up against the transit center. And that doesn't seem to be well thought out in regards to anticipating a future where we are more dependent on train travel in and out of town. Passenger train travel through the city of Montpelier? Those plans are in works with the Vermont Agency of Transportation to look from the junction and from Barrett. And my point is that should be a key concern because this entire facade faces the parking lot, not the train station. And in fact, there's barriers, extensive barriers I see on the backside of that. I'm not trying to redesign it. I'm trying to say that the blocking of the views of town, the architectural mandate dictated by Hampton Inn and Suites, I'm even a Hilton Honors member. So I've stated plenty of these, but it's not in keeping with Montpelier's architecture. It's being dictated by a franchising entity that might not be the franchising entity ten years from now or twenty years from now. So I would exercise extreme caution on those points. But I believe that blocking our view and pushing a five-story behemoth up against the river and bike path and transit center is this might be more appropriate in the site where the existing hotel lives now rather than crowded in between. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chair, is it appropriate for me to ask a question of the applicant in response to this or would you like to take all testimony at once and then process it? I think this is probably an appropriate time. Okay. I seem to recall testimony from one of the early hearings that you were given, as my word is right, as the franchisee, you're given autonomy over design. Do I remember that correctly and is that true? That's correct. And if you were to go to Hilton's development site and look at what a standard Hampton Inn looks like, this looks nothing like that. So the traditional mixture of brick and limestone and the sort of traditional architectural elements that we brought in were specifically my thought process as far as what I thought was appropriate in Montpelier given that it's a city with a vast majority of its buildings are over 100 years old. We didn't go with something modern. We decided to go with something traditional. I'll address the rest of his comments as we go through those specific parts of the criteria but that's a misleading statement. My question was not to endorse or not endorse the feedback but more to check my memory and the facts of the previous testimony. So thank you for confirming that. Step forward please. My name is Nate Stearns. I'm an attorney at Personson Carter Scott McGee. I'm working with the Christ Episcopal Church to help them analyze the current project and the impact on their property. In response to what Mr. Rabidot said, I can confirm that we are working on a memorandum of understanding. It's not agreed to yet. There are a number of details that still need to be worked out. And they relate both to the potential for a future housing project by the church. So we appreciate the applicant's willingness to work with us on thinking through that process and how that could integrate in the future. But also the impacts on the property just as it exists today. I do want to walk over to the site plan. The church currently has a right of way that comes through the existing parking to access their parking area which is shown back here. And so we're concerned with what some of the impacts of the project might be on how that right of way gets maintained and how the project integrates with the existing church property. In particular, there's a proposal to lift the grade where the parking garage is so that there would be roughly a four-foot differential between the church's parking area and the grade at the entrance to the parking garage. Paul Boisbert is here from Engineering Ventures. He's been working with DuBois and King and Mr. Rabidot to work through some of those issues. And I don't think anything's changed since Friday. The engineers had a meeting on Friday to talk through some of these issues. There are some details still to be worked out. I guess we can hear tonight if any of those have been addressed in the last couple of days. At some point, it can either be now or it can be after the presentation. We would like to just put those concerns on the record as they relate to the access to stormwater, ADA access, things like that. Well, as I'm sure you appreciate, there are private property rights over which the DRB has no authority. And the right-of-way that was granted to the church by either this owner or predecessor and title are measured by civil law, not by the zoning ordinance. And certainly to the extent there are elements of this project that might have a direct impact upon a right-of-way, we'd be happy to hear it if it's relevant under the zoning ordinance, the criteria that we have to measure the project against. But also, as you know, there's other forums for differences of opinion between adjoining property owners as to whether there's an encroachment or an interference with the rights that arise under a right-of-way or an easement. So, although in the spirit of being neighborly, we take a lot of extraneous evidence and testimony in these kind of matters, I guess we'll take testimony probably when we get to those issues, but we like it to be addressed explicitly to the criteria under the ordinance, not to whatever kind of disputes might arise between adjoining property owners. Understood, and we're well aware of that. And we're here mostly just to, as you suggest, talk about the relevant issues and just to get those on the record. Some of the details that go into the site plan are going to impact us in a variety of ways. And the impact upon that property under site plan criteria is that's admissible testimony, and we're happy to take that. And, you know, we do very much appreciate the applicant trying to work through this process collaboratively with us. We just thought it was prudent to come here tonight and participate. Great, thanks. Any other general statements? Right, then what I'm going to suggest, Mr. Gregg, is that we conduct design review of the project. Yes. That's an area of our jurisdiction that's isolated, I think, from the other issues that arise under site plan and design and conditional use. So I understand our materials indicate to us that on March 5th, the design review committee voted three to nothing in favor of the project with several recommendations. One is that cornice materials at the top of the hotel building will be a darker color compatible with the Monsard roof material, color to better address compatibility with adjacent building and forested hillside background. Is the applicant in agreement with that recommendation? We agree with that. Has the design been modified to incorporate that? Not all the rendered materials are, but we will incorporate it into the construction drawings as color selection. The second recommendation was, sorry, you were there. The word preference is used. It's not exactly compelling language, but it's preference for green wall plantings to be evergreen for better year round appearance. The planting schedule that was in your package reflected that change. James is here to comment on what those plant material changes are, if anybody is curious to get into the weeds on that. My weeds come back annually. Under vines, Boston Ivy was one of the ones, and I think the English eye. So those materials have been changed on the schedules in your package. Members of DRB wish to take testimony as to what the plantings are going to be? There will be slightly different planting schedules depending on solar exposure, but we will incorporate requested evergreen plantings. Has the applicant given any thought to ensuring future health and virility of vitality of the plantings? Well, I think proper soil preparation and planting and stuff will help. I think our biggest asset in this regard is that we have the Hilton Corporation who will continue to maintain franchise jurisdiction over this thing. They routinely come through and do property improvement inspections, and if landscaping is dead or otherwise, they'll force the franchise eat and replace the materials. Plus, there's going to be on-site management here. Unlike an apartment building, there's going to be a desk staff, and hospitality is a little bit different than an apartment building. They sort of need to maintain their good looks to keep people coming in the door, but I think there's enough corporate oversight on this that it should be fine. If the Board wants to establish a bonding requirement or something like that, that's certainly reasonable. Somewhere between bonding and things should be fine, there's got to be a better solution. We have a standard permit condition having to do with maintenance of any required landscaping. Under the site plan. The next design review issue that the design review committee raised was, I'll be honest with you, the other members of the Board. I'm not sure where the design review committee imagined it had authority over this subject, but they're suggesting an adjustment to the scope of the proposal that a memorandum of understanding with the proposed Christ Church project should or will address the raised elevation of the parking lot, the maintenance of the parking garage and its green wall, and coordinating the church project parking access issues. Am I alone in believing that that's not within the scope of the design review committee's authority? I agree with you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, no, I think you're right on. Is there an argument to be made that it is a design issue or an aesthetic issue? We've talked about it mostly so far in terms of the function of the site. And that's how I have been thinking about it as well. But it's so ambiguous. It just doesn't give us any direction. I would be very hesitant to include any kind of a condition that went to the basis of the recommendation from the DRC that addressed the raised elevation of the parking lot, maintenance of the parking garage, and perhaps its green wall, and coordinating the church property parking access issues. And I think we'll address those other issues under site plan and conditional use, but I'm very hesitant about addressing them under design review. Agreed. I don't even see any way to adjust that to me, so I don't think it's out of place. Well, earlier we took a vote to deliberate to adjourn and go into deliberative session when the record's closed. I suggest we continue that right now, and if the applicant or the party's don't object, I guess we'll determine we're going to close the record on the design review element of our project review. I don't object to that. So, well, we'll leave the record open in case any other evidence comes in that impacts design review, but I don't think we need to move on from design review. So, if I understand it, speaking for the applicant and the design team, we're committed to pursuing this memorandum of understanding as a separate civil matter. I agree with your sense of where it belongs in the process, but I don't want to, in that sort of planning about that or whatever challenge you get, I don't want it to seem like we're going soft on our commitment to them. But from your perspective, I can tell. All right, moving on from design review elements of the project. Go to site plan elements. We just can't hear you back there. Your mic's coming down. Testing. Sarah, based upon our, we have a very comprehensive report that's provided to the DRB by Sarah, the zoning administrator, and she raises, she directs us and raises important issues about the project. The site plan questions that you raise are fairly discreet. If you could raise them, the comments you have in a serial fashion, and then we'll ask the applicant to address them and we can move on from there. Sure. Yeah, most of the items that I pulled out as staff comments are mostly inconsistent, minor inconsistencies between the landscaping plan and the civil site plan or the engineering drawings. Some of the things just, they're not consistent and like I said, they're relatively minor. One item was snow storage. The location of snow storage was shown on some of the landscape plans and then the engineer drawing, but they didn't match as well as I think the loading area. That was one item to be discussed in previous drawings. There was a loading area, which is required under the ordinance, but then on the site plan that I was provided a couple of weeks ago, that was omitted. So that's something to just talk about. DPW has provided comments. I don't think they raise any major issues. There's a few inconsistencies about the, I think the number of parking spaces and the application site plan, just to have it be consistent of we know exactly how many existing parking spaces are and how many are proposed. And I think some of this, I see it from my eyes because in two or three years, we as the city want to make sure whatever is potentially approved is able to be, we can administer it right. So I think even though some of the issues are seem kind of minor, I think it's important to what if approved, whatever plan is succinct. The landscaping was sent on several occasions, sent over to the tree board, and they've provided comments. We've had several TRC meetings. One issue that will, one outstanding issue is the floodplain approval, which is outside of, that's reviewed by the floodplain coordinator and through ANR as well, but that's outside the DRB's review. But otherwise, I think most of my comments are relatively minor. So I'm going to start with one issue and that is the, there's a one-story rear addition to the hotel. And the zoning ordinance says that the minimum height requirement in CB1 is two stories. However, up to 20% of the building footprint may be one story. Applicant needs to provide the total building footprint in the footprint area of the addition to ensure that conformance with this district height requirement is met. That little tray that slides out of the back of the building is with swimming pool. And we didn't pick up on that as part of your regulations because we thought we'd clearly had a five-story building, so we were compliant. But the architectural is because it's a 10,000 square foot footprint. And I believe that the portion of that building that sticks out on the first floor is 31.5 feet by 20 by 31, so it's 630 square feet out of the 10,000 square foot footprint. So it is less than 10%. Does the 10,000 square foot feet include the parking garage? No, the parking garage has its own footprint. If you were, it would only make it more compliant. This is true. In addition, can you advise us what the proposed height of the hotel roof deck is? It's shown as 56 feet. It should include mechanicals. There are several data elevations on the building because we wanted to make sure the building didn't come off as being sort of monolithic. So there are three different roof deck elevations, the highest of which is at 156 feet to the deck. And if you refer to page A200 in the architectural drawings, you'll see they're all labeled there. That 56 feet is to the structural deck, and then you can see there's a little bit of parapet that sticks up above that. And then the other roof decks are at 153.4 and at 151.6. And that is, it's based on an imaginary first floor of 100. So it's 56 feet from the first floor to the surface of the roof, not including the train elements. And the mechanicals are all beneath the carpet? There wouldn't be any above the 156 elevation. We're doing a type of mechanical system where for fresh air make up, that's going to be enclosed in a closet inside the building for performance purposes. The only thing that sticks up above that is the extension of the elevator, which is a code requirement. There's also a little extension on the laundry chute, which is also a fire code requirement. And you can see those again on page A200. In real life, they'd be in the middle of the building. An elevation for them, they look like they're right there, but my opinion is the average person standing on the stage for you won't see those elements. The city's department of public works did raise a question about in circulation, as it relates to access to Taylor Street. And the essence of the point is that it appears to run along the edge of the parking areas, parking spaces. So it runs across the front side of the hotel. Yes. There is a short section of these spaces where those parking spaces cross the sidewalk. It's not a sidewalk, it's a hatched walking area, is it not? Put a special material there, or we could cast a concrete sidewalk. There is another sidewalk that goes along the backside of the hotel also on Taylor Street, but it really gets neck down right here. So public works is right in terms of their comment. I guess the question is, are you asking us what we might do? That's what we might do about that. Well, the suggestion is that the preferred design would be around the front of the parking spaces, rather than behind the parking spaces. Okay. So pedestrians wouldn't be walking on the front side of those parking spaces. DPW had wondered whether or not it could be redesigned, so that the sidewalk follows, I don't know how to explain it, but right. Well, it certainly could be. Yeah, there's a room for it there. There's a small retaining wall on the hotel side of those spaces. So we potentially have to lose one spot just to come out enough to put in a parking. I mean, to put in a sidewalk there. I'm sorry, I can't follow you. I'm sorry, I can't follow you. So pedestrian coming to home to Yellow Street, normally not wanting to buy the rear of tracks, tend to want to follow along the straight, the whole town, the houses, the whole town, the air front creates a line that takes a pedestrian out of the desire line to the side. So we may have got this configuration on the side of the line that's still got a fair amount of traffic going on there. It's not ideal to have some different conditions as far as the location itself. On the other hand, if you delineate that as a walking area, then that gives pedestrians the false sense of security that they're safe in that area, correct? And that's not communicated to those who are parking in those parking spaces. I think that's where the changes and it would be really important to look at some changes in that texture and coloration that you've signed into those sections of the walkway. Well, we generally defer to the input and advice of the Department of Public Works. Their suggestion to us is that the preferred design would have the directed walking area to be at the front of those spaces rather than at the rear of them. I don't want to be argumentative. If it's a small enough detail, if it's the sense of the board that they would like us to do that in a manner suggested by DPW, then we'll stipulate. Yes. I think another factor we might contemplate leads into the next item we'll probably discuss, which is snow storage. The area that we're talking about is delineated as either temporary snow storage or snow storage, depending on which diagram we're looking at. I'm generally in favor of the sidewalk doing this new configuration that we've been discussing. If we did do that, would it undermine the snow storage or conflict with the proposed snow storage location? I could see a point at which the snow would pile up high enough that it might start spilling onto that sidewalk. We wouldn't want to put any kind of fence or physical barrier there because the idea is to get people onto the sidewalk. This came up, I think, at the staff level, I think probably at one of our technical review meetings that the project provides more parking spaces than required by your ordinance. And so we felt that we could take spaces out of service for snow storage on a temporary basis. But operationally, the hotel wants as many of the spaces as they can get, so I think the practice is now is that after they get the initial site opened up, they remove the material from the site. All right, Rich. You guys ship snow off the site right now? All the time. So these blocked out spaces aren't intended to collect all the snow from an entire winter. They're intended to give them some place to pile it up until they get removed from the site. And I can imagine there might be times when that snow piles over on that sidewalk. I think that's probably true of many sidewalks. Exactly. All right, so that's not as big of a conflict as I might have thought, given the temporary nature of the snow storage. One thing I would add, again, in favor of this reconfiguration, is if you have people who are very petite or children or wheelchair users who are going on that as designed now, that would add an extra hazard for drivers who are not expecting traffic behind them. So I think this change is probably very positive for a number of reasons. Sarah had called us with her concerns about some of these inconsistencies. I did direct our engineering team to get with the landscape people and iron that out. I believe that those corrections have been made. If you think it's useful, I'll invite them up to describe what they did. If you'd rather keep moving, I'm okay with that as well. But we did get a heads up on these issues and the plans as they exist now have been corrected. I think our primary objective is that the final plans are consistent with the outlines, the representations that are made, and they reflect the elements that have come from both Sarah and the board, and deeply tell to you. So we don't need to go through them if you say that they're going to be incorporated in plans. Well, we'll look over the plans. Okay. That's good. Thank you. Does the board feel about discussing parking lot operations agreement with the city? My view is that it's irrelevant. Parking lot agreement with the Vatican. I do have one note for the record from city manager, Bill, and it just reads, at this point there's no actual plan for city parking. We are negotiating with the Bicheras for a possible TIF project, but the zoning permit application is theirs and so far does not involve the city. It's not unlike the arrangements that we have on Main Street, the rear of the French block and things like that, where the city has at least hold interest around obichards and things like that. In this context, the city is just another civil party to an agreement for the use of real estate. Moving on. Sarah, have you questions about the mechanicals, the rooftop mechanicals, and if they thought it had been questions or comments or DRB members concerning site plan elements? TPW did have a question about the, on the drawings it shows a connection to the city's bike path in the corner behind the parking garage and whether or not they're proposing a retaining wall around there? Yeah, one of them is labeled as a temporary wall. Yeah, we've coordinated our design with Stan Tech who's undertaking the bike path. They're happy. We've actually moved the retaining wall. This is the updated site plan. I wonder if we have this. Is that, take a look at it, make sure it's the latest one. L100, March 20th. Yes, there is a retaining wall on the wall. We brought the grade up to where they have the proposed bridge and we're actually including a little bit of the bike, just to take a rest and find compare tools. Stan Tech's very happy with that design. So they're going to amend their drawings to show our grading. And are those shown on your engineering drawings as well or just the landscape plan? After your call, I called both of them and said, lock yourselves in a room. No, we haven't. In this plan that I have here, it shows them all. Everything's been temporary retaining wall. It's actually on the other side towards the Christ Church. So are there retaining walls being put into this plan around the garage and the parking lot? The one that we're talking about in the bottom corner there is a permanent retaining wall. I'm changing to a different question. So what is the nature of those temporary retaining walls? Well, the church has a sort of near term problem which is how do we make their existing parking and rear entrance and citizen work. And then they have a longer term issue which is hopefully, if everything goes well, they'll come in with an addition on the church to contain some apartments. So our thought process to now has been that at some point that apartment building and stuff will do some of the work that a temporary retaining wall might be required until they get around to that bigger project. So our discussions are focused on using something unitary like a masonry system that can be dismantled if and when they ever go to build that apartment complex so we're not throwing $100,000 of the concrete into a dumpster. That's why they're described as temporary. And to account for the differences that grade required when you build the garage? Well, it's mostly the hotel. The flood plan regulations required us under the old regs which we're still under for this application. We had to raise our finished floor elevation a foot above a defined elevation. There's a process and the issue of certificate which you have. So, yeah, it's really that flood plan regulation which will apply to their future project equally. But there may be a period of years between when we finish our project and when they start theirs. So we need to have that settled. Broadly speaking, our attitude has been that improvements beyond our property line on the church property will be subject to a future application where the church is the applicant and they have their own consultants. But we are working together to sort these things out so that when they come in, their stuff meshes with ours. And so those walls are temporary but indefinite? Is that fair? They're necessary to build this project. They may ultimately go away when the church does whatever it does in the future. So there's no reason to think we're abandoning their parking area. You're going to raise it with temporary and a temporary level. So we have a net of no loss. This board will see an application from Christ Episcopal Church at some date in the future that shows that parking lot put back together and the capital plaza folks to the extent they're the predicate for all this and are participating financially in the development of those features. Are we going to have use of those parking spaces or are we going to have a hole to look down for? Well it's up to the church but it seems to us that right now our discussions are focused on retaining the accessible handicap ramp that goes in the back of the church goes in through the church hall. There's a bill code door that goes to their cellar the access to that needs to be preserved. So no, I mean ultimately by the time we get to groundbreaking in November hopefully we'll have that sorted out but our conversations to date at least for the next couple of years that has to function as a parking lot. If the project ever turns into an apartment building at that point they may park in this parking garage and their lot will be occupied by apartments. It's all still in process but there's no claim to rescind their easeman or anything like that. It's really just the only thing the only reason we haven't come in with something so far is it's really sort of theirs to do but also they've been waiting for the snow to melt so they could get out there and take some accurate measurements of various features that will have to be considered. So is the temporary retaining wall that's shown on the landscape plan and presumably the engineer drawings between the lot, the 100 State Street and then the Christ Episcopal Church is that temporary retaining wall proposed under this project or are you guys asking for a permit or for that to be part of the project or is that something that we expect a future application on and I only make note of it because right, fences and walls do require design review and those improvements haven't been reviewed by DRC at this point. Right, and it depends on whose land it falls on in the end. What I would suggest is that the church has hired a surveyor apparently or they're going to hire a surveyor. We let them collect that information and we'll have to come in with some kind of application for improvements on their land even if it's just the restoration of the parking lot and we probably ought to fold that in there because they all work together. We didn't talk about that with DRB or DAB, I'm sorry. The temporary retaining wall you've depicted that on the applicant's land. Do you have an idea of what the size of its face? One of the sections shows... What material, the walls going to be made out of it? No, just the relationship of the grade change in section B. No, one scale? You might be saying that it's only a three-foot wall. Well, we had a detailed meeting with Engineering Venture on Friday. The group's goal, our goal and their goal is to try to bring that change of grade down as much as possible but in order to make that determination they have to finish the survey and work on the church property to get some control of it. This would represent this section D on L101.1 and that would represent kind of the worst case scenario. So it would be a temporary retaining wall not to exceed? Yes. Thank you. Not to exceed what? I would say probably by site-data elevation probably the top of that wall would be a two-five-twenty-four, five-twenty-five. That's right, and then just between three and four feet is the height of that wall. Still counting for the four-feet of elevation change as you go across the parking lot? I'm sorry? It's still counting for the four-feet of elevation change that... Well, you know, the far end of the church parking lot where the handicapped ramp is at elevation five-twenty-three. You drop in right in front of the entrance to the proposed parking garage the rim elevation on that is five-twenty-four. So the dramatic change of grade isn't that dramatic. The floor elevation on that ramp is going to be five-twenty-seven so the things will build up. Right in this corner here I expect we'll go from five-twenty-four to five-twenty-five down to five-twenty-three. So it's only a couple feet over. The slopes aren't tremendously bad. We just need to work to make sure that they meet the accessibility guidelines. Circling the wagons. Whose challenge is it? The church or your... Well, it's something we have to do together, I think. But the design of the parking lot will come in a separate application from the church. To the extent that these two projects come together along a common boundary issues may come up during the design of the church's side of this requires to come back. So the DRBA doesn't have any other questions about these site plan issues and I'd like to ask the neighbor because these are all relevant site plan questions. Yes, please. Can you identify yourself for the record? Yeah. We're going to start to begin talking about how these things work. So the plans as we've seen in the current show, I think five-twenty-five at the parking lot is four feet lower. So there is a four-feet difference which is a number of things for the church property. It doesn't mean that just can't be worked out possibly but we haven't gotten that point yet and we've really been talking about a possible future project. That would be another process. We're trying to figure out most immediately how to keep the church functioning the way it is functioning right now. So a four-foot grade change is a little bit of a challenge for the church and sloping the parking lot to make that happen. Again, we don't know how that gets used. I guess we're going to then get into these as criteria from our grant more specifically. No, it's the site plan. It's hard to go from one criteria to the next. So it's just a generic discussion. ADA access for the church currently comes from the state street. You know, in this direction it's all an end access into the back of the church here. So we just need to work through and make sure we still have ADA access. That's the church's only ADA access and that needs to be maintained. We did talk to them about potential drop grades and what the change is. We need to be much more workable. That hasn't really been worked through yet. So we're going to be there and then do that process ready to get a survey. But we don't really, we need this to function. Paul, let me ask you a question. Is the handicap access to the rear of the church? By individuals navigating the parking lot on their own? Through the center of the parking lot? Not ideal by any stretch. But it's still... Not ideal? Not ideal. And then for vehicles it's the backside. And eventually it can be raised up to the inequality we talked about and the potential to regret for myself. Would it be fair to say that that slight increase in elevation here that might make it a little more difficult for folks for ADA access by pedestrians? Yes. I mean, the slopes that they've shown on their plan because it does mean that the plan that slopes along running on the bridge here do meet ADA requirements from my review and that we just need to work through how that translates across the church itself and also the Memorial Garden which then similarly keeps that. So there are changes that come with this plan that's that church itself. So it's not as if a perfect plan is being upset by this project. Well, it's not perfect, but again, that is what they have. The church has been around for a long time. I understand. The church predates ADA. Okay. You understand that? Yes, let's... We're under the tent. We're under the site plan tent. There are a few other things. So we've talked about options. We have to work through there possibly having at some point there's a slope where there's the access. One of the things that people are interested in is stone mortar design. And we're creating a high point so now the Memorial Garden actually has a potentially effective plan. Being more balanced, you know, we've talked about a lot a little bit, but I don't think it's at a point where we really can fully weigh in on it. We've created a system from the Catholic Plaza project. You know, it's a high elevation there so when the water comes in, especially during the sewer duration when we thought of your event, what potential is there to sort of start the system and start moving water in the wrong direction back into the Memorial Garden where you're fighting the water? Can you identify where that is? Right in the side of the church. Okay. So you're testifying in that the application materials as they're now constituted don't adequately address the stormwater? Yeah, I haven't seen anything that fully address that. I guess I would qualify that by saying it more than adequately describes what happens at 100 State Street. It's virtually silent on what happens next door on the church property. I've never seen a stormwater design that didn't take into account joining properties. Well, yeah, I understand that and we've made provision in the engineering plans for connection points for sewer, sanitary, water. We've shown in our engineering design valves and connection places where the church can plug in. But all I'm saying is that the improvements on the church property will be shown on a church plan and that'll include whatever storm stuff has to happen to address this. I'm sorry, I'm getting disconnected here. I'm hearing from the neighbor that once we know what's going on on their lot, we may have to modify our thing a little bit. But we know what's going on at the Memorial Garden. Yes. Now, we don't have topography for that Memorial Garden. Nobody's prepared a survey of what's going on. But your stormwater design certainly anticipates what happens to surface water at the boundary, does it not? Yeah, right now the church has just sent water across the hotel property and into catch basins in that parking lot. So the church is directing flows off of their land onto our land. So are we going to equalize if we go up four feet? I don't know. Rob, do you have anything to add here? I do have a civil engineer, yes. I don't want to mischaracterize it. I'm not trying to mislead anybody. I think it's, Paul said there's some details here that are based on fairly fine-rading issues in the Memorial Garden that have on our site plan for this discussion of EPW and putting connections into our new life. It's quite deep actually. It's 19 inches of cutting points down to 12 feet in that area. So we know that it's a solution to that that's reasonable to tie into our life. I think one of the things that we're looking at is in this Memorial Garden where the portion of the night goes towards states, where the portion goes really down to all the meetings. I think that without meeting several discussions of different alternatives, in some of them we're just looking at what we need to put some, any retaining wall or any curb adjacent to our parking. We need to put some relief areas and basically just cuts. So there's several areas where I think we've got all the answers is just the need to get down to the details and it's really important that we understand what the church just thought some of these are detailed ratings. We're very close to the solution but it does take it does take some very detailed surveying where you can talk about the stones to be trying to get the survey into the community. From the DRB's perspective we're very experienced at understanding how adjoining property owners can collaborate upon issues of common concern to them. But, we certainly encourage the neighbors and their engineers and perhaps their attorneys that you can collaborate reach a mutually agreeable solution but we need to make findings affirmative findings about the site plan and it's design. With all due respect I don't think your testimony suggests that this project by itself that there's a deficiency in the storm water design of this project. It may have implications for the adjoining property but your testimony that I guess I'm not quite sure to answer that because I've seen enough details like that. We'd want to feel confident that it's in that condition Paul, when were you engaged by the neighbor? When were you engaged by the neighbor? So, have these plans been how long have the plans been out of the oven? I'm just thinking about I think the storm system is not fully designed I think it's designed to the point that it's acceptable to how the project works and review it and say yes we believe this is the exceptional storm water design it's going to be from the state this state we don't need any details about the design it's going to be a couple of things to say yes this is probably the problem I think it's designed one of the things that Paul works at in the meeting with them is putting the connection to our system to allow drainage of the church property to get plugged out so they can connect to it I think we can slide with everything we can to what the church property does our cooperation with I think that's coming which is tonight let's go to tech could I do that one we're going to ask a plan so I think we're I think we're a couple very close to say a year's solution on our project addresses everything that the church will have to do and I think quite honestly we can tell you this but towards that because I was too young I should put this line I don't work with a city in the church but we do have a system that works for our neighbors well except that the department of public works is primary concern is with the infrastructure the city's infrastructure and they're forward looking they anticipate stormwater from other sites in the area as well which is what they customarily do in but as the DRB we're charged with taking evidence on site plan elements of this project and we will take evidence from a neighbor that suggests that there are potential difficulties with stormwater exiting this site onto their site and if that's a different measure of whether the plans are approvable I'm one member of the board I think that's where this is a little different than some designs we do have some one relation in the church I think quite honestly I think most of the church plans were full of early America's housing and different plans for the church and it wasn't a tremendous amount of information to say that it would do well where we were directed for the church saying it's got to be something that works for the church but now it's got to be submitted and as part of the church church involvement not church involvement there's no question I mean we understand that parties aren't at loggerheads we just need to make our way through the evidence and the record as it stands right now go ahead Paul you have other observations we know water around here thank you when we went through technical review we were left with the impression that the level of completeness of the stormwater design was about 60% we didn't have to be 100% complete to go through this process so I apologize if we haven't nailed down some of this fine-grained stuff it was just our understanding of how the process worked I understand unless you have an impact on the neighbor then the issue wouldn't come up because everyone freely acknowledges it and the data collection process is ongoing to solve those problems I think TPW was just making note of the actual fine-tuning of the utility and stormwater designs some of that stuff happens below ground and there's some minor changes that can happen through their permitting process but from the board's jurisdiction and the board's authority I mean looking even at conditional use and how the project impacts the off-site impacts let me also ask about the retaining wall that we see along the really it's along the common boundary of the church do you think this falls sufficiently is this temporary retaining wall of sufficient breath and scope to trigger GRC review and the one along the bike path I think is permanent it's the temporary one is between Christchurch but then there's a new one that is permanent I believe how long is the retaining wall along the bike path 50 feet but it's more of a landscape element is it provided as this for seating the idea is that we're going to raise the rate of the bike path instead of having a retaining wall between the bike path and our access to the bike path we're going to bring the bike path up to our level so it's free access so it's retaining the grade to make the bike path more accessible to myself so Sarah when I can just recite what the ordinance says that fences and walls are subject to design review it's I think it's 709 or 305C put a place mark there and move on any other comments or observations about site plan issues Pete did we want to discuss the loading area was that on our list or are you still going through that list was it going to go through it one by one just in general site plan issues yes I didn't know if that was what the board wanted to review based on Sarah's comment on page 13 of the staff report I'm only raising it because I think it was raised earlier in Sarah's one and so this brought us obviously in design control the ordinance does give the board the authority to grant waivers for off-street or off-street loading areas at one point there was an off-street loading area I think closer to the Taylor street intersection but then that was omitted on the plans that I reviewed so there's a couple things going on right now on the project site you'll see that there's a portion of the building that people park underneath new grade is going to be raising over here we've got a little retaining wall here around that area so that that becomes kind of our work yard just the dumpsters are intended to be underneath that enclosed space so they'd be screened from the public by the fees in the building you did mention that this cut out from here is a loading and off-loading area but that would be for cars, buses that would be for hotel gasses because right now what happens is trucks pull in off of Taylor street and they just sort of park right in here and they offload into the hotel by this series of doors here I think there is going to continue to be the occasional truck traffic that comes onto the site these particular spaces in here will largely be used by employees so I expect that there will probably be trucks in here still but the large work area most of the work stuff is in this sort of work yard that we're creating here I'm just going to go out on a limb and suggest that those parking spaces are not likely to be used by employees but more like management this is just so close to the building that it would be a shame if they can file and use those parking lots I wouldn't be surprised if you had a lot of Bouchard as marketing just a guess the Hampton in itself does not have a restaurant or a commercial laundry in it it serves breakfast a prescribed list of breakfast items we don't anticipate the new hotel requiring a lot of additional truck traffic most of these franchisees just go to Costco and stuff the existing hotel and certainly the restaurant that's there now will continue to have the level of traffic they have today and you said the laundry for the Hampton and the suites is on site they're going to consolidate and have one laundry for the two properties so the laundry facility in the capital will do double duty curiosity satisfied about parking and loading spaces there now indicated on the plans was that a question Kate? not anymore I was curious about whether we needed more information or needed to actually delineate the parking and loading spaces based on the staff comment but those spaces have been delineated so yes, thank you so any other issues or comments about the site plan? I'm hesitant to move on to conditional use review because we have an outstanding site plan issue and that is whether the temporary rotating walls are walls that are subject to the review and comment jurisdiction review of the design review committee not obviously we don't have primary jurisdiction over those matters those go to the design review committee first and then they review and make a recommendation to the DRB we're not wed to their recommendation although we defer to them regularly I would feel very uncomfortable about initiating review of those walls at the DRB level and I understand what that means about the progress of the project but I don't feel like we're in we're in a box canyon there's nothing we can expedite they have to go through the process of collecting the information we discussed earlier as far as what those look like the retaining wall yes although there is testimony that there is somewhere between 3 and 4 feet you can't really design them until you know what's on the other side of the wall I don't know why around it the issue of a permit that specifically excludes those walls requiring us to come back otherwise at some point I'm a little uncomfortable about that just because I don't control the process of collecting the data I understand your situation do you guys have any plans for materials or anything like that could you develop those to present to DRC at their next meeting we can certainly talk about materials you know because I think we've been talking about a sort of off the rack unitized retaining wall system which could be anything from cut stone or dry laid stone or it could be one of those masonry products but to get accurate vertical control I would love to settle some of these other issues with our neighbor and I usually rely on DPW to provide like just a technical kind of review of things like that so if you had any of those details I would forward them to DPW for their comment so it's unlikely to be just poured concrete no for two reasons a poured in place foundation retaining wall would have to have a counter for it and a big footing that goes out into the ground and we don't want to do anything that heads into the church property and we don't want to run into interred remains like to run into what? interred remains I think there are fumation urns and stuff like that so the memorial garden isn't just a peaceful place it's not a euphemism but the other thing is as I mentioned earlier if they do do a project in the future there's a strong likelihood that the retaining wall will be a demo in favor of the new apartment building so we want to use something we can take back and reuse somewhere I guess I'm interested in exploring all possibilities even though this may not actually end up being a possibility anyway has the development review board ever approved something contingent upon DRC review and approval of one outstanding item? not to my knowledge not to my knowledge because it would be hard for DRC to make a recommendation to us if we already approved it I know that sometimes we approve things based on pending final plans or pending final diagram showing something we discussed I didn't know if this would be a similar situation pending a final diagram showing a wall that we discussed that was not concrete I don't think that's possible the regulations say walls I think there's two walls being proposed am I right there's a permanent wall being proposed and then a temporary retaining wall too, right? yeah the permanent one is associated with the bike path that's accommodating the city's project and that will be on private property or do you know the design elements of that the material is that known? well not sufficient for your purposes I don't think we know the size and shape location of it but I'm not here prepared to show you what it's made of the color of it no good deed goes unpunished I appreciate you digging around I don't really like this work but I have a feeling my head's in the news anyway well wrong metaphor it's no good deed goes unpunished because the applicant is sought to accommodate the bike path and ameliorate the impact of the project on the bike path now you find yourself with a wall that you've agreed to create that design but nevertheless the other temporary retaining walls around the neighbor's property already present us with a loose end so what's the pleasure of the applicant we can continue with the conditional use review tonight? I'd like to get through as much stuff as possible because I don't want to come back yet again and then find some information about it so if there something may come out of that that needs our attention I'd like to ask for a five minute recess then before we undertake review of the conditional use criteria for the recess for five minutes we're going to return to the hearing folks we're going to go back on the record so we'll begin with the conditional use criteria conditional use approval may be granted by the DRB only if the DRB determines that the proposed use does not adversely affect the following capacity of existing or planned community facilities can you supplement sure outline adjust this sure the application was originally submitted back in November and we've had several TRC meetings I think since that time not recently but since that time we have and police, fire department building inspector floodplain all city departments are invited to review and comment and no one really raised any major issues they've been working through DPW permitting to make sure that there's adequate municipal water and sewer and stuff like that I think they've addressed everything traffic reports and then additional questions were answered that's a different criteria I think from between DPW and the information the DRC meetings I think everyone agreed that it wouldn't adversely affect community facilities the second criteria is the character of the area affected this project is located in the CB1 zoning district and which is suitable for commercial retail and other like uses and consistent with the design of the CB1 district next criteria is traffic on roads and highways in the vicinity we have trip generation distribution analysis prepared by RSG we also have testimony from DPW that I'm not sure the DPW's comments were updated on March 28th and so based upon that later review DPW I think has concluded that that it will not adversely affect traffic yeah DBW in their last sentence they stated that we agree with the overall conclusion that the hotel project will result in a modest increase in peak hour traffic which we believe will be manageable and not have adverse on existing or planned facilities I think ERB can also take notice of the development by the city of the joining site on the other side of the railroad tracks and the fact that Taylor Street is going to be reconstructed and so some of the the obvious difficulties that Taylor Street presents now may well not be continued far into the future and Greg it is accurate isn't it that the Taylor Street exit has been designed to be compatible with the ingress and egress at the transit center adjacent transit center they don't conflict with each other one takes into consideration the other Taylor Street access is already there so the transit center had to take into account the existence of the capital plaza interchange there that's one of the reasons why we hired the same civil engineer to do this project as is doing the Taylor Street project to make sure that that coordination is there next criteria is the project will not have an effect on the zoning and subdivision regulations in effect here in mind we're we're assessing this project under a zoning ordinance that's about to depart review under the zoning ordinance one other that spring street one the zoning ordinance emeritus what we call that and finally here to restrict access to or interfere with the utilization of renewable energy resources I think that's a fair draw that conclusion so do you think it's necessary to introduce testimony regarding expected noise generated by the hotel parking brush I think you can probably safely say that it's not going to adversely affect the character or surrounding vicinity standard vehicular traffic rather close parking lot adjacent to a transit center further comments observations but additionally this criteria has the general project impact review been undertaken as recommended by DPW the comment from them was a couple meetings ago having to do with the number of projects happening at the same time in that general area and just the need to assure coordination so that all those sites and the surrounding areas could continue to function it says the city manager's office is presently investigating possible options relative to accommodations for just place parking sequencing projections for each of the respective projects is that the kind of thing that continues to be discussed by well the construction management team for the Taylor Street project is also going to be the construction management team for this project so a lot of the logistics in terms of where construction people park is managed under a single point which we think will help there have been extensive conversations about offsite parking for construction workers and vehicles there's a couple lots that have been mentioned again but apparently the city of the state has some parking out but so yeah that's an ongoing process and that will continue right on through the project I think no doubt it will be intense for a while it's also during the period of construction so it's DPW I think suggesting that city fathers such as it is give some thought to what will transpire during the period of construction it is but it was mentioned under the miscellaneous comments so I know it won't affect our approval one way or another but good those conversations will continue I'm sure so what's the pleasure of the board my recommendation would be is that we've taken evidence on the conditional use criteria we've taken evidence on design review and we've taken evidence on site plan but we have one outstanding two outstanding issues site plan review and that is the final design and configuration of the walls in two areas one around the Christchurch property and then in the rear towards the bike path I think the plans are finalized for those two issues yeah I'm afraid I have to concede that point believe me we don't like to interfere with the progress of the design review either we're very aware of how issues like this can arise on the other hand and maybe going off the reservation here we certainly want to encourage the neighbor to step up and participate actively and promptly and expeditiously to facilitate review of the impact that the applicant can proceed with their design we understand that delineation between private property rights and what our jurisdiction is but we also don't like to see private property rights used as leverage in a permitting environment inconsistent with good neighborly relations and proper development in the city so we encourage collaboration between the parties expeditiously anything further from the boardies the applicant we started to talk informally about when the next hearings would be we don't have any time on our April 16th meeting and our next meeting after that is May 7th I saw that in the motion in the draft motion given what I know we have to do and I think when I see you on May 7th does the DRC also meet May 7th? DRC meets on April 16th so theoretically you could go to DRC on the 16th or you could go on May 7th like the back to back kind of thing that we've done in the past I'm going to get with my team and I'll call you tomorrow work and we'll say which of those dates I should meet this board needs to continue to a time and date certain we can decide on DRC it doesn't matter for DRC but for this board they do all the testimony is it appropriate that we can close the record the exception of the walls I don't think that's advisable because you can't anticipate whether the development of the redesign of this will have a domino effect or trigger changes elsewhere and there's no need to close the record and so I think it would be ill advised to do so at this time would be better to issue a combined decision rather than individual decisions so is there a motion then to continue this hearing until May 7th I I'll make a motion to continue the hearing on 100 State Street to May 7th thank you Roger second by James any further discussion all those in favor please signify by raising your right hand thank you for continuing until May 7th thanks for your time and patience thank you if you know you'll bring them it's fine but sometimes it's just hard to keep track of who has copies if you want we can just provide you with the new materials okay perfect and we'll just provide new windows the color coding and the staff reports has been very helpful we need a red how are we in business how are we in business how are we going to be here on May 7th I guess I have potentially we just have to work out the details I had said that I would stay through the to see this project Mr. Chair are you seeking a motion to adjourn Mr. Chair are you seeking a motion to adjourn is there a motion to adjourn is there a motion to adjourn Mr. Chair call thephant is there a motion to adjourn is there a motion to adjourn is there a second else to adjourn everyone please signifying okay motion to adjourn is there a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn so the lay yes second by Jack all those in favor please signify on that procedure